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By Mark Kavanagh
 On
May 18-20, 2001, the Western Region of the Association of Railway
Museums held a conference at the Oregon Electric Railway Museum in
Brooks, Oregon. The museum is operated by the Oregon Electric Railway
Historical Society, which is a member of ARM. The theme of the
conference was "Interpretation: Making Connections with our
Visitors". Speakers were brought in to explain interpretation
and how to relate ideas to visitors.
The weekend
started Friday afternoon with an optional tour to the End of the
Oregon Trail Interpretive Center in Oregon City. Participants went
through the landmark "Covered Wagons" museum.
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Car # 48 at Riverplace with
West ARM Group |
Later participants
arrived at the Willamette Shore Trolley in Lake Oswego. Blackpool # 48
did the honors of carrying guests to the end of the line at
Riverplace with a short stop at the Willamette Shore Carbarn. After a
short photo stop at Riverplace the car back tracked to Bancroft
St. Here everybody alighted to a short walk to a great meal at
the Old Spaghetti Factory. People got to know each other a
little better. Participants came from several museums in the Western
United States and Canada.
After dinner it
was back to the trolley to Lake Oswego. Here some people went on a
optional late night tour of the Tri-Met Light Rail shops at Ruby
Junction, courtesy of "Trolley Dave".
Saturday morning a
continental breakfast was made available for the early start of the
conference. The conference was set up inside the east side of the
Pacific Northwest Truck Museum at Western Antique Powerland in Brooks,
Oregon. This is also the site for the Oregon Electric Railway Museum.
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Peter Gagnon, Western
Region
ARM Manager |
The meeting was
started at 9:00 am with Peter Gagnon (Western Regional Manager for
ARM) and Bob Terkelsen (President OERHS) giving the welcome speeches.
Participants were then broke up into 4 smaller round table groups to
discuss about the theme of the conference, Interpretation. The purpose
was to set the stage for event and make people think about what
interpretation means to them as well as to their visitors.
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David Porter, Director,
End
of Oregon Trail
Interpretive Center |
The first guest
speaker was David Porter (Director, End of the Oregon Trail
Interpretative Center). He spoke of how the End of the Oregon Trail
Interpretative Center came to being. How the center was originally
designed to be a temporary exhibit with displays on a much larger facility
that was to be built. The role of this museum had to change when the
larger complex looked like it was not going to be built. He gave some
statistics that more people attend museums each year then go to
sporting events. Also people would rather more free time than money.
Museums are all competing for that free time. He stressed that museum
must be flexible and ready for sudden change.
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Randy Hess (center),
Society for the
Preservation of Carter
Rail Resources |
The second guest
speaker was Randy Hess (From the Society for the Preservation of
Carter Rail Resources or SPCRR). His organization operates a horse
drawn rail transportation system on the Ardenwood Farm complex in
Fremont CA. This is a living museum. All volunteers must be dressed in
the appropriate costume. He stressed the idea of bringing the public
into the interpretation through hands-on demonstrations.
After Randy it was
lunch. Lunch was a catered with sandwiches. Mike Deeble, the OERHS
insurance agent, underwrote the costs, thanks Mike.
After lunch OERHS Chairman,
Charles Philpot gave a presentation about OERHS. He went through the turbulent
history of the organization to it's new vision and focus of developing a
first class museum here at Antique Powerland. Drawings of the future
shop and a model of the future interpretive center were displayed.
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Conference
Attendees
touring the Truck Museum |
Following Charlie,
Doug Delano, president of the Pacific Northwest Truck Museum, gave a short
presentation about the truck museum, it goals and interpretive
methods. From there, PNTM member Bud Wright, took all the attendees
on a tour of the truck museum. He went over all the trucks in the
collection.
After the truck museum tour, OERHS Museum Director,
Greg Bonn gave the delegates a full tour of the Oregon Electric
Railway Museum. The tour can be seen in photos below.
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| The group rides MUNI
1213 along the entire electrified mainline. |
Group board a
"People Mover" for a tour around the rest of the
future right-of-way for the Museum. |
Gathering in front of
the carbarn for a tour of the Museum's collection. |
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| Greg Bonn is starting
the tour of the carbarn in front of 1187. |
Greg continues the
tour along side 1187 which is in the middle of a renovation. |
The group is in front
of the caboose and 351. Greg is talking about the BC car # 1304. |
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| Group board 1213 again
for a tour of the shops. |
Here the group enters
the shop building. |
Harvey Hilands takes
the visitors through the shops. |
After the tour the group broke up for dinner. An
evening program of videos and slides about the OERHS and other
railroad items pertinent to the Pacific Northwest were shown to the
guests. Then night was called.
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Dr. Jim Tompkins (Center),
Historian and Educator. |
The group gathered again Sunday morning. The first
speaker was Dr. Jim Tompkins. He is a teacher as well as a historian.
He had the group image themselves back in school in an Oregon History
class. He talked about how some individuals pay attention and others do
not. He wants us, as interpreters, think about how we present out
material. Some may never absorb it, but your goal is to make the
listener interested in what you saying.
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Mac Palmer (center) US
National Park Service (ret.) |
The final speaker for this meeting was Mac Palmer. He
is a retired US Park Service interpreter from Montana. He had
participants divide up into smaller focus groups. He then ran 4 short
video segments. From these segments the small groups discussed what
was good interpretation and what was bad based on the videos.
There was many thought provoking ideas, and some valuable lessons were
learned.
The meeting then
went through a survey from the last regional conference and talked
about future conferences and their locations.
Well then it was
over. Participants that had a chance to stick around were able to try
their hand at operating the MUNI Boeing LRV car on the museum
trackage. Everybody who tried it, loved it. Everybody went home with a
fresh outlook on how they should present themselves to visitors at
their respective museums. All of them look forward to the next
regional meeting in the Spring of 2002 at the California RR Museum in
Sacramento, CA
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West ARM 2001 Conference
Participants |
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Oregon
Electric Railway Museum
