Eastern Railroad Discussion > Plant City, FL rail viewing platform and museum

On a trip to Clearwater Beach for the holiday, we decided to visit this museum today. The outdoor portion is well done, but disappointingly, the museum was closed- on a Saturday, on a holiday weekend.

I don't understand these museums that close on holiday weekends and periods when out of town visitors are able to visit. I really don't.

On another note .... if we hang around for another 30 minutes or so, are we likely to see any train traffic?

Posted from Android

Yeah, its really inconsiderate of the musuem volunteers to want to spend the holiday weekend with their families.  What are they thinking.  I notice you're not working at a musuem this weekend.  What is that?

I guess its a trade-off that the musuems just have to live with.  Yeah, we can't open during the holidays but get volunteers otherwise.

Holidays that are geared toward spending time with families like Thanksgiving and Christmas should be observed that way. If it involves closing museums on those days, then that's how it should be. There are many rr museums and excursion trains that don't operate on Thanksgiving, Christmas, and other holidays. The Morristown & Erie Polar Express trains don't operate on Thanksgiving, Christmas, or New Years Eve. The crew operating those trains are entitled to spend time with their families.

 

Umm, Saturday, November 27th is not a holiday. Did you geniuses notice that I posted this today and not on Thursday? Perhaps not.
When you are in the hospitality business, you work hours normally outside of the 8-5 schedule that other businesses operate. That's how it works and has for decades.

As to the tangentially mentioned topic of railroad museums, the day after Christmas and the weekends after that are among the busiest of the year. I guess neither of you are aware of that either. The museum I volunteer at is busy hauling over 2000 passengers this weekend but because we have coverage, I was able to travel. Oh, my real job is not in the hospitality business, so I was able to take off for the weekend to go enjoy areas that ARE in the hospitality business- hence my visit to a museum.

Now that we have that settled, it is apparent that the Plant City museum is minimally staffed during normal weeks, so to those familiar, their closing on busy weekends might not be a surprise. To me, it was disappointing. The outside area was set up so that there was access by the public, including the viewing platform- which was nice. There were many people enjoying the outside area during my short visit. I saw zero trains in my 90 minute visit to the town, but light train traffic is to be expected on a day like today. That was disappointing, but not the end of the world.

Posted from Android

I stopped there on a weekday last April. The museum was open but staffed by only one volunteer. I'm sure it's a real shoestring operation like many such places. One should be grateful places like that exist at all.
I spent three hours on the viewing platform and saw exactly one train--and a local at that. They had an ATCS feed going in the depot; absolutely nothing was showing anywhere for miles around. Thank you, PSR. I decided to head for Tampa where I knew I could at least watch some streetcars running.  

wpamtk Wrote:
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> I stopped there on a weekday last April. The
> museum was open but staffed by only one volunteer.
> I'm sure it's a real shoestring operation like
> many such places. One should be grateful places
> like that exist at all.
>
Was there an admission fee?

Were there any other patrons during your 3 hours there?

The sign said hours are only 4 hours a day on the days it is open.

From a railroad history perspective, it would be disappointing if they couldn't charge a small admission fee and pay a part time employee 10 bucks an hour to staff it and extend the hours to make it available for anyone other than retired folks. We would have gladly paid $5 a person to walk through, but I wonder how many other people would?

Posted from Android

P Wrote:
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> From a railroad history perspective, it would be
> disappointing if they couldn't charge a small
> admission fee and pay a part time employee 10
> bucks an hour to staff it and extend the hours to
> make it available for anyone other than retired
> folks. We would have gladly paid $5 a person to
> walk through, but I wonder how many other people
> would?

From experience with a non-profit that wasn't railroad related, simply hiring an employee isn't simple anymore.  There is workers compensation insurance costs, then you have to handle W-2, payroll deductions and the worse part of all, many times there is simply no passion from the employee, they are simply there to make money.  Also, right now hiring ANYONE is difficult.  Most companies are having a hard time finding employees when they offer $16+ an hour for full time work.  Getting someone trustworthy for part-time, 10 dollars/hour when the a lack of visitors could easily mean that next month they don't work at all (sorry kid, were didn't make enough to pay you) is not easy.

I also doubt that most people will pay anything to visit a musuem if they don't know what they are getting for their money.  That is way many railroad musuems allow one to see the exhibits for free but then charge for train rides and such.  Asking for donations afterward will probably yield the same amount of money for a musume like Plant City.

P Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> wpamtk Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > I stopped there on a weekday last April. The
> > museum was open but staffed by only one
> volunteer.
> > I'm sure it's a real shoestring operation like
> > many such places. One should be grateful places
> > like that exist at all.
> >
> Was there an admission fee?
>
> Were there any other patrons during your 3 hours
> there?
>
> The sign said hours are only 4 hours a day on the
> days it is open.
>
> From a railroad history perspective, it would be
> disappointing if they couldn't charge a small
> admission fee and pay a part time employee 10
> bucks an hour to staff it and extend the hours to
> make it available for anyone other than retired
> folks. We would have gladly paid $5 a person to
> walk through, but I wonder how many other people
> would?
>
> Posted from Android
I don't think they charged admission. Apparently, they are supported to some extent by the city. I was actually surprised how many people stopped by, mostly families with kids (it was probably Spring Break week). Only one other person came to the viewing platform while I was there (he was from Tennessee, I was from California). Actually, the viewing platform really only has a good view of the ex- ACL line. Most of the ex-SAL line is blocked by trees on one side and by the station building on the other. The wye to the line to Bone Valley is a couple blocks away and not visible from the platform. The best place for photos is the empty lot across the diamonds from the station. Here's the view looking both ways on the SAL (double track) line.

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I volunteer at a museum in Tyler Tex very much like this one.  We used to be open 6 days a week but 
as folks got older we have a hard time replacing them, now open 3 days a week.  Finding volunteers
is getting harder and harder, and I think we are a friendly bunch and are not running folks off.

 

It's tough recruiting volunteers for many activities, especially those which require customer facing contact.