I have always been really impressed with the steamlocomotive.com website database for all the surviving steam locomotives. One thing though that I think is missing is the list of the most endangered, or at least the ability to both search and rate states security, where actively part of a museum collection in great condition is a 10, owned by private old guy who is in his 80's family with no interest rusting away maybe gets a 3, and city trying to foreclose on the land wants to scrap it gets a 1. The key one that really gets me thinking is the following;
viewtopic.php?f=1&t=25056

Now that little 0-4-0 tank engine what do you think the weight in scrap was on her? Is 40tons a reasonable guess? At about $250 a ton, she is worth $10,000 in scrap. Are my numbers right or am I high on the weight for that small a locomotive? With that being said though if someone must come out cut her up and truck her out and make a profit what would a scrapper be willing to pay? I am thinking after you cut her all up $5K on the locomotive? Do these numbers sound reasonable? Heck I bet if the city cut her up as they wanted her gone and a museum made a reasonable offer the city likely would have donated her outright.

None the less the numbers above should appear to make this feasible to anyone who really wants it bad enough. Many guys spend lots more than that restoring old cars in their garages, and the Gramblings have proved it isn't impossible to do with steam locomotives if you want it bad enough, so why don't we also keep tabs on the long term safety of stuff so if someone is interested in getting a piece of XYZ they know where to look? Even on the bigger stuff I would think that a museum or organization wanting a bigger locomotive may want to keep tabs on one that fits their needs and is rusting away in a park.

I also think such a list would helpful when you read here about cars that get scrapped after the museum sat on them for 5-10years with no takers. I am sure every museum has its pieces that if the right person came by and offered a scrap price or a little more it could be theirs. Would such a list be viable and be able to generate the level of success that a steamlocomotive.com list has been able to accomplish?

I would volunteer to start a website such as this but I almost think such a thing would be far better executed as part of an existing site like a steam locomotive.com list where just one extra column allowed every tracked piece of equipment to be ranked in terms of stability into the future on a scale 1-10, where if someone looking to save it wanted one they would have a good idea to look. Of course the only downside with a steamlocomotive.com column is it wouldn't serve the purpose on passenger cars, older diesel locomotives but I think would still be a very good thing to have.

"Ahead of the Torch" was such a website. I don't know if it is still alive.

You make an interesting point about the value of scrap. I recall Don Wood argued with the Jersey Central management about saving the last Camelback ten-wheeler, #774. Don made the point that they'd get $5,000 in scrap (at that time) for the locomotive, an amount they would spend in less than a day and never miss it, and they'd still be out an important piece of CNJ history. Don's point fell on deaf ears.

When railfans offered Guilford scrap value for the last operable MEC U18B, the scrapper offer $100 more, and the preservationists lost out.

Locating the last of a locomotive type is important, but making it important enough to preserve is the hard part. If you choose to move forward on the project, I wish you luck and support.

The harder issue I see in running such a site is how the present owner would feel about you doing a writeup on the engine they own. I know of one locomotive. A neat little 0-4-0T. Apparently it is owned by an older individual in his 70's. It has been taken all apart, in hopes of a now likely never to happen restoration so it sits. I visited and was told it is not for sale. but given the owner's health didn't sound like it was the best who knows what the future for it would be.

I am not sure what the value would be or if the owner ever will get to the point where he is willing to sell, but I am pretty sure that I personally could afford to pay scrap price for her and at least get her to a presentable state where for the time being I could display her in a proper place. Then maybe even a few years down the road when I finish the current 1/4 scale steam locomotive I am building it may be fun to try pulling off a Grambling with the little engine. Some people restore cars in their garage, this would be a fun alternative.

Of course the real issue is how happy would the present owner be if I were to post such details on a website about that locomotive and a bunch of people come running over there and bug them all the time. Thus I think one great way of doing this would just be an expansion of an already great system we have, would just be to rate the current health of ownership or something where the less you publish in some cases the better? Any good ideas on how to actually do this?

For example searching steamlocomotive.com's website I see status of some engines sitting under a pile of scrap, which never sounds that encouraging. In that case that one is in the Kovalchic scrap yard so I don't know if that is good or bad. But how many other engines are there sitting out there that may be very close to the torch that if only people knew could possibly go to a better home? What would it have cost to say buy that little engine that was cut up in that thread. Unlike some of the bigger stuff I bet it would be quite reasonable.

I don't run the steamlocomotive.com website, but I do run the steamlocomotive.info website which is approximately as comprehensive as Wes Barris's .com site. To understand why your proposal won't likely be executed, you'd need to see what it is like to run one of these sites.

You get a constant barrage of email telling you that your factual data is WRONG! WRONG! WRONG! In about 20% or 30% of the cases the emailer is correct, but it takes research to verify the information they're trying to provide.

Now to try to imagine that I added your rating system to my site, and allowed site visitors to rate the security of the locomotive/asset/whatever. That rating is purely 100% subjective. It has no objective reality, except in the mind of the rater. Try to imagine the deluge of critical email I'd get, and try to imagine the extent to which people would up or down rate a locomotive's "security" solely to affect/annoy/influence its owner.

You don't think that would happen? You're dreaming. There's one locomotive in our database that if you visit its page, the visit count won't increment. Why? Because some fanboys took it upon themselves to write a program to repeatedly fetch that page to up the counts, so their "favorite" locomotive would appear at the top of the "Top 5 Most Popular" thing on the front page. So after asking them to stop and getting sneered at, programming was added to make it impossible for that ONE locomotive to have a visitor count.

If you visit steamlocomotive.info you'll discover that there's a "Note System" that allows you to post notes that attach to a specific locomotive. Originally it was unmoderated. That didn't last long. Again fanboys used the notes to ridicule various restoration projects and praise their favorites. So a moderation system was put in place. Now there are 10,000 or so notes posted, and the vast majority of them are informative and useful? Why? Because we added a moderation system, and notes don't appear until they've been examined by an editor. 10,000 notes is pretty impressive. Try to imagine the 70,000 or so that have been disapproved.

Want to see some of the notes? Try: http://steamlocomotive.info/notelistingx.cfm?startval=1

And yes, the startval parameter is carefully tested before use, so that kiddie hackers can't try to use it to do SQL injection hacks. (That used to happen a lot too). You did read that right, and some careful testing proved that at least two of the kiddie hackers were also visitors/posters to RyPN. I'll leave it to you to figure out how I tested that.

Unfortunately (or fortunately) reality mitigates against the usefulness of your idea.

I don't like bursting people's bubbles--oh, wait, yes, I do, especially if those bubbles insulate them from education and perpetuate ignorance.....

Anyway....

The purpose of these "most endangered" lists is not usually the preservation of the items or things listed. Almost always, the lists are compiled to bring publicity to the organization or group issuing the press releases, with a secondary purpose of advancing the agendas of said organization, which may or may not involve the direct preservation of the things mentioned.

The National Trust for Historic Preservation started its annual "11 Most Endangered Historic Places" list in 1988. Since then, the results have been mixed at best for the 242 sites listed, with some outright "saves," a few total losses, and far too many languishing as still endangered--the most notable being the East Broad Top, which made the list in 1996. (One major critique of the annual list is that far too many "places" are horribly abstract or widespread to be realistically acted upon without a major national or international initiative--examples being "historic Black churches of the South," "Historic Post Office Buildings"--on the 2012 list--and "Historic places in transmission line corridors.") These press releases are almost always guaranteed placement, at least token, in national and local news media on whatever slow news day they are released (which these days is almost every day, as far as the news media is concerned), and are also prominently placed in any news media in the immediate vicinity of any specific place as "local landmark gains national significance."

Other groups or agencies, such as state historical societies or special interest groups, also issue their own "statewide" lists or "10 Most Endangered [Fill In The Blank With A Place Of Some Sort]". Here's one for bridges in the United States: http://bridgehunter.com/story/1172/

These lists would be much more useful if they routinely linked to responsible fund-raising efforts dedicated to the preservation or saving of the "endangered." Often, that's not possible--the place is private property, or already in the hands of a government entity. More typically, however, the real (albeit sometimes indirect) intention of these sorts of lists is to browbeat or guilt-trip other people--governments, agencies, whatever--into spending yet other people's monies (typically tax dollars) on a project they favor.

I've mentioned another approach here recently. The laboratory of Nikolai Tesla in Shoreham, New York was endangered:
http://theoatmeal.com/blog/tesla_museum (Warning: mild profanity alert)
The result (ditto on the profanity):
http://www.indiegogo.com/teslamuseum

Now, if you created a "Most Endangered Steamers" list with a Kickstarter or Indiegogo link at each one to an appropriate and trustworthy caretaker or charity.......

And besides which, we STILL don't have a national list or database of preserved railroad equipment yet. Steam locomotives, yes. Diesels, maybe, if you combine several sites' data. Stations are covered by the Railroad Station Historical Society, and there may be a list of cabooses still. But freight and passenger cars?

Well first off thank you very much for putting together one of the most comprehensive databases there are for steam locomotives in existence. The second part I guess is understandable to some degree but pretty disturbing 70,000 disapproved notes for every 10,000 useful ones is quite sad when you consider the fact that one would hope the people who visit your site would all more or less share the same goals/hopes of preserving some of the most marvelous mechanical creations man has ever made, and only want to help contribute to a great site like yours.

I am also surprised to hear that you stated only 25% of your comments on the situation of an engine are actually approved for posting. Once again I would have hoped like minded people to my self would have been more honest than that and would do a bit more diligence in posting the correct information. I didn't realize the extent to which you actually must play referee on such a site. Here's a question do you verify every posting or give the benefit of the doubt to the guy submitting the information to you. Clearly you can't go out there and look at every locomotive that is out there and access the current condition, and state of it so what is the cause of that 75% of the comments getting booted? How do you ensure the integrity of your results if you can't visit them all and play referee?

Do you see any good way to accomplish a list or some degree a process that allows for the flagging pieces of equipment around the country or even world for that matter that may be at a high level of risk so that those who may be interested in such a piece know where to find it? I know we have had the discussion that ensues over and over again from those who are upset when they see images of someone scrapping a piece they would love to have and and maybe even had the resources to obtain if only they had known it was available. I don't want to jump into the debate of whether it should/shouldn't have been scrapped in the first place but rather is there any possible way with modern databases to figure out how to be proactive against these types of things, in other words let the whole world easily search out and find pieces in precarious situations, and make the decision of if they fit their wants and go try to get them?

I am sure that many of the people reading this post know of something right now that is sitting out there likely in a high state of risk from the torch, that really ought to be saved by someone yet they themselves don't have much interest in doing the work. How can a system be created to document those pieces such that if one wants one they can search and find one, or is it just too impossible?

I don't think it's as much a lack of PR as a lack of quality of pursuit.......

Opening a Pandora's box of flaky foamers to information that encourages them to harass from a distance the 80 year old guy you mention will simply turn him off to the nonflaky solicitations and the rest of humanity in general.

Nonflaky potential owners need to prepare themselves and position themselves...by making friends with the owner, gently and frequently letting him now if their interest, and perhaps also meeting the heirs.....so there's a natural transsfer when the time comes. It is also always good to have a war chest handy to pay for appraisal, transport, etc. Heirs aren't always patient.

dave

If there was an endangered railroad site/object list, I could logically come from this site…
If this site was going to do this… I would suggest a process, in three steps…

First, a nomination process from the member of the site.

Secondly, from the list of nominees listed, a voting process… not driven by votes, but by commentary from members of this site

Finally (thirdly) a list from a panel of judges.

We would want a similar list of successful projects… same process… on a different timeline.

Thoughts???

I like the Google Docs format Les and I used for the surviving two-bay hopper list. It is easier to maintain than a website, affords opportunity for true collaboration (meaning one guy doesn't do all the work) and was spawned from RYPN.

Rob

I think the list would be helpful versus the current scatter shot situation but the list itself would be a baby step inasmuch as is such a list existed, it would seem it's only chance of being a means to an end, would be to educate and promote in the general public, a desire to get out their wallets or checkbooks. However you have to have an organisation to collect the money, etc for a actual purchase. I think a less complicated approach would be a comprehensive list of locomotives etc that are in need of funds to complete restoration. Where is that list? Finding out this information currently is a matter of happenstance as well. Organizing information into a central repository for PR purposes is an idea that could lead to naturally, a more organised approach, even if such a list is not an answer onto itself. Without doubt such a list is better than no list at all. Without a from the ground up community organizing effort attached to it ( like the Telsa effort or the National Trust) such a list would collect dust and be continually revised as items were scrapped. So the question is ( to me) whether such a organizing effort of activism would be placed locally or nationally? I think this listing needs further thinking and discussion.

I'd just like to offer a few thoughts on this proposal...
First, how will the logistics of maintaining this list fit into the goal? What sort of process could be used? I would institute a similar format to steamlocomotive.info. It's simple, effective and provides the plus of user-capable editing
Second, how often will the list be updated? Who will be doing the research to update the information of every piece of equipment on that list? Working through the Parent Professional Advocacy League, I've run into that hurdle and it is an absolute pain to deal with. It's even more time consuming when the list isn't consistently updated.
Third, what sort of scale will be used? Will there be a rating scale to identify which pieces of equipment is in more of a scrap-prone position? I'd set such a scale up on a tier system such as this;

good repair
safe
deassessed
minor cosmetic damage (low risk)
deteriorating (medium risk)
heavy deterioration (high risk)

Finally, what criteria would be used to get a piece of equipment on this list?

The problem with the statement above is it only really works if the piece you are interested happens to be rather close by, and there is someone somewhat local who knows the current situation it is in. If on the other hand there is no local interest for a particular piece if there is little good way to put the word out there it seems like we will likely be able to read of more stories of stuff getting scrapped that people may indeed have had the means to save. I guess at the end of the day these cars and or locomotives are just equipment not people but I personally think if someone is out there with the means and resources to save something, or even better if someone is out there with the means, resources and the specific want for a piece of equipment and one just like it is about to be cut up 500-1000miles away it would be really nice to have a list that allows that item to stand out from the crowd.

Just wondering how does the Google docs work?

As for the authentication of information I would think if such a list exists it should air on the side of the poster at the risk of posting the wrong information, so that if someone is motivated as such they have a good starting point to track down more information.

What really blows me away however reading Steaminfo's post here about how only 1/8 of the comments that his site received were actually helpful. I don't know about others experiences but for every 100 stories/complaints of obnoxious fan boys I hear of I would say I come across one or two that really fit the description and in the mean time also stumble across another 20-25 really decent good people. I would have actually made this a topic of how to start such a site but with so many great resources out there I would thought such a list could be more of an attached add on to an already successful one that could run with minimal moderation. I would not have thought that there were so many idiots out there that would try to screw a good thing like that up!

That's where word-of-mouth and networking comes into the picture.

Over time you learn who is working on what, and can be trusted to not act in such a way as to create problems and drama. A word or two spoken between friends that way creates no potential problems....and trusted rational friends in the industry know others and can also filter pretty well, so.....it will eventually reach the critical people providing it is started.

If only idiots know, the war is already lost.

dave

I was thinking about this thread and the answer came to me.

It doesn't exist because none of us have done it.

In Canada, the ground work does exist in the form of the ByTown Railway Society's Canadian Trackside Guide which chornicles many things but of note to us is a list of most of the known historic railway equipment in Canada. It may not get down to every last boxcar, but it is close.

No one has undertaken that in the US. I tried to do it for the northeast US but that was too much for one person, even with the work on steam locomotives and cabooses already done by others.

Rob

Dave I ran a quick search over at steamlocomotive.info on Scrapped and USA and found the following results;

We lost 5, 0-4-0 locomotives;
We lost 5, 0-6-0 locomotives;
We lost 1, 0-8-0 locomotive;


The most interesting thing about the losses above is that the engines we are loosing aren't these massive engines worth tens of grand in scrap and likely to cost a fortune to move and require a huge fundraising effort and multiple people to save, but rather they have been smaller and easier to save engines. Sure a few of the smaller ones were fireless engines but still in my opinion far more interesting than another diesel (I speak for myself here, and not the voice of the forum). Cleaned up a little I would think they would be worth keeping maybe even run on compressed air from time to time to make an interesting little demo especially if the organization owning them didn't have the resources to run a steam locomotive.

What is particularly frustrating with the loss of such smaller engines is today there has already been a precedent set that shows the private ownership and even restoration to operation of such engines only takes one or two motivated individuals. Furthermore these can also be the perfect little engines to either start or add onto an existing group. I know of a few like this that run at existing thresher groups they also would probably be the perfect way to bring a steam team into other groups that may not have the resources needed to obtain and maintain a larger locomotive. So clearly the old boys network you describe is falling short from time to time especially on the smaller more manageable stuff.

As we all know they aren't making any more of these so the loss of supply is quite disappointing. I think it also speaks to the weakness of simply relying on a small regional network of friends, professionals or people in the know. I don't know what the solution to the problem is but It would be nice to find one.