Re: PC: A Penn Central Museum? (Was MU # 1077)

[jdobek@xxxxxxx (Jeffrey Dobek)]

>JEROME A ROSENFELD wrote:
>     Mr. Rosenfeld makes a good point.  Questions about "authenticity" and
>"scope" have plagued museums since museums began.  In my
>experience the debate can be quite furious leading some people
>(especially volunteers) to abandon the museum forever.

I was involved with a museum (the Southern Michigan Railroad) in the late
1980's and experienced this first hand.

As gen. manager of the museum, I arranged the purchase from Conrail of an
ex-PC/NH NE-6 class caboose. Since our line was ex-NYC/PC/CR trackage,
these types of cabooses were very common on the local freight through most
of the 70's and into the 80's. Of course, the only choices for paint were
CR and PC, and we went with PC. Some members could never quite grasp that
decision, though, feeling that since we were a museum, the car should have
received NH paint--even though it would have never ran on our trackage in
that paint scheme.

There are two photos of this car on Jim Hebner's PC caboose photo archive:

    http://lib2.clark.cc.oh.us/pc/PCNH.html

I'm sad to say that the railroad has, in the intervening years, repainted
the car into "caboose red" with no lettering whatsoever!

Jeffrey Dobek
St. Louis, MO