Size and weight as a whole unit would likely prohibit, and disassembly if it's turkey in the considerably better condition then previously assumed would make disassembly to haul budget unfriendly. As I read it they think it's rolling out on its own wheels. That seems unlikely but time will tell I suppose.

I was about to say this exactly. In a worst case scenario the locomotive and tender could easily be placed a a couple of heavy duty flats. That's how Reading 2100 and C&O 1309 were moved last year, across CSX no less.

That being said, 2716 has roller bearings on all the locomotive's axles and the group has said it will not move the locomotive until the tender is also equipped with roller bearings. This will be a huge advantage in enticing railroads to tow the locomotive to it's destination.

Ok, flatcar, to where? Please refer to my first point. Why take it anywhere it won't be welcome to run once the restoration is complete. RDG 2100 went to Cleveland, it'll have access from their roundhouse to NS. Same with 1309, she's on a private line now. Where are you going to put a fully rebuilt, serviceable 2-8-4 (so think 1225 and 765) on live rail? All the options that have been presented here in that local area are CSX owned and not steam friendly. So they are just gonna truck around a 2-8-4 where ever they wanna run? It is possible that all that trucking could cause undue stress? We aren't talking about LV 126 or Flagg 75 here.

That's why I said, I'd like to see some more information on the post-rebuild stages. I can think of a few museum pieces that could use $1.3 million and already have a place to run and need volunteers. The group seems like they'd like to keep her in KY. So, what options are there and have they considered in their business plan. More information is needed.



The problem with that is Kelly, if we believed 1/2 the lies, nothing would or will be running at a point in time. I made some comments recently on 1225 that someone disagreed with. Well, there was a bit more backstory that happened before my time. Every project deserves the same respect, and like with the RDG 2100, I will be waiting for more information. I trust your and Rich's word more than some.

I think this thread needs a heavy dose of defoamer. The fact of the matter is that we will not know the EXACT condition of the locomotive until it has been moved to wherever the group involved decides to take it, and then not until AFTER it has been disassembled and the engineering study completed. The Kentucky group has, so far, done a thorough, but limited inspection that turned up nothing surprising and certainly nothing that could be construed as a showstopper. Maybe they are looking through rose colored glasses, but at $1.5 million, these guys can't afford not to have a plan for the restoration and for after the restoration is done. They simply have chosen not to tell us about these plans in any detail. We need to let this unfold some more to see what's what. THEN we might have something useful to talk about.

We need to quit moaning and groaning about that which we know little or nothing. We would be having this SAME discussion no matter which of the preserved locomotives that are available for restoration was chosen. This one just happens to have a history that increases the interest AND the amount of foam.

THANK YOU for saying this! I remember all the moaning about a potentially ruined firebox on the 2100, all the speculation that a Mallet wouldn't run on the WMSR, and now the talk of firebox troubles on the 2716 that were mostly fixed by Fort Wayne!

Why do some of us forget the history of accomplishment, and only remember the failure?

Just calling for a bit of balance. . .

Probably because there are lots of failed projects out there and if somebody talks down a potential project and it does fail they can feel good about themselves when they say "I told you so".

But there are still a lot of questions that NEED to be answered. What color will it be painted in? Will it be painted green? What does Hitler think of it? When will it double head with the 1361? C'mon, these are serious issues that only we can figure out.

[quote="hamster"]
We need to quit moaning and groaning about that which we know little or nothing. /quote]

If a business asks a bank for a loan, they are expected to produce a business plan.
If a business asks an investor for money, they are expected to produce a business plan.

A brand new organization is formed and wants to raise $1.3 Million Dollars to restore a locomotive to operating condition. They don't have a facility and they don't have a track to run it on. And yet those of us who have questions are moaning and groaning?

I'm not saying it can't be done... and I know I'll buy a ticket to ride if they make it happen. But it's very different from successful projects like the 611. The 611 Donations were going to an established museum, in order to restore a locomotive to operate on the then newly announced 21st Century Steam Program. That made sense. The #1309 makes sense.. it is being restored by a railroad that has proven it is fully capable of running steam, and they have a place to run it.

There have been a lot of excellent points here, and I'll try my best to explain what we are doing while not trying to sound like an official press release.

Us members of the KSHCO have fronted our own money to make this whole thing start. It's already turned into a labor of love for us, but also one with significant cost to working class dudes. I'm not asking for sympathy....I'm just saying we're the ones sticking our necks out on the line for the project - both financially and by spending a ton of time away from families, newborns, pregnant wives (well, with the mood swings, who could blame us?) etc.

It has been extremely fun so far....we are having a blast getting this together. The relationships that we've already made have been rewarding - talking to Ron Flanary about his growing up watching Big Emmas roll by....standing and listening to veterans of the Southern steam program and hearing stories about Mr. Purdie doing this and that....the off the record blue language anecdotes - they're all so great from a history perspective. We are glad to be recording these stories (on video and paper), regardless of the eventual success of our project.

Of course there are questions about restoration site and railroad to run on. We don't expect prudent people to jump off the diving board and blindly dive in with a giant donation just yet. We are in the building stages of this....and to be honest, releasing the news on 2-7-16 was my idea because hell, how on Earth could it not be serendipitous that everything fell together around that very date? It may have been too soon....but we also calculated it so that we can do this in stages....release, announcement....another announcement. A grassroots campaign involves a slow, steady increase in the momentum of a project. We're not VMT....we have to do it a different way.

We wouldn't have started this whole project if we didn't have a gauge on the marketability of something like this to our general city and region. We did polls, interviewed people, talked to city and state officials...."hey if this happened, would you think the community would support it"? We had nothing but support and interest from both people who barely know what a steam engine is or what we would do with it, to those who may feel a direct connection to our cause because their father - or father's father - worked on "engines like these". Does that make this whole thing work? Heck no. But it gives us an idea of how it will be received.

Lastly, we do have excellent leads to make this all work - and we wouldn't have entered into such a giant project without realistic optimism that some of those leads will pan out. We are honest in saying we don't have everything perfectly aligned yet, but the pieces are starting to come together. Literally every single thing mentioned in this thread that could be perceived as an obstacle in our overall project has been evaluated and assessed. We haven't overcome everything yet, but I'll be happy to inform everyone when we do.

There are more exciting announcements to come, and some excellent partnerships being explored with other groups. We want to collaborate and to champion every steam project. The more the better, we say.

-Chris

Great. Can't wait to hear more about the project as it unfolds and more becomes available.

There are lots of questions to be asked about this project.It is a very new group and they are already taking on such a huge project. But let's put it this way. It's better to see an attempt to restore the locomotive than just push it onto a siding somewhere. I've heard rumors that it will be going out on a truck because it is too heavy to cross some of the L&N bridges that are on the KRM's line and wouldn't fit on a few of them. Time will tell how this project goes, although I personally hope it goes well.

Why couldn't it go out by rail over the same bridges it crossed when it came back to KRM in the late 90's, unless the bridges have been downgraded since then?

The National Park Service was convinced some years ago that a rail topped culvert had been replaced in the Cuyahoga Valley with a precast box culvert that would not support 765 but that turned out to be erroneous. And they don't even operate over it at restricted or walking speed now.

Rob Gardner

Does that include cases where the locomotive gets disassembled, the group runs out of money and/or skilled personnel, and the stripped hulk is left to rust, never to be reassembled again?

That is the danger of a new, unfunded, and unknown group in my eyes, especially in the case of a locomotive this large and complex. Our industry has seen too many cases of locomotives moved into less stable situations than they had been in, only to be abandoned. In each of those cases, and each of us can think of at least one or two, the unanimous sentiment after the fact is that we all wish the locomotive had been left where it was.

Here is a perfect example from another thread:

There is a provision in our lease that we will set aside money to reassemble the engine once it's taken apart. Therefore there will be no risk that the engine would be abandoned. We could completely take it apart and all hop on a rocket to Mars and KRM would have access to an account that had the funds necessary to put her back together and move her home.

As for the KRM infrastructure, the line was rated to allow M-1s on it. M-1s were slightly heavier than 2716. Though there are some repairs that need to be done before its moved across the line, the improvements are being made this spring anyway, analogous of our efforts.

That is a good idea (for any project), and I would hope in never comes to that.