We are excited to debut our newest exhibit at the Train Shed Exhibit Hall! One of the first questions asked by visitors is “What do you all do in that red building?” That red building is the Conservation and Restoration Workshop, or the CRW. This building is where we do annual inspections on Northern Pacific Steam Locomotive 924, restoration work on pieces like Northern Pacific Diesel Locomotive 125 and Parlor Car 1799, and exhibit fabrication. But what does work there actually look like?
A Glimpse Into the CRW shows vignettes of our workshop projects through sketch work over photographs. This exhibit is an art piece from former shop volunteer Daniel Cook, who took the photographs and further editing. The photographs were edited to remove all the color. Cook then traced over key features in pencil to focus the viewer’s attention on the train cars and tools pictured. This exhibit was a joint effort between our volunteers, the Education Department, and the Collections Care Manager. Exhibits take time and each vignette was carefully researched, reviewed, and edited before finalization. The exhibit was installed by a few of our shop volunteers, some that are even featured in this exhibit!
We hope that this new exhibit, which highlights the massive scale of the items we work on, informs the public of just how critical our workshop is to our mission. We thank Daniel Cook for his art and all our past and present volunteers and staff that work in the CRW. Stop by the Train Shed Exhibit Hall from Wednesday-Monday, 11:00-4:00 to view this exhibit.
