Regarding the question of "locking the thread": I think the "if it bothers you, don't look" is probably the best answer. This is the sort of discussion that railway preservationists and railfans get into when it's too dark to take photos or work on track, or when a project is waiting for paint to cure or parts to arrive. I'm in California, and "don't have a dog in this fight", but it's interesting to see all the points of view and side references that get tossed into the mix.

Firstoff, the litmus test is not "related to preservation", but rather "is of poor quality creating heat and little light." Be mindful that when a helpful poster spends an hour writing a terrible response to a pointless thread, that's an hour NOT spent writing a very helpful response to an essential thread. Which means that forum quality suffers in two ways at once.

Mr. Swinnerton, I encourage you to think differently about censorship and the effects of locking vs. deletion. If someone wants an unlimited bully pulpit, that's what Blogspot is for. That's not RyPN's purpose: it's to attract constructive contributions. Deletion does that, it
1) targets postings which are already known to be junk,
2) raises the quality of the published thread,
3) inflicts pain on the contributor for bad judgment, and
4) clears the deck to invite more constructive contributions.

Locking has the opposite effect: it
1) targets postings not yet made, ignorant of their quality,
2) memorializes junk, which lowers forum quality,
3) rewards the junk-poster by literally giving them the last word, and
4) deters immediate reopening of the subject... which plants the seeds of its own destruction, because later, someone wants to discuss it, finds the thread locked, so opens a new thread. Now we have a discussion fractured in many threads. Which is why we always have these new discussions in which post #2 is "Good grief this again? RyPN has a search feature, why didn't you just read/reopen the old threads" ... "um, because you locked it."

In short: If I post known junk and you delete it, that's not censorship. If you prevent me from posting in the first place, that's censorship!

The post above by ADM that this RyPN discussion may have motivated people to work on preserving 4876 is pretty cool news indeed.

_____

Off topic:
Funny thing, yesterday I read a discussion on another forum that almost exactly parallels this one. Except it was about a Lockheed 1011 airliner (Reg. N102CK). You could practically substitute 4876 for L-1011 and it would be the same discussion: 'needs to be saved'; 'a week of work and it will fly'; 'no, it will never fly again'; 'should be scrapped'. Though these discussions seem pointless, they can lead to action by people. I'll keep my fingers crossed for the #4876, and for the old airliner.

Did you miss the part where Hollywood made a movie loosely based on the whole Crazy 8's episode? Yes, I know, Unstoppable is hardly a documentary, but that's not the point. A lot of people have seen that movie, and some museum could legitimately say "We have the real thing!"

SD40-2's are worth saving, having been a mainstay freight locomotive for many years. So why not save one that also has the added attraction of "See the locomotive that inspired the movie 'Unstoppable'. Read about the true life event, and learn how they finally stopped this locomotive on a runaway trip across Ohio!" (Should you use this approach, I'm going to suggest the engine be used as a static display, LOL!)

Sure, it's hucksterism, but if it inspires families to bring the kids to your museum and learn about trains, then why not?



Exactly, so why not take advantage of it? Most museums are all about stories and last, biggest, smallest, oldest, whatever. If you can collect an object with a "hook", then why not do it?