Hi,

I had a blackout last night at my computer. When I came to, there was a alot of smoke and smell of sulfur in the air. A voice hollered "take heed and learn to preserve wisely." It came from my Macintosh!!!

Then this e-mail appeared.

Wild!

Rob Davis

Just last week, the USA E-News carried a piece about the retirement of the last operational locomotive to actually belong to the once glorious Santa Fe railroad. It was a GE Techno-toaster Dash 9 of some sort, #610. It had hung on the Santa Fe successor roads until 2008 when it was traded in to GE on new power. Nobody figured it would have any significance at that time. Many locomotives from the AT&SF were still runningÂ… even some steam locomotives from 100 years ago!

Anyway, the unit ended up being resold to a leasing company and spent the next 10 years in relative obscurity on an eastern Canada ore hauler. It was retired from service there last week, March 5, 2019.

Some railfans in Chicago had been tracking the whereabouts of Santa Fe locomotives since the year 2015, as they had been becoming quite rare. The last restored Santa Fe steam engine to operate, a 4-8-4 down in the southwest, proved to be uneconomical to keep operational and was retired to indoor storage in late 2014. A few Alco diesels from Santa Fe kept rollingÂ… a PA made it to 2015Â… even one of the Alligators on a tourist road, until 2017. By October of that year, expatriate #610 was the last Santa Fe locomotive in operation.

So, when old Santa Fe #610 ended her useful days in Canada, these Chicago buffs wanted her back in the states. The pursuit of the engine began in earnest in August of 2018 when the railroad announced all the GEÂ’s would be retired by Spring of 2019.

A rash of steam locomotive scrappings over the last ten years had failed to organize the railfan community’s preservation efforts, so unfortunately the “Chicago Seven” as the buffs were known had no choice but to do it on their own. (Others have chronicled the steam locomotive problem, so I will not recount the full list…).

Raising the money for old warbonnet was not a problem. The Chicago Seven had the resources to buy the old unit at scrap value and by the Summer of 2018 #610 was headed for a one-way trip back to the Windy City.

And that is where the uncertainty began.

A little background: Several of the large failed-railroad museums of the 2000Â’s had failed not because of antiquated machines, but because of antiquated business savvy. The scrap prices exceeded sentimental value as creditors looked to make whatever they could. It was the museums that lost sight of the moneyÂ… not the bankers. Turning that collection of mid-1900Â’s steam down the road into tuna cans was not easy to watch, but it settled the bankruptcy.

For the Chicago Seven, these lessons were well learned. It has been their intention to restore #610 to her as-built appearance in the famous red and silver Santa Fe “Warbonnet,” but that isn’t where the heart of the project lies for them. They want to display the locomotive and interpret it for future generations, with a short train to go with it.

Unfortunately, while train buffs were vigilant in trying to save every piece of metal or cloth from the steam era, there was precious little interest in anything of the modern era being earmarked for future display.

Thus, the Chicago Seven, with the title to #610 coming to them in short order, set about to find some remnant of the famous stack-trains that #610 and her kin used to pull. These monster trains revived railroading in the 1990’s unlike anything seen since WWII. #610 would be used with 4 or 5 sisters to pull over a mile of double stack container “platforms.” Since the Chicago Seven had just one locomotive, they were planning to build a much shorter train.

Old shipping containers were found to put in a stack car. They are common on farms and urban lots. The “platforms” themselves proved elusive. A set of later Thrall company cars were found, but the 5-unit articulated set had lost two of its center cars and was thus incomplete. Eventually, the Chicago Seven stumbled across a set of cars built by the Gunderson company for the TTX company. The 5-unit set was in a Washington State scrap yard with no remaining rail connection. The purchase was made, though the cars still await transportation to the Chicago area.

In the meantime, the Chicago Seven came to realize #610 was much more of a precious commodity than they had thought. Of the thousands of GE six axle Dash 8 & Dash 9 locomotives built for North American service, she was the last one in existenceÂ… a well-intentioned museum project in Texas had gone under in October 2018 and the Union Pacific GEÂ’s held for display there had been scrapped. #610 was alone.

So, what do seven train buffs do with a locomotive in eastern Canada and some train cars in Washington? They are not quite sure. They feel like it is déjà vu, like when their fathers used to tell them how only one E-7 type passenger engine survived (and still exists in Pennsylvania). And they also know that the mass scrapings and museum failures put them on very shaky ground. They want to interpret their equipment for the public. They want to make sure historic #610 has a sound future and a meaningful educational role. But for now, they just want her to survive… survive better than the 153 steam locomotives scrapped in the past 15 years.



Inlinebob@aol.com

History is always a moving target. Sometimes we all forget this. Very Nice job on your essay.

David Farlow

rfarlow@bcaconsultants.com

Well done.......Must enjoyable..........Maybe not far from the truth..............................

Some rationality is starting to exist in the museum community. Witness the Steamtown program to thin the ranks, as well as the Conn Trolley Museum's reported efforts as well as that in several other well respected locations.

So much can be learned from the "Missing locomotives of Roanoke", the Lynchburg engine and other artifacts. Here today.....Gone tomorrow.

The wrting will surely make for some deep consideration.

I cannot wait until the next installment.



v-scarpitti@worldnet.att.net