Yes, it's silly to preserve something that only sits and rusts. Guess by that logic the California State Railroad Museum would have been better to scrap 9010 than let it sit. Guess half the PRR steam collection should've been scrapped too, since they had no cover until recently.

Rust is not necessarily a killer, letting an item be scrapped is. When people decry in 20-30 years that it's a shame that we let entire classes of locomotive (I.E. C32-8 U33B/C SD26) go to scrap, will it be ok then?

Last U33C scrapped in the early 2000s, last C32-8 scrapped mid 2000s, Last SD26 circa 2010

3 surviving C628s, 2 rusting in Mexico, 1 preserved overseas in Australia. (Perhaps we can repatriate the last "American" C628 a la the PAs?) For an American locomotive, having to go halfway across the world to see one preserved is sad.

Remember the DL109 or Centipedes? They've been gone for 50 years now.

My point? Don't let the mistakes of the past keep you complacent about now or the future. Even a rustbucket can still be saved. The mistakes of the past should never be the baseline for your expectations. So they were wrong 50-60 years ago for shoehorning as many locomotives as they could to whoever or wherever wanted them, letting the chickens of neglect come to roost for many. Does that mean it's just peachy to ignore the now for then? Perhaps we should come to terms with the wrongness of the past, and work to correct that with our activity in the present or future.

Hence a 1 to 1 idea. A different approach for the now, instead of "Let's preserve 9 locomotives from a class of 25" or any likewise idea of the past. Perhaps quality over quantity is a better approach. It would enable a more complete picture of locomotive history.

In small part, I am personally responsible for the two ex-Amtrak examples at Sacramento and Spencer (as in, people at both sites have directly credited or blamed me for their presence there), and the ones at the Grand Canyon Railway are at least in theory long-term preservation candidates, should anyone want to work directly with them for long-term operational preservation once they get their economic worth out of them.

You want to shine up the Spencer and Sacramento ones? I'm sure they'll welcome your elbow grease or volunteer coordination, and if you're lucky and contact me I'll be there beside you.......