I have no knowledge of this other than it came across a news feed this morning:

https://lompocrecord.com/news/local/cri ... ff24e.html

"A Paso Robles man was arrested last week on suspicion of theft in an investigation that led to the discovery of 800 pounds of "extremely rare" bronze locomotive train parts at a Santa Maria recycling center, according to a San Luis Obispo County sheriff's spokesman.

Deputies responded to a report of a report of vandalism and theft at the Santa Margarita Ranch in the 9000 block of Yerba Buena Avenue shortly before 8 a.m. on Oct. 11, according to spokesman Tony Cipolla.

Several items were allegedly taken, including generators, drones, equipment and multiple pieces of a locomotive train made of bronze. "

Bob

Interesting, dates from 1774: https://historicsantamargaritaranch.com/

Looks like a 5/8 scale line is located there, with coaches that originally were at Disneyland in Anaheim, bet the thief did a lot of damage: https://historicsantamargaritaranch.com ... -railroad/

The ranch's Pacific Coast Railroad is full-sized 3 ft gauge. IIRC, they have a couple pieces of D&RGW rolling stock.

Would make sense as the coaches are ex-Disneyland and Disney had the Coaches and locomotives scaled down to look correct but on 3' gauge track. (4'8" x 0.625 = 35", aka 5/8 scale).

IIRC they built the original 2 trains sets from scratch, based the design of a set of cars from Hawaii over at Travel Town. 2 engines were built from scratch and the 3rd was a modified 3' locomotive from a sugar plantation. (Going from memory from the Disneyworld RR tour ~7 years ago and the Disneyland RR Book from ~5 years ago so some of the info is foggy)

Locomotive #1 and #2 (C.K. Holliday and the E.P. Ripley) were both built new for Disney in 1955, and have worked there since. Currently #2 is reportedly off property for a rebuild.

#3 the Fred Gurley is a 1894 Baldwin that came from Godchaux Sugars as reported. Then #4 Ernest S. Marsh is 1925 Baldwin engine from the Raritan Sand Co. and #5 Ward Kimball is a 1902 Baldwin that worked at Cedar Point before going to Disney. The railroad has also seen Chloe from the Southern California Railway Museum formerly of Ward Kimball's collection pulled dead in tow as a visitor, along with Marie E. in live steam a 1901 Porter owned by John Lasseter (his visit to Disneyland to run his locomotive was literally one of the last few public things he did before he was fired a few months later from the company).

The one sibling car of the ones at the ranch were the parts were stolen that is still at Disneyland was converted to the Lilly Belle a parlor car used in the theme park.

The parts that were stolen were the bronze castings for a 3" scale, 15" gauge NYC J3 Hudson from the design of Seymour Johnson. The frames and drivers and other cast iron castings were not stolen. It is believed that all castings were recovered.

Rob Gardner