The Keystone Pioneers Museum in Roblin, Manitoba has a large piece of deformed boiler plate on display that was unearthed from the site of a locomotive boiler explosion. Sorry, I cannot find my notes or pictures.
For those of us interested in such things, it was an interesting display with some signage and information on the site and event. It was a very, very small part of the museum, but was worth displaying for the local and general interest. Interesting piece to study.

There is another very good example of Robby's point outside railroad preservation but to which most of us would be sympathetic.

The Brewster Buffalo (F-2) was the first monoplane fighter put into U.S. military service. It was really obsolete by the time WWII came but some were still in service among the U.S. forces and their allies. They are legendary in that context because they were a disaster in fighting the enemy with better equipment. Few survive in any form.

The tragic war between Finland and Soviet Russia in WWII is little known in the U.S. The Soviets were the aggressors, just like they were when they attacked Poland with Nazi Germany. Britain, France (what was left of it) and the U.S. decided to ignore all that and instead made an expedient ally of Soviet Russia after Nazi Germany attacked them, too. The Finns were left with no one to aid them and finally got some little help from Germany, too little and too late. The Soviets demanded and got two fifths of Finland after the war as "reparations." Finland, a very small nation, then had to find a way to in short order feed, house and warm the 500,000 people who would rather remain Finns than be Soviets. And spend the next 50 years doing a delicate dance to remain independent and free next to a very hungry tiger.

The Finns against the Soviets had Buffaloes because they were all they could get. At times American planes were fighting American planes on that front. With their Buffaloes the Finns achieved some of the highest kill ratios of all of WWII anywhere.

And not too long ago after the fall of the Soviet Union, one of the Finn pilots remembered the formerly Finnish lake where he had ditched his Buffalo after being shot down:

https://www.warbirdforum.com/bw372.htm

You don't get to just hold on to history. You have to make a decision on what to preserve and how. Often those decisions are not fully in your control and you must do the best you can with what you can gather. But you do this anyway if you are wise because the alternative to not doing history is to have to repeat it.

I am very pleased to see this "argument" happening here and that each makes his point so well. I can't tell all the stories and the stories I choose mean there are other stories I could tell that may not get told if I am the only storyteller. If I have some pieces of original fabric that came into my hands for a time and for which I have to decide what to do it is for the limited time I will have say.

The #20 will return to dust if no one does anything. And a lot of stories rest upon it. I'm with the ones that do something. Argue, act, argue again-that is the game. The younger watch and receive. It's an honor to argue and act with you.

Timothy

Bit O/T, but they do have a "sort of" Buffalo in the museum there as well.

The Finns had a go at creating their own fighter during WW2 based on a Buffalo metal fuselage and their own design wooden wings. They called it the "Humu" (Reckless!), though only 1 example was ever produced, this now being in the Museum

The photo's a bit dark, but this was taken when I visited the Museum back in 1998 (the one with the yellow fuselage band - Serial HM-671)...



The Finns operated a fascinating collection of aircraft during WW2, being sourced from Britain, the US, Germany, the Netherlands.

Of course the Big Boy experience would have been different. If those parts had not been replaced, it would not be operational.

I can think of at least one other reason why the RGS was so popular with railfans. In the early days of the hobby, William Moedinger and Cornelius Hauck made trips out west from their home states of Pennsylvania and Ohio. Both wrote about their visits to narrow gauge country and were published in very early issues of Trains magazine and in the old pulp Railroad Magazine, firing up the imagination of model railroaders who built models of the small locomotives and large trestles. That sparked the interest of other railfans, including Lucius Beebe and Charles Clegg, who rode and photographed and wrote quite colorfully about the RGS.

I've agreed with Robby on many issues in the past, but his rationale here is the sort of confused thinking that would preclude almost anything being done to a "relic" whether fixing it to run again, or even "restoring" it so it looks better. It's the sort of thing that requires the Friends to use exactly the kind of wood originally used when they repair worn and broken rail cars, even though most of us (and I'm a civil engineer) can't tell the difference between most woods, especially when painted and installed, and the use of modern glue-lams would extend the life many, many years and enable more cars to be repaired. Well intended but ultimately impractical and block headed.
Ned

[quote="Jeff Taylor"

Another thing to consider. This project was started with a donation and a request to make her operational. LONG before I worked at the museum. Honestly if I had been in my position at the time I would have advised the board to consider a cosmetic restoration because of the amount of work it was going to take. Don't get me wrong I'm glad she will be operational..[/quote]

Congrats to all in bringing her back to life.

Jeff's posting brings up a interesting point...the restoration commenced with a donor directive. Did the donor subsequently fund the entire restoration?

As curators or board members, we are often approached with comments or interest toward a particular hidden artifacts and very seldom a donor willingness of funding toward the conservation, let alone restoration of the same artifact. Ideally, we have a long list of priorities for our collection based upon interpretive or organizational needs balanced against available resources.

Then unsolicited donor specific funding is offered for an artifact that is down our priority list. What if that funding is inadequate to complete the task? As restoration progresses, What if the donor, or their heirs, is no longer interested? Do we risk another unfinished restoration? What message are we sending to other donors if our funding priorities keep changing?

Each one of us have to consider if a similar situation of donor specified funding arrived to our organization. Are we ready for the risk/commitment?

Is that the engine's original headlight? Pilot? Generator? Steam dome cover? Seems like the engine was "modded" constantly through the years, even by the RGS. Why do we need to stop the clock at 1916?

To me, an operating steam locomotive is in itself "historic fabric," much better able to tell its story, regardless if it has newer or reproduced parts.

Congrats to all in bringing her back to life.

Jeff's posting brings up a interesting point...the restoration commenced with a donor directive. Did the donor subsequently fund the entire restoration?[/quote]

No. The original donation was not enough. Grant's, several fundraising efforts and a bequest paid for 20s restoration.

No. The original donation was not enough. Grant's, several fundraising efforts and a bequest paid for 20s restoration.[/quote]

For a summary of the initial donor and restoration, see this 2018 video filmed at Strausburg prior to the final assembly and boiler work.
https://coloradorailroadmuseum.org/2018 ... s20update/

Frankly I can't help but think Robbies post was offered to spark conversation and point out the semantic differences between "restore and replica". Anybody can put on blinders and take an extreme perspective of one being more important than another. The problem I see is the world is not made this way where reality and one sided thinking is going to work. Everybody is entitled to an opinion and has the right to state it just as I am and everybody so far has done. But to me the subject is just plain dumb. I do not suggest ripping apart an artifact or pc of rolling stock and willfully destroying any surviving "fabric". But this is planet earth folks. The case of restoring almost any rail car or locomotive is mute if your going to be anal about it. For starters there has often been massive rebuilding during the rolling stocks life. Add rust, rot, vandalism and good intentions and you only have a certain amount of fractional "fabric" left. So the only real alterinitive is to let the stuff rot away until there is nothing left to save. Not every pc of rolling stock is going to get a professional stuff and mounted restoration with a roof over it. So lets all contemplate this some more?

Mid Continents CN&W #1385 was not original in 1963 when it was purchased from CN&W. The boiler was at the tipping point of being fiananically and safely restored, it was the original boiler by the way. So you replace 50% of boiler or build new? The tender that came with it in 1963 was a total loss even in 1970 when we did her first steam test. You can argue till your cows come home of the right and wrong decision to move forward and build new. The alternative was to leave dismantled in the back yard for ever. If your going to want to see a pc of rolling stock roll down the tracks safely you are going to have to modify your perspective on original fabric as it is wacked. This is life in the big city folks and you can't have both ways. Regards, John. PS spell check is not working?

I understand the dilemma.

But especially with steam, every time you shop an engine you lose some of the original fabric. In 20's case Linn replaced a lot but also kept a lot. If they had just closed her up as a display piece, nobody might have known what bad shape she was in.

This way the damage has been exposed and documented and generations can know how worn out and wreck-damaged an engine can be and still run.

I think documentation of PRR E6s 460, which received a cosmetic restoration across the street from 20, also shows how worn out an engine could get between 1914 and 1955.

Phil Mulligan

I was going to ignore it, but then you threw in the spell-checking comment:

The word you seek is "moot," not "mute".

https://grammarist.com/usage/moot-mute/

>;-)

Could you be bothered to spell my name correctly? I understand you have an intolerance to misspelled words.

Robby Peartree

Lets look at the material issues you bring up. We use "exactly the kind of wood originally used when they repair worn and broken rail cars," I do not think this is so. This description creates a lot of heart burn for my metallurgy degree. It loves the word exactly. A recent discussion of wood preservation in El Paso Texas recently discussed the difference between current growth wood vs earlier growth wood and the cellular growth and spacing. To simplify the discussion. New woods are less dense. Also metal production has changed and the steels used today are not always the same either. I particularly like the old specs that tell you which mine to get the materials to make the steel from with no chemical analysis.

Second part of what was driving my comments is the history of 20 itself. 20 is an interesting locomotive. The last wreck was well known. The financial issues of Rio Grande Southern were also well known. The RGS hiding the 20 from the I.C.C. inspector was at least lore out there. Each of our pieces have a history and the history needs to be known.

Third question is how are we managing the rest of the collection? Further RGS is not the only locomotive that the CRRM has operating. The 346 is operating, 318 is in a state of unknown condition due to the levels of inspection on it. I believe the great tender swap between the 318 and 346 is still in place. Further The 491 was restored to operation to handle bigger trains and "preserve Rio Grande workmanship". At what point is there a diminishing return to adding another operating piece of equipment?

The Friends themselves have created great examples of not understanding history of the line. The classic one was the interruptive material that discussed the clear cutting of the Cumbres area for locomotive fuel never mind the documented fire of 1879 or the minor fact the D&RG/ D&RGW never owned wood burners. In the early 2000 the idea was brought up to use a car to show car construction. The car had recently been damaged in operation and seemed like the logical choice. The car chosen was the only drop bottom that had once been converted for coke production on the property at the time. The C&TS had converted all members of a class of freight cars to passenger cars eliminating any examples on the property. Fortunately, other examples were purchased from the D&S by two donors.

Then there was the car the Friends of the C&TS wanted to scrap saying its condition. But if you look at the roster photos it was in much better shape. The answer finally came out that it had been damaged while being used. In this case a story was created because people were embarrassed. Operation is not without its own risks. One person I know calls the runaway of 0503 as the C&TS version of Mr. Toads Wild Ride. Time has shown that operations bring certain pearls to equipment when operations occur. The operation of the John Bull did occur but when was the last time anyone could buy a ticket to ride behind it? What is it current operating schedule?

The C&TS is planning a “Victorian era train. The 1880’s locomotive has a 1910 era boiler. The tender behind the 168 would have operated behind a C-16 during the 1880’s. They built a new tank because there was a patch that did not exists in the photos of 168. But they are not the same tenders. Just how much research was really done on getting things accurate? At what level of accuracy is preservation?

Robby Peartree