If you own a railcar and wish to keep it it would be well to maintain it, letter it, post it, or better yet move it to your own secured site.

The railroad museum in Savannah was given the last riveted C of G tank car some years back. It was stored on a spur in the port and used to store cooking oil. The museum never retrieved it, and lost whatever documentation pertained to the gift.

The business donating it moved. A new business took over the site. Despite the car being on railroad rather than private land, the new business scrapped it without notice.

I had been working to get a new letter of gift from the corporate successor to the original donors in the meantime to allow me to pick it up.

Ironically, the C of G RHS was in town for a convention and got some fine pictures of the car being cut up.

Point being, get something on paper, preserve the paper, and don't let the car rot for years before taking it to a safe place.

dave

irondave@bellsouth.net

Abandoned property laws are something that need to be considered. I am not expert on this but have had some dealing with it. Some states (regions?) have laws that after a certain number of years (typically 7) a loaned object my become the property of whoever has custody of it unless there has been verifiable communication between the two parties regarding the loan.

On the opposite side of the spectrum, I have heard stories of relatives of people who have loaned artwork to museums tracking the art down after the death of the owner and walking in and demanding it. The museum may have paperwork saying the piece was on long term loan but that term is vague and unless something was specifically written in the will regarding it there is not much the museum can do.

One last thing touched on above is receiving objects that have liens on them. Included in the dead of gift there should be a proviso the there are no liens against it, otherwise you may well be taking possession of someone elses debt.

As stated earlier, good paperwork is the key.

Roger

belpaire@aol.com

A number of people have stated that you need documentation for the gift or sale. Just bear in mind that all that documentation does is transfer whatever ownership that party MAY have had in the item. Any liens, court orders or prior sales would invalidate or restrict what you THINK you own. Caveat emptor still holds true in these cases so you really need to research who owns the item.

colfaxrr@wwt.net

Talking to some of the 'oldhats' from the "Heber Creeper" operation of 1970-1989, this was not the only piece of equipment (not owned by Ashton) that "disappeared" from the property during his third (?) and final bankruptcy. Some early members of the local chapter felt it was better for their "personally owned" equipment to be in use in Heber than sitting in open storage out at the southend of the Great Salt (emphasis on the word 'salt') Lake.

As has been pointed out above, there is at times too much trust in the handshake and not enough paperwork done. I have found this to be particularly (though not exclusively) the case where there might be a singularly dominate culture/religion in the region.

Many individuals (or surviving family members, as I understand in one case) were surprised that their equipment had 'disappeared' with Ashton's bankruptcy proceedings.

In many ways you can't fault the buyers (Kyle and partners in this case) for what was in all likelihood misrepresented -- but on the other hand, the original owner has the right to pursue the return of his property/or compensation for same.

Ain't America great!!!

and it just shows to go ya that you don't have to be a skunk to be a stinker!

sc 'doc' lewis


Heber Valley Railroad
utweyesguy@aol.com

> This points out why you shouldn't have
> privately owned rail vehicles in your museum
> collection. Many horror tales abound in the
> industry about the owner who shows up and
> says "I'm gonna take all my marbles and
> go home."

I have to voice my disagreement with this. SCRM has a lot of privately-owned equipment on site; there are a few elements of the agreements we have that I think could be done better, but overall our system works. A blanket policy against private equipment isn't really necessary if you address a few issues head-on.

With half a dozen privately-owned cars on the property, we've only ever had the above threat made by one owner. This individual owns one of the four CN cars -- the other three are Museum-owned. Our response was simply, "Fine, take it out of service. We've got three others just like it, so we don't need yours. By the way, if we can't use it any more, your rent will be X or you'll have to move it off the property within 30 days."

The car is still in service.

As long as you're not relying on privately-owned equipment exclusively, I really don't see a problem with it. Just make sure you have written agreements in place with the owner that either incurs a penalty if X isn't done or allows the organization to take posession. A verbal agreement, as the saying goes, isn't worth the paper it's written on.

The South Carolina Railroad Museum
mconrad@msmgmt.com