The actual story--the back story, as it were--is not quite as you have cast it, though it's just as interesting. With the safe remove of so many years, I share it. We ran a fundraiser to acquire the Lion Gardiner a number of years ago after Iowa Pacific (IP) defaulted in its purchase agreement with the Empire State Railroad Museum when ESRM needed the car moved or it would be scrapped. My understanding is the agreement with IP required the car to be moved by a certain date and that that date had been missed by quite some time. We offered to step in and entered into an agreement with ESRM. As we began to raise awareness and funds to move the car, IP took notice and prevailed upon ESRM that even though they had defaulted on their agreement, they should nonetheless be afforded an opportunity to cure. ESRM afforded them that opportunity, believing (quite rightly at that time, I think) that the Lion Gardiner would be better suited to IP's planned long-distance trains. We wrote all those persons who donated and offered to refund them or to put those funds to other purposes. With the clarity of hindsight, I wish we had acquired it at that time.

Actually there is MORE YET to the story, which I was following closely in 2013 when all this happened. The Lion Gardiner was parked (along with one DL&W and two CNJ mu cars, a gondola and an open top hopper car) east of Kingston NY on the Catskill Mountain Railroad main, due to out of service track including a weak bridge (that was eventually wiped out by Sandy) between there and the other CMRR operation at Phoenicia, which is where the ESRM was located. By 2013 CMRR had replaced the timbers on a long bridge just east of Kingston and was restoring track toward Phoenicia, and needed the car out of the way. At the same time CMRR was being harassed by the county, who owned the track, and the Kingston mayor, both of whom wanted to evict CMRR so as to get bike trail funds from the state. Lion Gardiner was included in this harassment, with the mayor claiming that CMRR wanted to bring it in to town and sandblast it, potentially spreading lead paint everywhere in his telling, and culminating with the infamous dump truck on the track, until the mayor found out he was violating federal law and removed it.

So, CMRR needed to find someone interested in the Lion Gardiner. The caption of the top photo reads: "Cars Head East. The 4322, a twin to our Phoenicia cars (left) will be restored by the CMRR, and the Lion Gardiner (right) will go to a new home for renovation." We're still waiting for the renovation. Top photo: Dave Hilliard; bottom photo: Ernest Hunt.