Steam & Excursion > I wish it hadn't been so....

To today's steam loco preservationists....

Stuff that I’ve witnessed, but wish that I hadn’t….
Sure, the status of ‘things’ at the UP Steam Shop seem unnecessary; but, recently I’ve been recalling similar and worse happenings to loco preservation ----- since I became ‘aware’, about 1955….

A sampling follows. Feel free to add your “ favorite” lost preservation….

An early failed attempt at loco preservation was the ill-fated CNJ, ten-wheel Camel Back, loco #774….
•Don Wood had fought for years to get the CNJ to preserve her, (#774) –later scrapped.

•While I was visiting Shaffer’s Crossing in 1959, I took some snap-shots of N&W’s wonderful (ALL Roller Bearing) Class ‘A’, # 1240 –cold and waiting calmly (next to #611) ----- 1240 got scrapped.

•2, nearly NEW Y6bs, stored for decades at United Scrap Iron & Metals, Roanoke, Va. –scrapped after the N&W refused to ‘buy ‘em back’ ---Oh, well!

•George Hart’s ex-CP #1286 with freeze- damaged Feedwater Heater system –now has two Injectors. Hart’s ex-CP 972, sitting in pieces at Strasburg.

•Dick Jensen’s wonderful ex-GTW, 4-6-2 # 5629 –cut up for scrap after nobody paid her ‘storage’ fees. There was some serious thought about using her as a basis for a stand-in SOU Green PS-4. Nobody took any action; the court ordered her cut-up.

•Blount’s visit to Albany and w/Perlman to receive a promised NYC Hudson. When Blount got there, Perlman offered a framed, colorized, Publicity-shot of a Hudson –all the rest had supposedly been scrapped by the time Blount got to Albany. Framed art as Consolation Prize.

• Story by Don Ball of chasing and photographing a ‘live’ NYC, 4-8-4, #6009 --- ran ‘Light’ from Cleveland to a scrap yard in Ashtabula, Ohio. The Switch was lined into the yard; the crew drove her in, knocked the fire out and took a Taxi back to Cleveland…. Years later a local fan, I visited, in Ashtabula, Ohio, had collected some items off # 6009----headlight, number board etc.

• The ‘permitted’ Freeze-Up of wonderful NKP 759--- at Rouses Point, NY – supposedly over unpaid storage fees owed to D&H….. The problem was that NO One from the Steamtown (Vt.) crew ever bothered to drain the satnding water from her 'appliances' after her fire was dead & in the roundhouse.. When I asked “why ?”, Chris Ahrens (former STMTN CMO) told me to “talk to the Steamtown Management”.

• The saga of poor PRR 1361 ….. and recent accounts of PRR Belpaire firebox sheets’ stamping dies, preserved lo- these many years, way at the the back of the Altoona Shops, ---
recently cut-up and scrapped.

> The 'Butchering' of the firebox & stoker, etc, on the ex-RDG 2100, the Prototype of a great class of modern 4-8-4s, during a failed attempt to convert her to an oil-burner.
There were many other mis-steps to poor 2100. But, the future for her is NOT very hopeful.

• The Saddest of All: the Dropped Crown sheet ‘event’ on the Gettysburg RR ----that ruined the beautiful (and favorite engine of Nelson Blount) MS&N 127, formerly the ex-CP G5d #1278, Montreal Class of 1948. She also suffered many additional abuses while in service at Gettysburg. The FRA "office" & field forces never took any issue to the clearly ‘forced’ inspection papers that were signed in 3 places by the same person -- month after month, quarter after quarter, year, after year, after year!
The papers were clearly 'forced' and the 'work' attested-to; BUT, was never actually performed. See the report in the NTSB's investigation of the incident.
The documents were ‘duly filed’ with the FRA; but, nobody decided to actually "look" at the engine –Oh, Well!

SO, we very well may add additional loco numbers as examples of acts of “commission” and acts of “omission” in the steam loco world,
We have seen many mighty locos suffer the effects of scrap-iron economics .
I wish wasn’t so, but history isn’t bright when it comes to the vast numbers of ‘lost locos’…

IMHO.

Wes C.

* CB&Q 4001 (a rolling bearing equipped Hudson) was given a complete overhaul at the Burlington shops in Denver and towed to Lincoln where it was set up for service. It never turned a wheel after that and was sold for scrap in 1960.

Regards,
Burlington John

>• The saga of poor PRR 1361 ….. and recent accounts of PRR Belpaire firebox sheets’ stamping dies, preserved lo- these many years, >way at the the back of the Altoona Shops, --- recently cut-up and scrapped.

Wait, what was recently scrapped?

Uh, UP 4014, set record for DIT miles, last heard of.

Out

It says that stamping dies for the Belpaire firebox were scrapped.

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The American Freedom Train locomotive #1, ex-Reading 2101 is currently rusting away at the B&O R.R. Museum in Baltimore Maryland and the museum leaders do NOT care. It's a disgrace to even be on display the way it looks.

The SP 4300 in Eugene which sat in the roundhouse until early '60s (?) until Russell, or was it Biaginini? ordered it scrapped. All steam railroads offered numerous opportunities for the saving of retired engines. Some were more friendly to donations than others, but just think of all those dead lines of opportunity. Stan

Stanford White
Carmel Valley, CA

At the same time, let's celebrate our "wins"! While it's
sad that we have so many lost opportunities, we need to
congratulate the hard working individuals at various museums
that have managed to preserve, restore, and operate the
locomotives that have been lucky enough to be preserved!

- Bruce

Wes, I had never heard that Blount/Perlman/Hudson story before, and it truly makes me ill.

Timken attempting to preserve NP 4-8-4 2626, the former Four Aces Timken 1111. Scrapped by NP.

Al Seever
Phoenix, AZ

Santa Fe 4-8-4 2925 and 2-10-4 5021 exposed to the elements up in Sacramento when they deserved to be front and center in the museum. Wish they could have stayed back in Albuquerque.

Tom