An academic rationale for mobile preservation, or beware: deep thought

El Coke and others:

Having training in the architectural preservation field, I have long struggled with an 'academically acceptible' rationale for why railroad equipment is different.

In the architecture and museum world, preservation is based on the premise of preserving original fabric. If a door hook inscribes a circle in the adjacent wood, there is a story there (the wind blew, the door got slammed) and both the hook and the wood need to be preserved. After all, it is that door jamb that George Washington, or Abe Lincoln or Al Perlman or John West touched. Additions and alterations move quickly into sticky territory, as you now not only have to consider what is important, but when it was important. (Is John West more important than George Washington? You decide!)

I have always thought of boxcars as "houses on wheels." As such, they move, and I guess that is what distinguishes transportation preservation from related fields.

Long ago I was at Symposium at the California State Railroad Museum. Walter Gray treated us to a tour of the former SP shops that were being used to maintain the operating 0-6-0. Being CSRM is a museum, most of the seminars focused on stuff from an archival point of view: restore and maintain the original fabric, get it inside on stationary display, and God forbid--don't let ANYONE touch it! In the shop our group was presented with a room full of worn out parts from the 0-6-0: pretty much the opposite of what everyone was hearing that week. One guy had to ask the question, in essence, "don't you practice what you preach here?" I forget the answer, but as most posters here know moving parts wear out. It is just a fact. (more than a few of us in Sacramento wondered at what point you would have enough worn-out parts to create a duplicate with some Bondo! Bonus question--does the result deserve to go into a museum?!!)

The best academic rationale for our purpose which I can postulate is my "theory of association." In simple terms, who among us has had a part on their car go bad, and had it replaced? The point is to get the car moving again, and it is still your car, right? It is well established that if two C-16's went into the shop at the same time, once the boiler was seperated from the frame, the first pair finished went back together again, and (I guess) carried the boiler/ cab number (Who picked? Did they flip a coin?). Over time, by association, a new appliance becomes part of the whole--this goes for boilers, running gear, wings, flaps, alternators, whatever. 315 was a mash of parts, and started being so probably soon after it got into operation. This seems a preservation by-product of the industrial revolution. The "Theory of Association" works better if the introduction of new stuff is gradual, and we could get messy and try to apply a percentage, but If you consider a locomotive and tender as a unit, the C-16 example noted above may have resulted in only 30% of stuff from one of the original units (plus new parts and random parts gleand from other stuff in the shop to get a working loco back on the road). 315 or Eureka, while neither is quite original, neither is exactly a reproduction/ replica any more than a DC-3 or a B-24 or an old pick-up that has been restored and supplemented with lots of new parts. I submit there is a sliding scale, and some restoration products/ projects might be considered more of a replica, but I think you don't have much of a choice when confronted with reproducing 1880/ 1903/ 1928/ 1943 technology in 2007: the factory is not there today. And given the option of visitng a quiet, stationary Eureka in a park versus seeing it charge across Cascade Creek with its short train in tow, I would not trade the latter for ANYTHING!

(I feel a postulate coming on--stuff that moves and makes noise, needs to be preserved to move and make noise, not sit in a shed and be quiet and still, but I digress.)

And, lets face it--we like stuff that looks new. At least they like it new at CSRM. Except you cannot touch it and it takes a hell of a big feather duster! (Really CSRM is a neat place with great folks!)

So, there you have it. Go on with your day, drink a cool beverage and ponder: I have to mow the lawn first.

Keith Hayes
Architect, Car Man, Lawn Mower