Brazilian railway heritage in search of an audience

Journal of Transport History, The, Sep 2002 by cooper, Martin

The approaches to display, management and curating within Brazilian railway museums differ from the methods being used in transport museums in Europe, the United States and Australasia. This is a reflection, in part, of the cultural, political and social history of museum development in Brazil. It also makes it particularly difficult to compare and contrast countries and cultures, and it is why this review compares the museum at Jundiai with similar sites in Brazil rather than with players on the international stage. Museum visiting does not form a major part of the culture of leisure for Brazilians. Observation over a four-hour period on a public holiday found only eight visitors, each of whom stayed on the museum site for just over forty-five minutes. Like most railway sites in Brazil, the museum has no refreshment facilities. It does however, uniquely, have a 'shop' where, from the display cabinet, visitors can select t-shirts, caps, badges, 45 r.p.m. records, books and model trains. The low visitor numbers may also reflect the entrance charges at Jundiai, which are roughly the equivalent of 1 per cent of the legal monthly minimum wage and place the museum experience out of reach of low-income households.

Visitors were keen to discuss their reactions to the museum; the majority said they had come out of curiosity to learn about their local history. One respondent said, `I've come here to learn about the future. To learn about the future you have to understand the past.' Culturally and historically the Brazilian nation has, since the 1930s, been fascinated with the notion of progress and building for a future.3 Visitors were observed to be enjoying the experience of recalling memories. 'I remember when the full-size version of this model steam train was working.' 'I remember sending a telegram with this machine.' 'I remember making journeys when I was very small; the locomotives, the tickets, the uniforms.' In these respects the museum at Jundiai is fulfilling a crucial role for this minority of the population, but there is much more potential within the spaces and representations than is currently on offer.

The Museu da Companhia Paulista is the only site of its kind in Brazil which has an active policy of community involvement through the use of its buildings for adult education, retirement group meetings and dance classes. In 2001 the museum organised a folk dance festival, an open day to promote voluntary groups, a `Coffee with Art' festival of painting and music, and an exhibition of children's art inspired by the museum environment. The challenge is to maintain such vital community links and attract these members of the public into the museum exhibition spaces for repeat visits.

Labelling inside the exhibition rooms is superficial, restricted to naming the object rather than offering an explanation of how, when, where and why it was used. Outside, the large exhibits remain unidentified. This is typical of the tendency of many railway museums in Brazil to present objects without contextualising them. It is a shame that this museum does not possess a single steam locomotive from the Companhia Paulista, but a long-term aim of the management is to obtain a working example which could offer rides along a short section of track in the museum grounds. Currently in the open air, and unprotected from the tropical atmosphere, are four abandoned diesel electric locomotives, an oil tanker wagon, a steam crane and a General Electric pantograph power unit from 1924. The fact that this has been restored to its original colours and was one of the first electric locomotives to be used on the network becomes clear only when the visitor reads the free museum leaflet.