TROLLEY MUSEUMS : OFTEN SEEM LIKE THANKLESS TASKS, DON'T THEY?

And yet traction preservationists keep right on, plugging away endlessly, always short of funds, of skilled workers to do restoration or even routine maintenance, even of visitors unless they resort to the same, tired old Special Events ploys that so many steam railway museums do --- Holiday Specials; train robberies; dinner trains, Wild West train robberies; Murder Mystery Theater; Thomas, the Tank Engine;, and every other cliché in the book...

... fighting not only the shortage of interest by the general public, but the active opposition of right-of-way neighbors, the ever-looming right-of-way maintenance, the rising price of electric power, the threat of condo construction and real estate development and encroachment ... again, people who have been loyal Electric Railway blog readers are all too familiar with the problems.

At a time when municipal officials can't even justify expending taxpayer money to enlarge or maintain real transit projects, where can you find a Mayor or Council member --- in this Age of Shrinking Funds --- to support so much as an Art Museum or a serious music program, let alone a --- "What ?! Did you say Trolley Museum?".

What is the answer ? Well, folks, Fellow Traction Buffs, preservationists, everywhere, here is one hook to hang your hat on . It suggested itself to us as we were attending a live steam meet. Having heard every variant of "Is that a steam or a diesel?" from visitors, we were astounded to hear one lively visitor about eight years old ask, in all seriousness as he stared at a one-eighth full size live steam locomotive go chuffing by, "Is that a real train?" .

Then it came to us in a flash that:

1. fine distinctions between full size and large models do not exist in so many of our audience

2. sitting in a preserved streetcar, traveling along a tired right-of-way staring at two miles or more of brush, unmowed fields, and scrap heaps rarely , if ever, evokes an appreciation for the magnificent network of tracks, the exciting travel to the amusement park at the end of the trolley line, that used to exist, and whose memories we treasure.

3. this can't compete with electronic games in which the participant is able to destroy whole armies of elves, ogres, and evil villains while seated comfortably at home at a keyboard.

4. there was an air of urgent disdain displayed by the older children tugging at their parents' hands to leave the (trolley) museum as quickly as possible.

5. the proliferation of theme parks, amusement rides, and flash-and-it's- gone pop culture shows makes competition with a slow nostalgic ride in a creaky tram an extremely one-sided battle.

Then we turn to the Statistics Section of my blog reports, and we find that over a thousand visitors from all over the U.S., the United Kingdom, Canada, Russia (!), Italy, Germany, Australia, India, Latvia (for Pete's Sake), and other (pleasant) geographically- surprising visitors have viewed our obscure, unadvertised Blog in this short and recent time. No Social Media (although we're convinced they would help immeasurably); and no advertising.

Despite our pleas for comments --- we'll even take negative ones, no one seems willing to take advantage of the simple Comments form at the foot of each daily Blog to let us know what they think.

What can we do to stem the hemorrhaging interest in T⁴ (Traction, Trolleys, Trams, and Transit) ?

There seems to be an uptick of interest in nostalgia, generally. Well, that helps. Some of the blog hits apparently derive from the continual, mindless sweep of the Search Engine robots. But still --- Latvia ???

The I noticed the large surge of interest and popularity when we posted the wonderful photos of Gordon Hatch and his one-fourth full size, three inch-to-the-foot models of trams in British Columbia. Impressive from the first time we accidentally ran across their existence thanks to his devoted grandson.

Could this be a solution, low cost, effective, perhaps even viral ? Discussion to be continued, anon.