With the latest news of the Indiana Transportation Museum scrapping pieces of equipment in their collection, it is important to remind everyone that if your museum or tourist railroad has surplus equipment that needs disposed of, please at the very least make that equipment available and post a listing to the RYPN Classifieds.

The stuff that we work on and with every day is no longer being manufactured and parts are becoming increasingly harder to come by. Something that you see as being worthless and beyond salvation may be something that another entity is seeking, or needs parts from to complete their own restorations. It is just good business to first make an attempt at finding others in the rail preservation industry who could use what you no longer want or need. And if nobody is interested, at least you can point to the listing and say "we tried".

Our RYPN Classifieds are free to use, as easy to use as the Interchange is, can host photos and are read by an increasing number of people in the industry. The Classifieds are a handy tool for all of us to use and can help limit the number of situations where historic equipment is scrapped while others stand by exclaiming, "I wish someone had told us first. We could have used that!"

Rick:

That is really how it should be, but I had a conversion with the head of the ITM and I told him that he could post on RYPN and Railswap for free.

The problem with some of these museums, is "revenge scrapping".

If we can not have it or use it, no one else is going to get it.

More often, the equipment is owned by a non-railroad organization or person.
When they decide to get rid of something, I suspect these are the following reasons for scrapping:
-They do not know that the RYPN classifieds or Railswap exist.
-They know that someone might want their old train thing, but do not care to try to do anything about that.

The following photos of D&RGW cars 0251 and 0274 date from 2014, just a few years ago:
(via the NGDF)
http://ngdiscussion.net/phorum/read.php?1,351104,351105#msg-351105

At least IRM has the right idea.

https://www.irm.org/in-the-news/irm-off ... -for-sale/

I believe I even saw this on Trains Magazine's news wire a few weeks back.

IRM carries this car on their roster as a baggage car, and I suppose this was the last use on the C&NW before it went into work service, but judging from the window and door arrangement, I believe it was originally a baggage-RPO with a 30' postal apartment. Of course, having no interior, it doesn't make a lot of difference, but I should think that wood underframe mail cars are a lot rarer than wood baggage cars.

Just did.

If you have a PCC streetcar, don't bother. You can't give them away, there are so many available out there.

Maybe we need a sticky in the classified section titled "Available for Trade."

I'm happy to take one if they are so plentiful.

Chris

Twofoot:

If you are seriously interested, send me a PM with your real name and phone number so that we can discuss available PCC cars. However, the cost of acquiring a car, even if it is "free", will include preparation for shipment, shipping, site work at the destination, and any repairs or restoration.

I speak from firsthand experience:

1) A "free" PCC will be a pile of scrap metal, missing the motor-generators, glass, seats, and any usable parts. If you want a "presentable" or potentially operable one, be prepared to pony up at least a couple thousand dollars. If you want a "museum piece," more still.

2) Your minimum moving costs, even if you have completely friendly folks willing to help you, will be a minimum of several thousand dollars, unless it's across town under cover of darkness illegally.
When the Baltimore Streetcar Museum acquired several Philadelphia PCCs and a snowsweeper, the use of the equipment and expertise to move them from Philly to Baltimore, basically 105 miles, was donated by members of the Friends of the Phila. Trolley--and the costs in expenses, fuel, tolls, highway load permits, etc. still came to (I was told by BSM officials) $4,000 per car/trip. I was told that commercial quotes were around $10,000, though there would have been ways to bring that down if they had had to go that route--quantity discount, flexible scheduling, etc.
And this was about 12 years ago.

There have been several junk-condition PCCs scrapped recently, to much wailing, gnashing of teeth, and rending of garments by people who don't know any better. Many are only suitable as suppliers of parts.

When I got out of high school - 1969 - there was a NYC Mohawk tender at Van Wert, Ohio, used as a diesel fuel storage tank. That is the intersection of the PRR Chicago line and a NYC branch line (Cincinnati Northern) about 15 miles from the Indiana state line.

Imagine my surprise when it disappeared a couple years later and became the auxiliary tender for American Freedom Train 4-8-4 2101! It served through the Chessie Steam specials until it went through the roundhouse fire at Silver Grove, KY (Cincinnati).

It then landed at Elkhart, behind the Mohawk 3001, still there.