The "elephant" is one of 44 pieces of rolling stock a the Swiss Museum of Transportation. Photo by Jim Wrinn.
LUZERN, Switzerland – If you are a director, board member, staffer, or volunteer at one of the almost 600 railroad museums in America, print this blog post out and take it to whomever gets things done at your organization and tell them you need two first class plane tickets to Switzerland asap to see the best transportation museum in the world.
Yes, you heard me right, this little country in Europe, the one that was the last to bring railroads on as a primary form of transportation (1847 in Basel, and that was only so the French could come visit) and the country that once had multiple locomotive manufacturers and today has none, has the best transportation museum in the world.
On Thursday, I paid my third visit to this museum in five years, and the startling thing is that the more I visit, the more things I see that I like. First, a few facts: This is the most visited museum in Switzerland thanks to an adjacent I-Max movie theater (which was playing Rocky Mountain Express this week, just fyi) with more than 715,000 visitors; the place is 90 percent privately funded, thanks to aggressive sponsorships and memberships (they have 36,000 members… yes, you read that right, too). So they did the first and most important thing right: They got the money straight. Second, they don’t acquire rolling stock any more… yes, you heard that right: they have no room for it; they’re at their limit, but models, films, and other exhibits will take care of the modern story. Additionally, they have a conference center and just added a chocolate museum next door (well, it is Switzerland, you know).
The other animal in the Swiss transportation museum's zoo, the electric crocodile that replaced steam in 1919. Photo by Jim Wrinn.
The railroad exhibits are inside save for six pieces so weather deteriorization is not a problem. There are 44 pieces of rolling stock, the most important being the 1916 Elephant, a 2-10-0 that was the largest and biggest of its kind, and the Crocodile, the electric that replaced the Elephant in 1919, when the country, realizing that it had no coal deposits and plenty of cheap hydro-electric energy, switched to electrics. The oldest locomotive in the collection is an open cab 0-2-6 built in 1858 and paired with two 1840s coaches. There’s also the 1930 Red Arrow, a self-propelled, double-ended car that was the first with automatic doors, a Landi demonstrator locomotive that was advertised as the most powerful in the world. I could bore you to tears with details about the locomotive collection, but what got me was the exhibits. A model railroad shows what the Ghoddard Pass line was once like. Three simulators give the public the chance to “drive.” A cutaway meter-gauge rack engine is animated several times each day. And a kids area allows children to make up wooden block trains on “tracks.” (“the most important thing, my guide Thursday said, “is to have something for the kids to do.”) Railroads occupy about 30 percent of the museum, staffers tell me, and the rest is something else. But you couldn’t tell it from walking through the exhibits.
The animated 0-6-0T cog that comes to life multiple times each day. Photo by Jim Wrinn.
Outside, there’s a place for teenagers to try their hand at shoveling coal in a make-believe firebox, a construction zone for young kids, and buildings dedicated to highways, aviation, and boats. Everyone in the museum business talks about “hands on” but here’s one place that really shows how it can be done. Get over here and see it for yourself.
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