| City of Deadwood CB&Q Engine House Museum Deadwood, South Dakota |
| Through determined local efforts and an ISTEA grant, the City of Deadwood
decided to restore the CB&Q Engine House and transform it into a Black Hills
Railroad Museum. the Collaborative inc. was selected to perform the transformation.
We first began with a thorough building evaluation based on field work, archival
research, and laboratory analysis. The preservation plans and specifications
preserved the existing building and restored the missing section. The completed
structure contained the locomotive maintenance pit, new ADA restrooms, vending
machine area, office, and museum gallery space. The museum exhibits research was the foundation for the design, text, and graphics. To dramatize the scale of the T-3 locomotive, a profile view was painted on the 20-foot high glass wall dividing the museum from the locomotive maintenance area. Behind the huge doors to the maintenance side, a frontal view was painted on the entry canopy. The representations were based on the construction drawings of the manufacturer and the concept was carried through in a series of full-scale sections of the locomotive engine as 14-foot high exhibit panels. An office vignette and timeline completed the interior work. Outside, a plaza interpreted the turntable, exhibit panels interpreted the adjacent railyards, and a modern trolley stop structure helped to connect the new museum to the tourist route and open space trail system which follows the old railroad bed. The T-3 may be gone but today, one can appreciate her strength, the history of railroads in the northern Black Hills, and the men who maintained and operated these behemoths of the rails. "...your work on the C.B. & Q. Engine House project should be noted. You have dealt with a very restricted budget on this project, and your efforts to find innovative responses to unforeseen complications have been appreciated. The exhibits, as designed by you and your firm, will be exceptional."
Mark S. Wolfe |
 |
 |
|
 |