The Museum in the yard is a bad idea. Tin buildings like the one being discussed leak. Period. Not good for delicate papers and photos. A building of this style would also be difficult to climate control accurately enough to help slow the degradation of any stored material. Not spending the time and money initially to build a safe and well sealed building now will result in disaster some time in the future. The location right next to the yard is a dirty place and the potential for fire from one of the locomotives makes it a poor choice for a library. Taking up valuable parking space in the yard for a museum also seems like a bad idea, there isn't enough parking in Chama now.
Perhaps a better plan would be to put the museum up in town in one of the vacant lots or buildings on the main street, maybe where Kellys used to be or in the field South of the depot near the entrance to the parking lot. A nice building that can be open year round, or just in the summer if funding can’t be found for staff, and that is out of the way of the yard area and tourists.
Personally I think that investing time and money into a library right now is a bad idea. Lost of the equipment and buildings that the Friends were chartered to protect are in poor condition, the coal tipple is looking like it did before all the work was put into it several years ago. My vote would be to keep the railroad running and the historical equipment in stable condition then worry about a library. CRRM has a very nice facility that could probably store the materials until a Friends library could be built. It might be better to have one narrow gauge resource center anyway with the Friends collection on loan to the CRRM.
My 25¢,
Paul
