Ask this over on RyPN.
Contact the Association of Tourist Railroads and Railroad Museums (http://www.atrrm.org/index.php) and attend one of their conferences. There you can make contact with a large number of museums and find out what they are doing.
Some of the more professional museums do have paid staff but don't expect the same pay scales as may be possible elsewhere. The skill set required is also very different from that of a volunteer. Other functions, interacting with foundations for potential funding, sniffing out government grant opportunities for job training, dealing with local bylaws, keeping bureaucratic paperwork in order, will be far more vital. Not to mention the headaches of having to deal with a bunch of volunteers all trying to pull in different directions.....
John
A "career" in this somewhat small, loosely-defined "industry" can be anything from a marketing specialist to a locomotive mechanic to a tour guide/agent to a general manager to an engineer to a restoration craftsman. There are even bartenders. All of these have different skill sets, demands, and pay rates.The railroads and museums that have enough work for full-time career employment for a variety of people are few and far between--Strasburg, Grand Canyon, Alaska, Durango & Silverton, the state museums at Strasburg/Sacramento/Spencer, etc. Many operations have one or two full-time directors, presidents, or managers, with other employment being part-time or volunteer. Many of these operations need an effective director/manager first, a rail enthusiast second. And some operations, like the Gettysburg & Northern, the Verde Canyon, etc. have operations shared jointly with freight-operating short lines, where employees could run a freight train at night mid-week and a passenger train on the weekends. And many short line/excursion lines need personnel that can work the station ticket window one day and swing a spike maul the next. Then there are unusual circumstances like Cass, where workers are (for now, at least) state employees, or the Grand Canyon RR, which is now owned by Xanterra, a national-parks concessionaire. Is it possible to make a career in excursion railroading/preservation? Most certainly, but it depends entirely upon what you envision that career to be, and what skills you bring to the table. The Strasburg Rail Road shop supervisors have told me, for example, that they actively troll local/regional vocational/technical schools seeking out gifted machinists and craftsmen to work in their shops. They need to be experienced, trained machinists and workers--they can teach the railfanning stuff, or just infect them with a love for steam.
I suspect years of experience as a volunteer would mean a lot less than would a degree in something like Museum Studies, or perhaps Business Administration. I'd take a look at the websites of some of the larger operations and see what it shows about their directors; sometimes there will be a short bio re the person's background...or just contact them directly. I'm sure the head of a rail-related museum or operation wouldn't mind an e-mail asking about their background and education that helped them get their job.
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