Disclaimer: we're life members at ARMM and we live too far away to volunteer.
When the new museum opened, we wondered how they were going to maintain it. Grants to open a museum aren't easy, but they're easier than getting maintenance money. The building is beautiful and about four times as big as the museum actually needed. The gift shop alone is as big as a lot of storefrontsIt was obvious even to us that using the building was going to cost a bundle.
As for the collection, Rich is right about the "historical fabric" people and the lack of understanding about boiler rules and regulations. They're not bad people. They truly don't understand machinery that was meant to be renewed as needed, rather than a fancy chair whose original upholstery is the item's value. They also think that all she needs is put back together so they can steam her up and run around the yard. The idea of undoing some of the ill-advised repairs from the long debacle horrifies them, and they don't see why she should have to have all those Form 4 calculations and so on.
They have a bunch of nice well-meaning volunteers who have "old fuddy-duddies" in the way-- you know, people who want to make sure the locomotive is safe to be fired up at all. They don't know the safety regulations or they assume they'll get an automatic pass on them. They don't have any good cost estimates; they tend to look blankly and say "But we already have all those parts." Yes, and some are worn out, and the huge boiler patch was mutilated before it could be inspected, so odds are the whole boiler course would need replaced, if not the whole thing. I have always thought a new boiler with the old one used as a display would be the best idea from an insurance standpoint.
As far as where to run 1361 besides the yards, they don't know. The Everett Railroad would be the reasonable choice, but it's not the Curve and nothing else will do. Meanwhile, there are all sorts of political reasons for this, that and the other (as there are in any town,) and knowing how to navigate those will be crucial to the museum's survival as well as any restoration of 1361.
