Reading through some older threads got me a'thinkin'.

We are all familiar with the idea of culling collections in the name of asset management or tightening of focus. There are a few recent RYPN threads about this subject.

I tend to fall in the "keep it around until someone saves it or The Lord reclaims it" crowd (right or wrong, it is what it is), but I clearly see why others might want to be done with an artifact.

Here's the question... what are the best North American examples of a complete basket case restored to operating condition? It's too easy to list the failures, lets ID the solutions for the next steam operation.

Nominations, please...

It's not done yet, but Cliffside 110 is well on its way back. It was rode hard and put up wet, spent decades in the rain at Stone Mountain, and is getting its newly restored tender tank back in another 9 days as the first large item off the list. It's a slow project, but making steady incremental progress.

dave

Feel free to share more. I believe your website has nothing on this restoration.

How about CNJ 113? It was pretty much a hulk when it was at the W&W.

Rob,

Great topic, but brings back some dark days of "what was I thinking".

Lehigh Valley SW1 112. If you sift through some of the photos on the 112/9206 facebook page you see just a small example of the work. I have dozens more photos of the disaster that 112 was when I first got her.

While an SW1 is small in scope as compared to a steam project we put over 4000 hours before we could turn a wheel.

And as one of the RYPN members reminds me on occasion "Sonny, didn't I ever tell you to never buy a loco out of a steel mill or a Zinc plant", I did both, "What was I thinking"

Another recommendation is the Guys over at OERM and their SW1 SP 1006.

Scott

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Basket case? How about that SP K-M hydraulic the Niles Canyon crew is rebuilding? They even found the right trucks, brought them back from France, and are going to (have already?) make the thing run on it's own power. Great metal work, incredible attention to detail, participants from US, England and Germany, what a project!

Howard P.

Southern 401 was run hard and rarely if ever saw any sort of repair when the Gravel Pit donated it to the Monticello Railroad Museum. I recall reading that they found dirt in the boiler from all the muddy water that was put in it when the tubes were pulled during her restoration.

Hi
How about this Climax #9 being restored at Cass , Pat

It this thread isn't strictly about locomotives, I'd nominate my friend Louis Droge's Rock Island railroad depot originally from Elmont, Kansas. The depot had been sold to a farmer who used it for years as a hay barn. Louie saved it from being burned when a new owner purchased the farm, took it apart and moved it to his property where he put it back together again. The hay had pretty much destroyed the back wall and that had to be built new. Today the depot is in beautiful shape!

Les

I nominate the former NYC 20th Century Ltd sleeper buffet lounge obs car Hickory Creek. This car was purchased circa 1990 from Ringling Brothers Circus by Jon Clark. He decided fairly quickly that the car was so far from it's original condition inside, that it was beyond his means to restore it, which is what he would have had in mind. He then arranged for the car to be preserved by trading it to the URHS group in NJ for 2 former NJT/PC/N&W Budd former 10-6/high-capacity coaches. As is well documented, the URHS was able to take advantage of substantial amounts of "Iced Tea" money, and a very good restoration shop, to restore the car to something resembling the original configuration and also to get the car Amtrak Certified. And the rest, as they say, is history.

J&L 58 is pretty much a basket case. From a locomotive that weighed 93,000 lbs. complete, only 56,000 lbs. of it remain today, or only 60% of it.

The cab, water tank, front pilot, rear platform and smokebox front are long gone and I am now working to replace those parts.

Rio Grande Southern 20 at least from what I've seen appears to have been a basket case, on of the guys from Strasburg would obviously know better than I.

Canadian Pacific 2816 was also fairly worn out from what I've seen when it was restored from 1998-2001 with things such as the smokebox, cab, firebox, and superheaters being completely shot.

I nominate "The Lost Diesel of Roanoke". VMT did a great job on that! It is not operational, but heck it is definitely a large improvement!

On the traction side, I would start the list with:

"City of Manchester" and Cleveland Railway Company 1218 at Seashore Trolley Museum
York Railways 163 and Johnstown Traction Company 355 at Rockhill Trolley Museum

There are at least two interurbans restored by Glenn Guerra at IRM and East Troy.

The Twin Cities PCC at Minnesota Streetcar Museum.

Wesley