Well what are the options? You could fix them and use them on your railroad which would be expensive and bring railfans which you supposedly don't want around. You could donate them to some non-profit group but if the value that can be reasonably put on them is less than you think they are worth (or even what you paid/put into them) then that's no deal. You could sell them but again if no one will pay what you think they are worth you don't do the sale.

This of course assumes rational thought. I know of a case right now where someone is going to scrap two valuable cars at a huge loss just to prevent anyone from saving them - basically if I can't play no one else will either. As someone else has said let's be thankful that they haven't met this kind of fate.

I seem to recall hearing that, but I don’t think that was a consideration. I believe this was back in the heady days when Mr. Larkin was actively collecting Baldwins, and Mr. Kunzie had just bought the sharks. I assume they felt that a donor could be found for prime mover and other equipment (an AS-16 was all the same mechanicals as a RF-16 but in a different package, no?) but the condition of the original fabric which remained brought everyone back to reality. As it was, it never happened.

Kunzie told me years ago, as we were discussing how much money one could spend on lawyers and still receive nothing of value, that his original plan was to lease the sharks for long enough to repay their purchase price, then donate them to a museum. It proved to be a flawed plan, because the kind of shortline operation that is most likely to lease oddball power is also the least likely to be able to pay for it if they break it, and that’s exactly what happened. I recall hearing that the unit without the screwed up prime mover was involved in a low speed collision, and has major problems with the frame / draft gear / coupler at one end.

I personally am rather happy that they are where they are. If they would have remained serviceable the remaining original fabric would have slowly been lost trying to keep them in service. Now, some thirty years later, no one will ever contemplate putting them in actual service again, so wherever they end up they can be restored for occasional light duty use.

Just think of the collection at Wells as a potential pool of interesting stuff that will be a nice break from collecting F40PH’s and Amfleet cars.

Have a Happy Thanksgiving!

Any locomotive with a covered wagon type carbody and a fatally failed prime mover would make a superb indoor display at a museum, with the engine room cleaned up and equipped with good interior lighting, and glass panels installed on one or both sides.

PC

The argument has always been whether or not said loco is "fatally" failed or not. I've heard it argued that, in an extreme case, the scored crankshaft could be repaired with welding build-up, but I'll leave it to the real mechanics to decide whether this is someone under the influence of questionable substances or not. If the crankshaft in question IS totally "failed", the problem has always been that of the fifteen Baldwins (including two down to frames) left on the E&LS property, ONLY the Sharks have eight-cylinder 608 blocks, with the rest having 606 engines. Of the potential donor locos I can identify out there, Trona 52 at SMS has the exact same malady, Trona 53 is potentially operable on SMS (radiator replacement, maybe from 52?), Trona 54 is in use by SMS, and as far as I can tell all the other potential domestic donors are owned by museums or other preservationists:

http://baldwindiesels.railfan.net/exist ... roster.htm

I have trouble picturing someone going to Brazil or Jamaica just to get a crankshaft for an otherwise oddball loco, but stranger things have happened. Although it's possible for a museum to sacrifice a crankshaft from a loco deemed display-only, it's not good museum policy to do so.

Now, if I can just shake this hopeless fantasy of liberating the three ex-SAL RS12's from E&LS for the SCRM, Savannah Roundhouse Museum, and either Florida or NCTM......

Don't forget the Belgian parts that made it here!

Don't I recall that a lot of De La Vergne engines from various Baldwin locomotives ended up in tugboats or drill rigs? Maybe some of them are still around?

As interesting as this is, it seems to me that this
is just a money problem. Having seen the Brits
build a fairly large engine from scratch and have
at least 5 other projects engaged in same, surely
it is possible to simply fabricate a diesel locomotive.
Yes, vastly more expensive and complex but
this is just a money problem.

Let's put it this way:

In all my years, I've seen hundreds of scale live steamers, be they simply adapted designs built around an available steam boiler or serious attempts to miniaturize a locomotive as exactly as boiler codes allow.

I've seen gasoline-mechanical and gasoline-hydraulic locomotives on live-steam-gauge track, all with normal-sized non-scale gasoline engines running under a scale hood. I've also seen battery-electric locomotives on said track. The most extreme I've seen was a very small loco running of a scale aircraft glow-plug engine.

I've yet to see an operating scale-replica internal-combustion engine of any kind, diesel or gasoline. I've yet to see, first-hand, someone riding behind a scale diesel-electric or gas-electric. They exist, but not that many.

Can anybody tell me of a single internal-combustion loco, anywhere in the world, that doesn't already exist AND would be worth the $10-25 million it would cost to replicate from scratch, AND justify the expenditure for any excuse other than the fanatical, raving lunacies and delusions of someone with way more money than sense? Even the probable "most worthy" candidate, the Alco PA project, almost defies practical reason, and I don't see anyone suggesting it be refitted with a new 244 engine.

And as a side note to Onder, most, if not all, of the referenced other British projects to replicate extinct British steam locomotives are NOT going as far as the A1 Tornado Project. They are beginning (or proposing to begin) with a pre-existing frame, boiler, wheels, etc. of a currently existing derelict locomotive and adapting the remnants thereof to the alternative design. It would be akin to taking a spare PRR K4s (if there were twenty of them lying around) and adapting one into a PRR K5 Pacific, or changing a K4s into a similar PRR L1s Mikado.

I suspect there are some Baldwin parts and maybe even a few removed engines hanging around the ONCF Depot de Oujda in Morocco, which maintained their endcab cycloroteur equipped Baldwins. But the logistics of getting anything from there would be prohibitive. There are also a very few Baldwin 608SC engines around in stationary power generating use, most of them were in the hands of the military. If I recall correctly one was offered for sale on eBay a while ago.

PC

Don't forget the cab units in Argentina! One RF-615e has been restored (5037), and there is are at least three other units down there:
http://baldwindiesels.railfan.net/roca/index.html

http://tinyurl.com/5wruoh

well..who defines "worth it"? and who sets the bar for "more money than sense"??
those are very subjective ideas! ;)

Many people think the Toranado is not "worth it"..why spend that much to build a full size toy train? but to the people involved, it was certainly "worth it"..

there are plenty of people who think preserving ANY locomotive is not "worth it"..
"how can you justify spending thousands of dollars on that hunk of rust when there are starving people in the world blah blah blah"..

if it were up to me, Pro Football and Nascar would cease to exist, what colossal wastes of time and money IMO, and all that money should instead go to railroad preservation! ;) a much more "worth it" use of those millions of dollars! ;)
But I dont really begrudge the money spent of football and nascar..
because those people are free to spend (and make) their money however they choose.

If I had unlimited funds, I would finance the building of a NYC Hudson, NYC Niagara, PRR T1, a set of Lehigh Valley Alco PA's, a ABBA set of LV EMD FT's, a pair of Lackawanna Trainmasters..and thats enough to start with..
I would also build my own 100 mile long railroad to run them on..

And I wouldn't care if anyone else though it was not "worth it"..
it doesnt really matter what anyone else thinks..
there will ALWAYS be someone who says its not "worth it"..
thats really irrelevant..the people with the money have to decide for themselves if its worth it or not..

But lacking the funds for those projects, I will instead support the repainting of one Lehigh Valley U-boat..since that is practical and (hopefully) possible.
I will also support the reboilering of WW&F #9 with some donated funds..

are those little projects "worth it"..to me, yes they are.
to my wife..not so much! ;)

Scot

First, I fully understand what it would take to run up
a one off replica diesel. I also am fairly up to date on
the goings on in the UK and point out there are
A1 like replicas under way which are full out creations
not just what modelers calls 'kitbashed'.
I also understand why the PA out west doesnt have
a 244. Yes, I would vastly prefer a 244, maybe after
Doyle passes on the next owner will see this as a
worthy mission.
Now with repect to "is it worth it" NO railroad
heritage stuff can possibly be more important than
any number of real world needs. But life doesnt
work that way. We rich westerns will happily
dump long money on some silly hobby or avocation.
Irresponsible? Yes. But few care and I don't either.
Remember, there are guys in the orient who will
drop bullion for ground up rino horn. Pretty stupid,
but no stranger than guys pounding a steamer back
to life.
If somebody has the money, then things happen.

I'm glad to see that someone has their priorities in order! ;-)

Stephen

If someone wants a 244 in a PA, there's still engineless ex-D&H #16 that's to be restored for the Smithsonian 'someday'. A few years ago on ebay there was a 244-16 engine listed for sale that was a stationary power plant in a building that was to be demolished. I wonder what ever happened to it?

Why not use a 606 (more common) in the Shark? After all, the D&H ran one of the PAs around with a 12-244 for some time, up until it made it's trip to M-K.

As long as the stack comes out in the right place, few people will really notice. It should make all the appropriate DeLaVergne sounds and smoke. Coupled up with the other unit, the loss of HP shouldn't be too much of an issue.