Greetings all. I’d like to share a fundraiser being hosted by a friend to save a former Milwaukee Road PS4427 hopper from scrap. This car is currently owned by RESIDCO, who’s asking $10,000 for it. It will be retired and scrapped in April or May.

This car is notable, due to a legal error, as it has been in interchange service for 59 years. Built in 1965 as MILW 98550, the car served under Wisconsin Central, Interstate Commedities, and finally RESIDCO. This is the last PS4427 that’s been interchanged. It’s currently in grain service in Florida. RESIDCO is willing to sell the car, however will scrap it if the deadline of the end of April/May is not met. The fundraiser is for $20,000, half of which is attributed to the shipping of the car.

Worth noting, since this car is legally still interchangeable, if it’s saved by May, it can be transported normally by a Class 1 to Indiana.

Several individuals are fundraising and working alongside the Hoosier Valley Railroad Museum to preserve the car before it meets the torch. It will be donated to Hoosier Valley upon purchasing.

Consider donating to save this historic piece of Milwaukee rolling stock!

Information credited to Ahead Of The Torch

https://www.gofundme.com/f/save-ps-4427 ... e=customer


I’m just the messenger here, but I’ll try and post updates as they come. The fundraiser is currently at $500, let’s see that number get bigger!

Only $780 have been raised so far. It's currently April and May is fast approaching. I'm unsure about this car being saved. It would be nice, but not everything can be preserved for long

There's also so many GoFundMe fundraisers out there. GoFundMe's to save the last this locomotive, save that locomotive, fundraise for this caboose, etc. While a hopper car may be very important to certain individuals, for what may be all the right reasons - if the average person on the average income has a choice between a locomotive or a hopper car - sadly, I think the locomotive will win every time. To the average person, it's just another hopper car that you see thousands of on a daily basis.

Just now I searched "unprepared steel scrap prices Indiana", and the figure quoted was just over $81/ton. No scrapper is going to pay this RESIDCO outfit $10,000 for that car. You can do the math (I don't know the tare weight of this treasure), but an offer of scrap value usually does the trick in cases like this.

NOW, this little darling is interchange ready ?? Even from Florida to the HVRM, $10,000 for an empty seems awful dear. I should think that if you can negotiate purchase and shipping prices at the going rate, folks might be more inclined to contribute to the fundraiser... AND, you wouldn't have to go so far to reach your goal.

I'm pretty sure that UP will donate a simple one car move over their lines. They moved two narrow gauge tenders free of charge (in return for a tax write off) from Texas to Oregon for Sumpter Valley, and they had to supply two well cars and have their carmen make the loads fit. Obviously you would have to approach the railroads that serve the places where your car is located and will pass through. But a 501-C-3 organization has a reasonable shot at free haulage, or at least saving part of the transportation cost. I believe if you approach it right, you might just accomplish your goal for an amount of money you can raise.

Best of luck, but be careful what you wish for.

The amount needed to save the car from the torch has been met, following some advertising by a well known model train manufacturer. They will likely be contacting the car’s owner within the next day or so.

[quote="QJdriver"]Just now I searched "unprepared steel scrap prices Indiana", and the figure quoted was just over $81/ton. No scrapper is going to pay this RESIDCO outfit $10,000 for that car. You can do the math (I don't know the tare weight of this treasure), but an offer of scrap value usually does the trick in cases like this.


I do not know where you came up with your scrap price, but yesterday I sold unprepared scrap at a local scrap yard for $180 a net ton. This was just driving on to their property.

I have scrapped locomotives and railroad cars, and they will bring much more. When selling this material, you go to the boss/main scrap buyer for the yard,

The recent GoFundMe page for that EMD SW1 in the Northeast blows a big hole in your pricing. They did pay way too much for that locomotive.

Once prepared, a locomotive or railcar will bring big money at the steel mills.

I'd like to think that $10k includes delivery. Even at a $180/NT average that's around $6k for a 67,000# car. So, delivery included sounds about right. I might be totally wrong, though. It happens. Often.

My two cents concerning scrap yard prices, it depends on what you're sending them and how. A dumpster of mixed steel scrap is gonna get you a low price, pre-sorted a better price, sorted and prepared for the charge bucket an even better price. The less work the scrap yard has to do, the better price you can get. So it indeed does pay to talk to the boss about what they're getting. The major tradeoffs are considering your cost of manhours, equipment, consumables, transportation and overhead if you cut it up and deliver it yourself or have someone to do it all for you. Whenever we send scrap to the yard, we at least sort it for a better deal.

How is it my museum can't raise that amount for a wheelchair lift to give those less mobile the chance to ride a train despite extensive publicity, but other give money for a slightly notable hopper car???

No need to bring negativity into this accomplishment, you can keep the sour grapes.
This group put that Go Fund Me's information out in as many was as they could, which resulted in extensive exposure. The lack of lift is something you should discuss with your museum and not bemoan others success towards a historic missing piece of rail history in preservation.

This group put in the effort and earned their success.

You have to wait until it is the very last lift of its kind, and then the money will come flowing in.

Obviously, there's some pieces missing in your fund raising plan. I'd look inside rather than blaming the general public.

One problem I've seen repeatedly over issues of "handicapped accessibility" is that people have false impressions regarding paying/donating for such "issues."

Because there exists an Americans with Disabilities Act, too many people are under the false impressions that 1) every business or public facility MUST be "fully accessible" by law (we ave discussed exceptions here in the past); and that 2) "the government" somehow PAYS for ALL the necessary adaptations to accommodate the "differently abled."

It is, of course, utterly false. But go out and do a survey among "the public," and you may be staggered to find how many people are so ignorant as to believe that every museum of any kind lives solely off of tax dollars and admissions. In some cases, this mistaken impression could be understood--how could a big place like the B&O Museum exist otherwise, the thinking must go. And there are admittedly a lot of "gray areas" out there that positively invite such misunderstandings: The Strasburg RR being across the street from a state RR museum; the Grand Canyon Railway serving that huge popular national park; the Western Md. Scenic RR and other lines running on tracks owned by local government; etc.

This also feeds into a general perception popular since the New Deal, Great Society, and other "big government" policies: that "government" now does for the public what private charities used to do, thus depriving Joe Public of the sense of obligation to be charitable to his fellow man (like many anti-IRS critics will loudly point out, "Even God Almighty only demanded TEN percent of your income!").

Having said that, this kind of project is EXACTLY where your outfit needs to be searching for grants and larger "angel" donors. Most such "handicapped accessibility" projects I have seen on other lines all found private grants, underwriting foundations, or even state grants for such work, on the grounds that "accessibility" never truly earns a "return on investment" but is still a noble and worthy objective.

Last week, the car arrived safe and sound at HVRM, and fundraising for eventual restoration has begun. Many thanks to all who contributed!

https://www.facebook.com/share/p/DgQpGN ... tid=WC7FNe

I am not positive, but I believe this is the same model of covered hopper car that Illinois Central (Gulf then) had rebuilt with larger wheels so as to increase its capacity (as I recall), causing it to be unstable on bad track, which ICG had a lot of.