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Rail museum upsets some with changes 

Monday, January 16, 2006

Dean Narciso 

THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH 

For decades, the bridge over Rt. 161 in Worthington announced "Ohio Railway Museum" to motorists below. The museum has been synonymous with big, lumbering engines and the bygone days of passenger rail travel. But a vote last month by the museum's board of trustees will change the focus permanently to trolleys, prompting criticism from some rail purists. "It makes me feel sick," said Mary Waller, 73, a museum volunteer. "It's fine if they want to change the name. But we're not trolleys. We're a railroad museum. That's what it's been all these years." The decision to change the focus of the 60-year-old museum actually was made about three years ago after a consultant recommended the museum accentuate the most significant part of its collection, said John Wells, a board member. "There are relatively few museums that have trolley equipment and none that have the quality we have," Wells said. One rail expert told the board, "You probably have the finest collection of inter-urban streetcars and trolleys in the U.S. and you should concentrate your efforts in preserving and showing these items," Wells recalled. Since then, the 11-member board has been working to find buyers for 10 pieces of equipment. The board voted last month to sell the pieces. Some will be scrapped, including two large cranes. New owners plan to restore others, including Engine 578, a Norfolk & Western steam engine that pulled passenger cars during the Depression. "It's our baby," said Waller, a former chief nurse at New York's Pennsylvania Railroad Station. "All the kids can climb up in there. They take pictures and movies. I love it. You should hear the kids scream when they see these things. It's the cornerstone of our museum." Waller has said she and others have considered chaining themselves to the engine in protest. The decision to sell the great engine to a restorer in Coshocton and two Pullman cars to another in Dennison was "agonizing" board president Bill Wahl said. "Some of the pieces have been on that property for 35 years and nobody has taken care of them. They're orphans," he said. "We have to be the caretakers of these. Rather than calling a scrapper company to come in and tear them up, we have to find them good homes." Wahl conceded the engine is "a great attraction, but here's an opportunity to see it run again. And that's more important than for it to sit here and see it rust." The steam engine alone would require $1 million to restore, he said. Wells said the board is trying to become more professional. "In the past, if you scraped 10 pounds of rust you got to be on the board." He says the museum's direction should be dictated more by reality and less by passion. "You've got to separate idealism from realism." Losing the engine, Wells said, is "like coming home from college and finding out your mother has thrown out your favorite toy." Critics of the new focus "are still playing the game like it's a railroad club, and someone's taking their favorite piece." 
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