Steam & Excursion > Southern Pacific #982 As A Complete Engine In Service!

Last week there was a very interesting thread on this board about SP #982 and the fact that her owners in Texas sold off her tender to Heber Valley because they did not have room to display the whole locomotive anymore.

I thought I would post this shot of #982 in service to show what she looked like as a complete and operable engine. The date of the photo is May 2, 1948.

What a beast she was!

Martin



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/10/14 03:44 by LoggerHogger.

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As a very young child, I was present when the SP moved 982 into Hermann Park. I have movies of it (Dad took 16mm color shots). I'll have to dig them out and post.

Brian Ehni

Martin,

I thought the SP did away with the "SOUTHERN PACIFIC LINES" lettering on tenders & passenger cars, beginning in 1946. Interesting that this photo of 982 still has the "Lines" tender lettering.

Thanks for the photo, Martin. I haven't seen very many shots of 982 in service. Very cool.

Here a few shots from February. Glad I got these while I could.

This whole situation makes me sick. Those brain-dead bureaucrats should've found a better way to do this. I suppose giving the locomotive to the Houston Railroad Museum made too much sense...

Jason Rose
Spring, TX
Rio Grande Explorations



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/10/14 06:52 by Jason-Rose.

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The Nau Center says they are going to make "appropriate references” to the tender. Why bother with any exhibits at all? Just make "appropriate references” to things instead of displaying the actual objects!

Brian Ehni

The tender as of yesterday. As you can see, it is being used for parts to get UP 618 back into service.

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If Heber Creeper didn't acquire the 982's tender, a good place for it would be Colusa, CA. John Manely is restorinmg 2-8-0 SP2706 and he has three SP tenders. The one that came with 2706. The stubby Vanderbilt "water tender" that was stations at Dunsmuir for decades, and the tender that was once behind 0-6-0 SP1298 in Santa Cruz. Yep, like those in Houston, the town fathers of Santa Cruz felt they needed to expand the children's playground at Harvey West Park, and they didn't need "two train things" so they got rid of 1298's tender! What a sad looking sight to see a tenderless 0-6-0 in a park.

The locomotive as painted now. (Just before the tender was shipped out.)

Mike Lewis
Cheyenne, WY
Wasatch Railroad Contractors

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Man she looks good! Went by there the other day and she is shrouded in plastic to protect her paint until they build the building around her. Evidently, money for this abomination of 982 came from the UP foundation. Many UP connections involved here concerning the money and how the tender got to where it is now...

How bizarre. I see the idea behind display only and the idea of opening up the cab. Extending the Apollo Space Craft to the Ground Controllers kinda fits, but then displaying the Steam Engine without a tender doesn't make the connection. If there was some representation of the tender has the fuel and water it would make sense... kinda.

Suppose the happy part is somebody is trying to support learning displays and trading equipment in the 'Community'.

The tenderless steam engine is an incomplete story to be sure. But some appreciation should be given to the level of cosmetic presentation of the locomotive, which looks very good. Especially appreciated is the attention to color for the rods and valve motion. It's a shame that there's no tender, but at least we've come some distance from the era of slathering Rustoleum silver on anything that reciprocated, and painting bogus white stripes everywhere else. That beautiful jacket is to be appreciated as well.

There are aircraft represented and displayed in prominent air & space museums as only part of the fuselage from the wing spar forward. But they are well-received by the public, and provide access to the experience where it wouldn't otherwise exist. Without a tender, we all know a locomotive is incomplete. It could be argued that a locomotive and tender are just as incomplete (as a story) without a train or a roundhouse, or a boiler full of hot water, but that doesn't mean that there's zero value to a locomotive on display without those things. In this case, we should probably appreciate that the entire locomotive and tender weren't scrapped onsite, and that the "front half" has been prepped so well.

~ BZ

Once again we disagree, it's the only Steam Engine in the Display where airplanes are much more common to someone in the learning environment. Steam engines being much more rare, with the exception of Thomas. It appears we can trust the Curator because they did a good job painting the inoperable steam engine.

The rest of the display apparently goes into detail about Space Flight, we could say we all know about that as well. It becomes questionable what the theme of the display is, perhaps advancing technology without too much cumbersome detail, let's just say it's good to have the engine under a roof.

I hope they cut the wings off the airplanes too, to save room. Make all of them as worthless as a tenderless 2-10-2. As time goes on, more and more locomotives, cars and collections will be rendered inaccurate and worthless by ignorant people who have the power to point and have things incorrectly done for them. Same as what is happening to America. Anyone recognize her today? The locomotive would be better off at the Texas State Railroad.

I think my point was missed. I'm just saying that appreciating what's been done by way of reasonably authentic restoration to the locomotive -- under the circumstances -- is worthy of appreciation. And that the public doesn't know what it doesn't know.

I'm sure most folks know that I'm actively involved in preservation, and I'm in no way defending the concept of dumping tenders. My point was really about whether what's left has value to the public, whether or not it has value as it stands. And of course it does.

No one here would argue that a steam locomotive sans tender is acceptable. But the deed's been done, and what's left has a great deal more to offer than a rusting hulk out behind a yard full of rusting hulks, or fifteen rusting hulks with vague plans to "restore some day." Just saying "nice job" to the folks who did what they did with what's left of a disappointing situation, and one which I would argue has little if any impact to the average viewing public's appreciation of the artifact.

What does have impact is if this sets a precedent for locomotive preservation. And I don't think that's a very likely extension. The greater fear these days is scrapping in total, without any notice to historical agencies, and that's going on with alarming regularity. Preservation of any kind, even in parts, when presented relatively authentically as here, is better than nothing. And "nothing" is our greatest enemy.

~ BZ



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/10/14 14:34 by Notch16.

But that's apparently EXACTLY what Heber Valley is doing to the tender: scrapping.

Brian Ehni

Notch 16 has it right.

How quickly we forget that the general public, which IS the target
audience, is generally not made up of radical fundamentalist rivet
counters.

They don't know, they don't know they don't know, they wouldn't
understand, and for the most part don't give a damn. They only
care about what is from the cab to the pilot and they know very
little about that part, either.

This particular engine and tender are far better off right now
than they have been in decades. The tender is helping get another
operable locomotive back on the road. The locomotive itself is
now well-preserved and stabilized and will be an attraction to
the public, who doesn't care that a handful of fickle and never-
satisfied foamers are having night sweats and DTs about the tender.

And it could have been much worse. It could have been cut up on
the spot, or sectioned to show what's inside.

Besides, it sat there long enough that some of you who gripe the
loudest could have bought it and done whatever you thought proper.

But none of you did, did you?

Or you could say "utilizing" and that the tender was offered and accepted for further purposes by an operating rail group, rather than being sold for scrap value in situ, which is my point there. Again, I'm not saying I like a tenderless "Deck", or support how it got that way! Yikes! Who would??

~ BZ

twin_star_rocket Wrote:
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> But that's apparently EXACTLY what Heber Valley is
> doing to the tender: scrapping.
>
> Brian Ehni


Are you sure?

Are they just parting it out? Or using it and their 618
tender to make one GOOD one.

Are they rebuilding the trucks and maybe removed the oil
tank so they can make that into a coal space for 618?


If so, what is wrong with that?

Any idea where that photo was taken?

And where are the passenger cars? <g>





LoggerHogger Wrote:
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> Last week there was a very interesting thread on
> this board about SP #982 and the fact that her
> owners in Texas sold off her tender to Heber
> Valley because they did not have room to display
> the whole locomotive anymore.
>
> I thought I would post this shot of #982 in
> service to show what she looked like as a complete
> and operable engine. The date of the photo is May
> 2, 1948.
>
> What a beast she was!
>
> Martin

Disgusting.