That 90 feet of track the 4876 is sitting on must be especially precious. Why does it bother so many of you that this locomotive continues to exist? About makes as much sense as wanting some farmer out in the middle of Indiana scrap a Ford 9N that is sitting back behind his barn with a blown engine. Not your place to tell the owner what to do with property that you don't own. Until that 90 feet of track is needed for some other use, leave it sit!

Of the two GG1s in New York, the one going to Greenfield Village is ready to travel but there is a clearance problem somewhere enroute keeping the locomotive where it sits for now. The other one was sold to a group in Florida who has dreams of moving it down there. The sale price was $25,000. Some payments have been made but they are now behind. The people in Florida are older and not too mechanically inclined and they really don't have the first clue how to move it or any way to raise the money needed. I expect that the owner will eventually reclaim the unit and it will once again become available.

We, and others, have discussed the "is it a museum or a junkyard?" syndrome before. This locomotive sits visible from the "First Mile" excursions the B&O Museum does. Maintaining your property in good order, and not letting it become a magnet for crack fiends and heroin whores, is part of "being a good neighbor" in an urban environment. It's not as bad as another rail-related eyesore elsewhere in town (also overdue for scrapping, it was supposed to be gone months ago), but it's still an eyesore with no discernible future at the B&O Museum.

Inevitably, it either moves elsewhere and/or gets scrapped. Or--and it's a long shot--someone convinces current or future museum management that 4876 fits their mission and deserves track space there, plus the resources for restoration. This is simply not the "Barry Miracle" or the "Lost Engines of Roanoke."

HI All

There are a lot of good questions and different points of view , on what will happen to this locomotive . Yes I do agree that something should be done to Either Preserve the engine , or Just Scrap it . But the only one that can decide on that is the B&O museum . Yes the engine is famous for going through Washington Union Station in 1953 , with the Federal Express , and was rebuild, BUT It IS up to the museum to decide the fate of the locomotive ? .

So hypothetically, if ANY GG1 were to be returned to WUS as a display unit with accompanying pictures and text relating the story of the Federal Express crash, would it really matter to 99% of the people coming and going that it was (or wasn't) #4876?

I suspect if #4935 from RRMPa, #4859 from Harrisburg, or any other exhibit-ready GG1 was displayed in said context, that most people would either not notice it wasn't the same unit, or wouldn't care. ANY GG1 is an impressive beast in person, it would probably carry sufficient impact for most viewers to know that an identical unit crashed through the floor and had to be cut up into pieces to be removed.

I'm not advocating the scrapping of #4876, but I think to the layman one GG1 looks pretty much just like another.

Maybe B&OM needs to create a different, B&O/C&O-centric mission statement because this locomotive does fit the one that is currently posted. And then of course find new homes for CNJ 1000 and other pieces that no longer belong.

Steve

For the umpteenth time:
Until such time that Washington Union Terminal is retired from passenger service and turned into another Smithsonian museum outlet, a Federal office building, an expanded mall, a temple to atheism, or whatever, you're NOT going to be permitted to set up ANY exhibit calling attention to the fact that trains--specifically, the same kind you're about to board and ride--can go running out of control and plowing through buildings. Accept that ever-so-basic fundamental truth of public relations for what it is, and if necessary, go see an exorcist about getting that "4876 at the scene of the great crash" fetish forcibly removed from your craniums.

I have heard Amtrak officials in the past at least lukewarmly sympathetic to the possibility of preserving a GG1 there: "JUST NOT THAT ONE!!!!!!!!!" they will bellow at you. The recent conversation with an Amtrak official in a better position to know than most convinces me it's NOT going to happen with ANY historic display piece of rolling stock as long as Amtrak, MARC, and VRE are very actively using as many inches of rail in that place as they can. Remember, all the tracks are in areas past gates and "security" checkpoints. Try to stand to look at it at the one spot you could possibly park a GG1 permanently these days--down where they ditch private varnish if it comes to town--and you'll be trampled to death by commuters during rush hour. The only other possible spots are off where you could only see it as a speck in the distance, and not get within a hundred yards of it unless you passed by on a train.

From the other thread:

CNJ 1000, and by extension the CNJ Camelback, are justified under two conditions:

At the time, the B&O had operating control, through stock ownership, of the CNJ and Reading (and the C&O later owned the B&O, adding to the "incestuousness" and C&O/B&O/WM/CNJ mess; and I won't even get into the South Shore Little Joe and interurban they had for a while...);

and the B&O owned an identical Alco-GE-IR 60-tonner, #1, but the CNJ loco was built first, making it marginally more historic (and it survived). Camelback 592 also neatly fits several "holes" in the broader historic mission not filled by B&O steamers that didn't survive long enough.

A side thought: If you deaccession CNJ 1000 and 592, where do they go? That wonderful New Jersey State Railroad Museum collection?

Reality check: How badly does 4876 compare with other "preserved" GG-1's? I was just in Dallas, and the unit at Age of Steam is in pretty good shape, with the exception that the cab needs cleaning, scraping, and re-painting. BTW, she is a prized possession and quite well loved, considering how few PRR GG-1's actually rolled into Dallas Union Station!

Why do you suppose they've published and keep online a mission statement that is more expansive than what folks are saying the reality actually is? It would take mere minutes to change it to say our museum is about the B&O and related railroads.

Steve

Probably not "minutes". The B&O museum is a real professional museum. They don't just "change their mind and update the website".

Seriously, there are a lot of truly unrealistic viewpoints discussed in this thread. I can't believe how far some folks are divorced from reality.

It seems her only two options are:

Option A: Wait for the train fairy to come to her rescue.

Option B: Scrap her

I offer.... Option C:

Scrap her but save a carefully cut 1 foot wide longitudinal sliver of her nose. Use the cash money from the rest of the scrap metal to have that section patched up/painted by a good auto body guy, and attached to a wall somewhere in the station as a historic disply/art.

I was referring to the time to actually change a website, not what a museum goes through to determine or change policy. If their policy is truly B&O and related lines only and has been this way for a long time (if not always) then it is difficult to understand why their published mission statement reflects a more expansive policy.

Whether that copy was written for the web site or taken from some other documents it's puzzling that they would post it if it's been wrong all along, and could easily be corrected. Is there one policy that is official on paper (& web) but their decision making is governed by an entirely different policy, one which is not published?

Steve

Hey Tom, do you suppose there are some points on this engine that were cut in 1953 and then welded back together? Maybe that the stuff you want to save!

Steve

Tom-

Now THAT is a good idea. Some neat art for the station and an interesting story to boot. Also quite a reasonable disposition of the engine.
Russ

Taking a more positive approach here, and wearing my marketing hat, what you are leaving out in this case is the outstanding marketability of this particular GG1 to the average visitor or citizen for that matter via the Union station incident. Its a great story when you put it all together. Not only is it a GG1 (add appropriate tech data/design history) but it was also involved in a rather spectacular incident which does not end with the wreck itself. The story continues with what had to be a challenging removal process, and not to be outdone, the locomotive returned to service. Add to this, the people who made this recovery happen.

Its a fantastic story and one that probably makes this an easier to fund restoration than a run of the mill GG1 sitting in perhaps better shape someplace else. This particular GG1 has a story to tell, a rather unique story at that, and its a story people of all generations can relate to. It not only gets to the locomotive design, but to the people who designed it, built it, recovered it, and returned it to service. Who were those people?

Keep in mind the story truly comes to life when you stand next to such a beast and see, or feel, how big it really is.

J.R.