Actually since 2008, we have been working on raising money to get the SP 794 restored. Our group, The Friends of the SP 794, a division of the San Antonio Railroad Heritage Museum, was established for that very task. We are hoping to raise the money to have the 794 restored to operation by 2016.

I've heard rumors and rumblings of a restoration for 794 for awhile. With the 786 and the 745 that would make three quarters of the existing T&NO mikes operational. If you could raise money to restore the 771, you could effectively return an entire class of steam locomotives to operation. I think if you pushed that idea, you could certainly raise the money needed.

Mike S.

Having this T&NO steamer back in service by 2016, funding permitting? That sounds like the most reasonable timeline I've heard in a long time! Where does one send a donation? Is there a P.O Box that it can be mailed to, or is it possible to donate through electronic mediums?

Did anybody else flash on the old fortune-telling arcade machines when reading this? I think they only donated to the profits of the arcade owners.

dave

Services like Paypal come to mind for submitting donations electronically...

With the 771, start with a new boiler and go from there. As far as the other three Mikes are concerned....

1. There is a place to run them...

2. They can haul anything you think you could haul at a resonable speed, within reasonable limits;

3. They can run almost anywhere.

4. This represents an almost unparralelled opportunity to return all the surviving members of a class of locomotives in service, with an actual chance to run.

So boys and girls..here is your chance. Let's get them all restored and put the finances behind the restorations. Wanna see it happen? All it takes is determination and money, usually in that order.

Yes, I had heard about it's condition. From what I can remember, the locomotive was inspected and the frame was found to be usable. And if I'm correct, I believe that was all that was found usable.

But even so, worse locomotives have been restored to operation before. I can't think of any, but I know that at least one started life in as bad a shape as the 771.

I live in the Dallas area, so if something gets going on the 771, I'm on board.

Mike S.

We do have a PO Box and you can donate through our website via Paypal. Our mailing address is:

Friends of the SP 794
P.O. Box 794
Elmendorf, TX 78112

And yes, we did diliberately get the PO box 794. It was luck that it was even available to start with, so we took it. It was only fitting!

Now as for the question of where will we be running her... We attenatively have that covered. We have been in talks with City Officials regarding our plan and they are very supportive of having a full scale tourist railroad operation in San Antonio. After all we are a major tourist city to begin with. From our talks with the City we learned that there is a plan to acquire the remaining portion of the old SA&AP Kerrville Main up to the end of the line at Beckmann(total of 15 miles). Granted it is not as big of a run as what ASTA has in Austin, but it is something to start with.

Our eventual goal is to acquire the old SA&AP Rockport sub from the current end of the line in Elmendorf, TX down to Kenedy, TX, a total of 46 miles. This is also why I say eventually because those tracks were removed back in 2000, however the UPRR still owns the land. The major bridge crossing are still in place which is a big help, but will still require work to make use of them again since the approaches were removed to prevent people from getting on top. We have already talked to the UPRR about acquiring the ROW to Kenedy with the idea of having our own trackage to run on without having to utilize too much of the UPRR's DelRio Sub. The biggest plus would be a longer run. We would still be running the Kerrville line, but with a smaller locomotive...

I whole heartedly agree!!! My dream would be to do periodic meets with all four Mikados in different places or each of their homes. These would be hugh events that would attract people from all over. Not to mention the first meet would be the most historic since it would be the first time these four have been together since when??? I am sure at one point they may have shared stalls in some roundhouse somewhere with one or two of their sisters, but not all four together! To me this is something to strive for!

771 made an impressive display locomotive in Victoria. I would love to see her get a second chance in steam.

At one time one of our goals was to go retrieve the SP 771 and bring her to San Antonio. We did not hear about the sale til it was too late for us to act. It is sad to hear what the movers did to the locomotive. Granted new parts can be fabricated, but it is an unneeded expence if her boiler is in such bad shape. However we did hear the same thing about our boiler, but since we have had Mr. Scott Lindsey from Steam Operations Corp come down and look her over, he feels that the 794 is in much better shape then what was originally thought. We have already had a camera inside the boiler and from what we have seen of other boilers interiors that were wasted, it looks good! We had no garbage build-up along the mud ring or on the bottom of the boiler. We still have not done a UT on it, but hopefully that will come next year some time. Oh, and yes we have tapped SOC to conduct the rebuild on the SP 794.

I sadly have no recent pictures but a quick insert about 771 and the boiler issue.

Lets go ahead and say the boiler is more than likely a total loss. Granted I am in no way a steam locomotive expert, and its been awhile since I've been down to Grapevine, but last time I looked her over, the bottom edge of the smoke-box was rusted through pretty bad. To me that says its one dead boiler.

Anyone else care to share?

Smokeboxes are easy. Boilers are hard. What would be imminently helpful in a project like this would be drawings and blueprints. The MK5's are a Harriman Common Standard design, used by the Southern Pacific, Union Pacific, and Illinois Central, with the UP's closest to being throughout its service life the closest to the T&NO locomotives. It's worth a shot to see if they if any drawings for the locomotives still exist.

Sacramento has piles and piles of elevation and mechanical drawings for various Harriman Mikes. I bought a few side elevation drawings for IC engines about a year ago.