I believe the immediate previous poster, "ShortlinesUSA", has Ozark and Sterling mixed up. Sterling is well known for posting 'representative' pictures of equipment that they don't actually have listings of.

EDM, you are precisely correct. Sorry. Long day and too many days of bad sleep. Thank you for catching my error.

It's all too bad. Ellis had, I'm sure, the best of intentions. But as they say, that's what paves the road to Hell. In the "old" days, the trip may have been 1/2 the fun, but today it has become a real pain, and people just want to get where ever they are going as quickly as possible. Trains, therefore, just don't cut it, and that includes most of Amtrak.

As most here know, but I'll state the obvious anyway, running excursions or scheduled operations is not an easy way to make a buck. It takes a lot of work whether you're running at the time or not. We never could have done it for twenty years without a member supported, all volunteer labor force and only contracting work when absolutely necessary. To do it as a for-profit business with paid employees and loans to pay off.... Well, let's just say that would make me a tad bit anxious on a daily basis.

As Nedsn3 stated, I'm also sure Mr. Ellis had good intentions but it seems he also had himself a long, endless row to hoe with a garden trowel. I'm disappointed that it worked out this way.

As for the equipment prices, make a fair value offer. The worst they can say is no.

Some of those pictures are not current to say the least.... The two F-9PHs are stuck in transit and are now covered in graffiti....who knows what other damage there is...
The pricing is way high...$80k for F units that don't run and likely can't interchange, as they shipped there on flat cars?... They're worth maybe $20k....

To see SP 1744 back in Utah would be awesome. If it doesn't end up here I hope it goes to a nice new home.

Ed tried to do what we all wished for. I rode the city of New Orleans with Iowa Pacific and the Hoosier State. Was a truly amazing experience while it lasted.

The really sad stories are the employees who with terminated without warning, who went unpaid or were issued worthless checks. The required payments not made to Railroad Retirement are huge deal.

I know vendors and contractors who lost everything because they were not paid for work performed or for goods delivered.

Then there's at least one guy who's child support payments were being deducted from his check but not passed on to his child's mother. He knew nothing about it until the local sheriff showed up at his door.

Historical societies and equipment owners have been fleeced and equipment is now held hostage across the country. Locally owned rail lines like those in Saratoga and Santa Cruz are now in real jeopardy because public opinion has been turned against them as a result of IPH's antics.

All while robbing Peter to pay Paul and amassing a collection of passenger equipment, some of which WILL be scrapped because of this whole debacle.

This is the real tragedy.

Great post. The equipment on Ozark has a chance. The items leased from other 501(c)(3) groups and left on sidings hundreds of miles from their rightful owners are the most at risk. IPH-leased equipment left locked with padlocks on unsecured sidings has already been vandalized.

Someone better update URHS about their locomotives (LV 576 and 578) they leased to IPH. They are currently in Canton, Mississippi and in rough shape. This photo explains why I feel no sorrow for what is happening to IPH...

(Photo from Canadian Railway Observations).

RE the photo above;

So, these locomotives are on a spur off of a line no longer affiliated with IPH. Assuming that the IPH receivers will no longer make (or IPH has not made) the lease payments, what is the recourse of the museum or society that owns them? Obviously, they want them back, and I am sure that the terms of the lease stated that IPH would return them at no cost to their original location, but now they sit on non IPH track, and IPH has no money to return them. Can they force the IPH receivers to live up to the contract, or do they just have to wait the process out and hope that in the end, after everything is either sold or scrapped, that there will be enough left to pay to get them home? Or do they bite the bullet, cancel the lease, and pay to go and get them?

I, personally, have been low on the creditor list in a couple of bankruptcy events. The further that you get down the list, the less likely that you are to get anything, and no matter how important that money is to you personally, you are usually in the group that gets nothing at all.

It looks like a lot of tough choices for a lot of people.

From an August 28, 2019 article in the Hood River News:Link to full article: MHRR owes nearly $10,000 to Parkdale museum

In the case of the "LV" locos above:

I have actual experience working with parties to "repossess" rolling stock.

The critical factors involved include the railroad and property owner being willing to get the equipment "out of their way," and someone willing to pay the freight costs to the Class Ones or whoever moves it.

If someone has locked a derail on the siding for unpaid storage fees, that's a different story.

If URHS wants these locos back badly enough, they're gonna have to pay whatever costs to repossess them--and that should have been in the bank right from the start. In essence, the deposit on the locos, much like a security deposit, should have been calculated specifically to cover such shipping costs. The two parties I assisted in repossession both told me that they never saw a single payment for the equipment once they showed up on the lessors' properties--a word of experience to the wise.

And unless someone is a skilled diplomat or URHS already has business accounts with CSX, NS, etc., they're going to have to pay up front to get these back under their control.

The reality is that both these locos are former C&NW F7s, and not LV or locos original to New Jersey (although they ran on NJ Transit for a spell). URHS is stuck with the difficult decision of what to do with these as economic assets, not historical artifacts. And the market's a bit soft right now.......

From experience up here trying to get anything once a company has gone into bankruptcy/receivership, well, good luck. The receiver calls the shots and follows procedure.
Government gets the first crack, major lenders like banks are up top, employees should get something, the rest of the poor moops may get a few baubles, or more likely, nothing.

Diden't they have some F40PHs or were thoes owned by LETX?