Last week, Aug 10 to 13, several consultants were in Cranbrook to begin a half-year major study on the Museum and its future. It will assess risks to the museum, particularly the historic railcars and the governance structure, and recommend solutions for the short and long-term.

It will also provide recommendations on the proposed new trains display building and its efficient preservation systems and then bring everything together into a long-term Business Plan. The perspective of this exercise is hundreds of years, not the usual 5 or 20 year plans, since Museums are expected to survive - literally – forever.

"The Museum Board and the Museum Development Committee of the City have been involved with this project for several years in raising a substantial amount of money to give us the best advice possible for the very long-term," says Wayne Eburne, Chair of the City-appointed Museum Development Committee. "It is essential have this done now, especially with the pending retirement in the next few years of the current Executive Director and CEO, Garry Anderson, who has been involved with the project since it began in 1975. This study will help bridge that major transition".

The $103,000 (plus tax) Plan is funded by assistance from the Columbia Basin Trust’s Community Initiative Funds, the City of Cranbrook, the Museum Assistance Program (MAP) of the Dept of Canadian Heritage, and from the Museum itself.

The Plan is led by Lee Boyko who put the team together and who has an extensive background in museum work and planning. Conservator Andrew Todd will assess the current condition of the railcar collection and provide input into the museological standards that will be required in the new building. Architect Nick Milkovitch, with colleague Neil Prakash, will provide an overview of the 78,000 square-foot trains display building.

Equilibrium Structural Engineering will investigate and recommend on the type of structure needed. Jamie Dabner of Cobalt Mechanical Engineering will provide critical recommendations on options for the building operating systems, particularly the environmental controls system options.

Roger Dupuis of Applied Engineering will provide recommendations on the electrical requirements and the systems needed. The Cost Consultant is Roger Artis of BTY Group, which will outline all of the required capital costs needed to complete the current buildings and the new Trains Display building, as well as all of the operating costs needed to make the museum viable and make an impact on both tourists and the local community.

The collection of historic passenger railcars is stored outdoors, but contains rare and extremely fragile interiors of significance to Canada. Current partial environmental control systems in some cars assist with preservation, but this type of system is becoming increasingly expensive and is not an optimum solution for the long-term

Another major challenge, particularly for the Business Plan, will be how to develop and sustain both tourist programming and attendance and local programming and attendance, while at the same time meeting the challenges of preserving the railcar collection to national standards.

The plan will end with a note of what the consequences would be to the institution and to the railcar-artifacts (and indirectly to the community) if nothing is done.