Smoke or heat?

A critical responsibility of every museum is the general protection of the Collection.  Broadly defined, that could mean protecting it from everything, which is unrealistic.   However, prudent steps can be taken to protect the collection from things that could reasonably occur.  Examples may include exposure to bright sunlight, rapid changes in heat or humidity, small to moderate earthquakes, and fire. 

An articulated lift allows a fire alarm

technician to exchange fire detection

sensors inside the Train Shed, high above

chapel car Messenger of Peace.

Inside the Northwest Railway Museum's new Train Shed exhibit building, some of the most important and representative objects in the Collection are protected with UV-filtering windows, R-30  insulation, a structure designed to the most modern seismic code, and a fire detection and suppression system.  Yet no system is perfect and unfortunately the Museum has had a variety of issues with the fire detection system. 

Local codes required smoke detectors in the original construction because, as Spike has been advised, they often detect a fire sooner than a heat sensor.  However, in a building with fans running all the time and nearly 750,000 cubic feet of air, there have been problems with these sensors.  Since completion in 2010, the Train Shed has experienced as many as 50 false alarms.  Fortunately, the Snoqualmie Fire Department has been very understanding and supportive, and several fire fighters now know almost as much about the Collection as some of the regular docents.  However a problem like this cannot be allowed to continue. Aside from the story about The Boy Who Cried Wolf, what if the fire department is responding to a false alarm when your house is on fire?

The Museum and its contractor partners have worked hard to determine the cause of the false alarms from the smoke detectors.  The Train Shed is not particularly dusty - in fact a lot cleaner than the Conservation and Restoration Center, which also has a number of smoke detectors.  There are no sudden changes in temperature that could cause condensation to form inside the detectors. The model of sensor does not have a history of issues.  There has even been consideration as to whether an infestation of insects or spiders is causing the problem. However, without being able to pinpoint an exact cause, it has been determined that smoke detectors are not reliable inside the Train Shed, and the local municipality approved a change. 

Early in August 2013, E Squared Systems was on site to replace the smoke detectors with heat sensors. This is quite a feat in a structure filled with artifacts, with ceilings as high as 35 feet, and not a lot of floor space to operate a 14,000-pound lift.  Now the Museum looks forward to improved reliability, and the Snoqualmie Fire Department looks forward to fewer late night museum visits.

Monitoring the environment

Museum collections are expected to last for a really long time. To preserve objects in a collection for a really long time, museums attempt to control the environmental factors that affect preservation. Too much light, humidity, heat and improper handling all contribute to deterioration. So with a conditioned building and good collections management practices, the likelihood of an object surviving for hundreds of years improves. Improving the microenvironment inside a building or storage room can even further increase the life expectancy.

Some situations do not require a lot of analysis. Many of the Northwest Railway Museum’s large objects have been stored outside for years. Getting those large objects into a building and keeping them dry has extended their life expectancy by many years.

Other situations - for instance the conditions inside the building - require more information before improvements can be identified and implemented. The best compromise of conditions would be 45% relative humidity and a temperature of 60 degrees Fahrenheit. However these conditions are difficult – or impossible – to achieve most of the year unless special air handling equipment is installed. A related factor affecting preservation is the rate of change for temperature and humidity. Simplistically, it is preferable to have constant higher humidity and/or temperature than optimal conditions that cannot be held constant resulting in daily fluctuations. Environmental monitoring allows a museum to determine what is occurring so that the best compromise can be reached, and to plan for long term improvements such as the installation of supplementary dehumidification.

A collections grant from 4Culture has funded the purchase of 10 environmental monitoring units. The solid state devices record temperature and humidity readings every 30 minutes and retain up to 10 years of data. The PEM-2 units are manufactured by the Image Permanence Institute at the Rochester Institute of Technology and are among the most trusted devices in the museum field.

The PEM-2 monitoring units have been placed inside the Museum’s buildings, and in storage areas where the most vulnerable objects – including photographs, paintings, and books –are stored. The data will be used to help establish priorities for environmental improvements by identifying obvious problems and trends that lead to problems.

Thanks to 4Culture’s support, the Museum is able to study the environment that collections are stored in. The data will be used to optimize the settings of the existing environmental controls, and to plan for future investment that will further improve preservation.







Photo: A PEM-2 device displaying 74% RH - much too humid for preservation.

Managing a Collection

This week the Northwest Railway Museum gave a locomotive to another King County Museum, the Black Diamond Historical Society. For history museums, few things generate more controversy that deaccessioning (removing) things from the collection. So was this an act of treason, charity, or simply a case of making appropriate choices in managing a collection?

In the eyes of many museum professionals, a museum collection is dynamic. It changes over time to meet the needs of the institution’s mission and adopted policy, and is held in the public trust. And most importantly, a collection must be actively managed and should not be larger than the institution’s ability to care for it.

For many railway museums over collecting and collecting outside the adopted scope of collection have been serious impediments to success. Why? The objects are huge, occupy lots of space so each item requires significant resources to care for and manage. The Northwest Railway Museum has had prior experience in this arena and addressed these issues in the early 1990s. As a result the collection size was reduced from approximately 160 large objects each greater than 1 ton to about 75. Such a dramatic change in just a few years was difficult to do responsibly and certainly ruffled more than a few feathers, but it prevented the institution from going bankrupt and released resources to develop and implement long term plans and strategies.

The latest departure – a 1943-built Plymouth locomotive formerly owned by the US Army and then Western Steel Castings – was one result of a more recent Museum Board of Trustees-initiated examination that identified any large objects that were not in compliance with adopted policies. The findings did not mean that an object did not belong in a museum, just that it did not belong at the Northwest Railway Museum: the Plymouth locomotive is a classic example of a small industrial locomotive used in lumber mills, pulp and paper mills, coal mines and other industries to move freight cars and is worthy of preservation.

Unfortunately, finding another institution to assume responsibility for a large artifact such as a locomotive can take years. Happily, the Black Diamond Historical Society right here in King County was looking for a small locomotive to help them tell their local history. Snoqualmie’s Imhoff Crane made quick work of placing the 50,000 pound artifact on a truck and just a couple of hours later it was in front of the museum in Black Diamond. So the Museum’s position is that this act was an appropriate choice in managing a collection.

Vandalism of the worst kind

The Snoqualmie Depot is a local icon, a centerpiece for the City of Snoqualmie and the Northwest Railway Museum, and as a 120 year-old National-Register structure it is a powerful symbol of our cultural heritage. The depot is often cited as the second most recognizable image of Snoqualmie, the first being Snoqualmie Falls. Restored between 1979 - 1983 to its appearance in 1900, the Snoqualmie Depot is visited by over 85,000 people per year.

On Tuesday, June 30, 2009, the depot faced a threat even greater than a Snoqualmie Valley flood: fire. In the wee hours of the morning, a person or persons deliberately set a fire that threatened to destroy this beautiful wooden structure. The senseless act caused damage but, fortunately for our community, the building’s sprinkler system activated and when combined with a quick response from the Snoqualmie Fire Department prevented the loss of this important cultural property. But it was too close for comfort.

A broken window on a new building or graffiti on a wall is frustrating, ugly and demoralizing but for a price it can usually be repaired. However vandalism and other destruction directed at unique objects such as museum collections and historic buildings means a portion of our collective past gets erased and can never be fully replaced.

Culture defines us. It represents our society’s beliefs, customs, knowledge, and even enlightenment. Cultural icons are visible representations of these values and the Snoqualmie Depot is one of our community’s examples. So powerful is cultural property that through the ages despotic leaders and repressive regimes have sought to destroy these symbols in the (usually) mistaken belief that they can erase the ideas by erasing the images. While damaging or destroying one unique and historic building in of itself does not eliminate our local history, the story is certainly richer and more compelling with a complete and functional Snoqualmie Depot.

Connecting with collections

The Northwest Railway Museum has been selected as a recipient for a Connecting With Collections Bookshelf. This collection includes essential text books, charts, and other collections resources assembled by some of the foremost museum experts in the country.

The Connecting With Collections Bookshelf will be used to help ensure the Museum’s collection of railway transportation artifacts receives the best possible care and is preserved for future generations.

Connecting With Collections is a national leadership initiative of the Institute for Museum and Library Services (IMLS), a Federal agency charged with supporting America’s 122,000 libraries and 17,500 museums. The initiative is focused on caring for collections, which are threatened at many museums and libraries across the country as identified in the IMLS’s and Heritage Preservation's A Public Trust at Risk: the Heritage Health Index Report on the State of America’s Collections. A staggering 190 million objects held by museums across the country are in need conservation. Light, humidity, temperature and insects are some of the key threats facing collections and the Connecting With Collections Bookshelf provides a selection of resources for museums and libraries to use in addressing these threats.

The Connecting With Collections Bookshelf is made possible by an agreement with the American Association for State and Local History and with the support of the Getty Foundation, Henry Luce Foundation, and the Samuel Kress H. Foundation. The Northwest Railway Museum is one of 2,000 museums and libraries across America to receive a Bookshelf collection.

Getting the word out

Bad news doesn’t always travel as fast as we wish it would. The effects of the recent catastrophic flood event in the Snoqualmie Valley are still being felt by many businesses and residents. The Northwest Railway Museum is one of the many. Debris is still being picked up, sanitizing of equipment remains to be finished, and then the real work begins. The Museum’s right of way holds over two miles of washed out track that needs to be restored before train operations begin in mid March. Some of the wash outs are five feet deep. Ballast will need to be brought in, spread and tamped in dozens of locations. The common thought is that federal funds will pay for a disaster like that, but guess what? No such funds are available this year. The Museum is currently seeking help with this project. So, how to get the word out? Our story has been picked up by bloggers around the area and word is traveling. See Good Life Northwest and Heritage Advisor and Snoqualmie Valley Star and Snoqualmie Valley Star Editorial for added perspective on this story.

Damage assessment begins

Wow. Two 100 year floods in just two years. That's our reality. The Northwest Railway Museum completed the last of the flood damage repairs from the November 2006 flood in April 2008. Now new track washouts dot the Museum's railway line between a point just east of the new Conservation and Restoration Center and a point just west of the Snoqualmie Parkway. This is about 2 miles in all. (The attached image shows bridge 33 over Kimball Creek, but still partially submerged. When the flood crested, there was about 2 feet of water over the bridge deck. If you click on the image it will display a larger version. Click here to see additional photos on the web site.)

There is some really good news: there is no damage to either the Snoqualmie Depot or the Conservation and Restoration Center. The Depot did not get any water and the Conservation and Restoration Center got just a trace (less than 1/2 inch) that weeped in the cutouts for the rail. So some floor areas have to be sprayed with a bleach solution to disinfect but today the building is back in use for collection care work.

Now the bad news: there is work scheduled on the locomotives and coaches that needs to be performed inside the Conservation and Restoration Center where there is protection from wind and rain. But they are sitting in front of the depot so the track will have to be repaired before any work can take place.

Recovery will probably be slower than we all wished but we are planning to have full service restored in time for the regular season of train excursions in April. However, we can always use help so give a call or drop a note to the director Richard A. or the volunteer manager Jessie C. or the collection care manager Bill H. Please click here for their contact information.

Major flooding hits Snoqualmie and the Museum

A major flood is occuring in Snoqualmie. Today is 7 Jan 09 and there are near-record water flows on the Snoqualmie River that have put nearly 2 miles of track and two timber trestles under water. Unfortunately, Google's Blogspot - a free service that hosts this site - is having technical problems today and it is not possible to post photos. However we have posted some more information and several photos on the main web site here.

We will try to post updates on the web site to the extent practicable but power is now out in Snoqualmie and this is being posted using an emergency generator.

The Museum including the Snoqualmie Depot and the Conservation and Restoration Center will be closed until at least Friday afternoon.

Collection care or facadism?

At the Northwest Railway Museum, care for the entire artifact is essential to its long term survival. Many artifacts are 100 years or more of age and have remained outside for that entire time. Water and insects have intruded into many features of the object – in fact into areas that some of the curators may not even know exist. So when an object is being rehabilitated or restored, collection care staff must look at every element to ensure that all threats have been addressed, especially if it involves water, rot or insects.

For instance, take the roof of the Northern Pacific Railway boxcar depicted here. The object was built during WW II as a special wartime composite wood and steel car that conserved steel in a time of shortage. In the approximately 70 years since it was built, water has allowed fungus to gradually consume the wood behind the object’s fascia board along the edge of the roof (technically, the "plate" on this car). A more expedient method of addressing the problem may be to replace the fascia and ignore the underlying plate that is normally hidden from view – in essence, focusing on the facade. That approach may seem cost effective in the short term but over years (or even decades) the object and much of its significance will be lost. What significance are we talking about? The techniques and craftsmanship that built the car and that are preserved in the structure – both seen and unseen. It helps us to understand why or how things we take for granted today came to be. That is an important responsibility for a museum because if we don't do it, who will?

Threats to the Museum's collection

Last week was trying. Near-record rains again raised awareness about how vulnerable any museum collection is to the natural environment. Earthquakes, ash from volcanic eruptions, and flooding are the top threats facing the Northwest Railway Museum collection. And this week forecasters were calling for the "perfect storm" as a duo of tropical storms appeared to sequentially target the Snoqualmie Valley. As late as noon on Wednesday, November 12 everyone was expecting more than 10 inches of rain in a 24-hour period and USGS flow forecasts were calling for a river crest of 63,000 cubic feet per second (CFS). Never before had such flows been forecast and Museum staff began to wonder if water would actually get into the buildings for the first time ever. (The Snoqualmie Depot was built in 1890 and there is no record of water ever getting into the structure.) Thankfully, the storms ended up tracking differently and river flow peaked at about 45,000 CFS, but still over ten times the normal November flow.

For the Museum, the result was no damage. However when the threat was first forecast, Museum management made an immediate decision to close the museum and focus on mitigation: ensure nothing was sitting directly on the floor in either the Snoqualmie Depot or the Conservation and Restoration Center, and that anything vulnerable such as books and papers were at least six inches above the floor. Everyone is happy that record flooding never materialized but it is apparent that area storms are increasing in severity above storms of the last century. Planning for the future will require an assumption that storm related impacts will be greater, but by how much? The same question is on the minds of many museum managers across the region.

Included images: Snoqualmie Falls at 45,000 cfs with Museum's railway visible on the far river bank; South Fork at 6,000 cfs flowing below Museum's bridge 35.