Does anyone have suggestions on which sites to follow for used equipment? Anyone have any ideas of organizations looking to downsize? Passenger equipment for sale or lease is what i want to focus on. I've been watching OZARKmountain but doesn't seem like new things get put up too frequently.

thanks in advance,

I'm not sure this qualifies as a lead, but Sterling Rail is another entity to peruse:
http://www.sterlingrail.com/

You could do what people did when most museums were created - contact the appropriate people at every organization which has equipment, create a relationship then take action when opportunities arise. One difference, you can use email directly to someone with one or two degrees of separation instead of sending letters blindly to a PO Box hoping it will eventually get forwarded to someone who will be interested enough to write back. Are you in touch with AAPRCO?

We have equipment for sale and for lease. What are you looking for?

The truth of it is that it's like the real estate market, if you can 'for sale by owner' in the front yard and get the price you want, done. It's only when that sputters out that the brokers get it, or a forced sale like ITM had when the City evicted them.

There are deals done all the time, listing here a good place to start, join HRA, AARPCO and get in the network, use it. There's still a lot of stuff out there that can't be moved by rail and takes a ton of money to restore, get used to it. I know I've been stunned on what Colebrookdale has achieved by going after vintage steel stuff with a volunteer crew, and some of the acquisitions were on the edge of scrapping. But if you're looking for that retired, almost usable Amtrak Budd coach in runnable condition for $30K that can be shipped by rail and just delivered to your interchange you're about 15 years late.

Stirling has a reputation of listing stuff they actually may not control, but they do a nice web page of 'stuff', sometimes the photos don't match the items either, and you'll see some really funky foreign stuff show up. Do your research, it's not hard to track stuff to actual owners.

You may do better if you give us more information on what you are looking for... does it need to be operable... and if so does it need to be Amtrak certified. Do you have a preference for railroad of origin, or period.