The flaw in this idea is so you have a group of people who have raised money and swooped in and saved an RS-2 and dropped it off at the local museum. How do you know that it's not going to sit like the Sea Breeze or 4876 until it just gets cut up later one down the road. I can't think of one museum or tourist railroad that already does not have a back lot of equipment rusting away or one that has empty indoor space waiting for the next display.

Without soliciting opinion on whether or not such a thing could or ought to be proposed for the constellation of efforts we loosely bundle together as a railroad preservation industry, I want to point out the National Trust for Historic Preservation model. The National Trust serves an information source, a lobbying and advocating organization, and, for many folks outside the preservation world, is the public face of all things preservation. The Trust helps those in the field work more efficiently by providing a mechanism to coordinate efforts, facilitating exchange of information, and providing support including but not limited to legal, fundraising,and tax credit syndication. In a limited number of instances, the Trust has purchased and saved important properties itself but generally prefers to work with partners in the field.

The Trust is currently changing aspects of how it fulfills these roles, but the essential thrust of its mission remains the same.

My question for the group--could you point out your individual "top ten" list of losses that might have been averted with more notice, better coordination, a more coordinated plan about what are preservation priorities, etc? I can tell there is a lot of historical memory in this group for such losses and was hoping you might point me in the right direction. In conceiving of your list, it might be helpful to consider what losses tell a story that a non-railroad person would find to be a compelling reason to get involved. By way of example and without limiting the universe of what such stories might be, think about the tragic near-misses, the nationally-significant piece discovered too late to save, the piece restored once only to die later due to lack of maintenance, etc.

The concept has merit. The idea of a action team able to assist preservation efforts is interesting... people who have the knowledge and skills to help others save equipment.

My issue is that the motivation may have issues.



Who is deciding what might want to be saved... as a devil's advocate, but as a railroad preservationist, I don't know if I would care about the engines listed above...

At some level it comes down to matching resources to what gets saved. I think we all can agree that we can't save everything. If you agree we can't save everything, the at some point a decision needs to be made about what is worthy, and what is worth saving.

We have recently had a long discussion about a single, much deteriorated GG1, but historically significant... associated with a significant event. This is resulted in discussion but not action... lack of action will eventually result in the loss of the locomotive. This is a basic truth of preservation.

I have seen arguments about locomotive's being important for reasons such as; "It was used on (name favorite minor branch line favored by the speaker) branch, and I remember it from the 1970's... or that it was "the last (choose builder, model, maybe sub-model) from (insert name of favorite railroad)"

The solution is for ARM or some other organization to have a knowledge pool to help the local depot museum, when they are offered a caboose for display, 40 miles away... away from live rail, and want to preserve it, but don't have a clue about how to do it... call one number and get a referral. Someone who has an idea of how much a caboose weighs... and who could move it... in a perfect world they might have access to some amount of emergency funding...

This starts to look like a process with the following steps
1) A nomination process,
2) followed by a qualified preservation group agreeing to take possession,
3) followed by technical support to arrange the acquisition, move and stabilization...
4) funding???

What happens if someone nominates a locomotive/car/object/building and no one steps up?

What if an object gets nominated, a group agrees to provide a home, but there is no funding?

On the other hand, if an owner of an object, or the land owner where said object is located has a need for said object to be gone, by a deadline, then the presence of an organized national support group (with access to ways to move and save) may give sufficient confidence in the object being saved or at least gone to provide time to marshal resources.

Randy

OK. Don't know why I've been sitting this thread out so far.

The "new preservation organization" need not be a totally new organization; it's perfectly fine for it to be an adjunct of some successful operating railway museum; or even an alliance of several assets at several museums.

The organization should NOT be in the business of deciding which units should be saved and which should not. For one thing that's far too political, it's too easy to underestimate people, and it will too quickly fall into socialist thinking re: directing preservation efforts, on the false belief that not preserving one thing will result in those resources being directed to another thing; it's just as likely to make those resources leave preservation. No sir, leave the death panels to the medical insurers.

What SHOULD it do: IN short, there's "fish" and "cut bait". We have been plenty of one; now it's time to cut bait. The group should be laying the framework for future preservation.

First and foremost communication, to assure that the maximum possible notice goes out about endangered equipment. And talk to all relevant organizations; don't skip organizations because of assumptions about their capabilities. The goal here is to be exhaustive, not assumptive. Soon as you go "Well, we're not going to talk to THOSE GUYS because they are morons, or they said no the last 16 times and/or they were rude and/or they slept with my girlfriend", well that's nails in the coffin of a unit.

Second - learn to move things. I think we all know the sun has set on Class I railroad moves of historic equipment; so "Now What". This group should figure that out, and then own those resources. For instance

* Imagine a set of highway wheels which fit the form-factor of an AAR Type B or Blomberg truck. This organization develops and maintains a set of same, and the basic expertise to use them. Another set that swaps for heavyweight passenger trucks. Another "universal" set that fits lightweight coaches and interurbans. Another that swaps for freight car trucks. Have these things built and "ready to go" on short notice, and perfect the swap.

* Work out better ways to lift cars than calling a crane. Often (usually), a novice group confronted with the need to move a railroad car, calls a crane company. Who happily takes their money. However these same lifts are done all the time with forklifts and jacks with great success and no more cost than a forklift rental.

Third: Figure out car-barns. You know, it's like an custom architect-designed house; vs. a standard-plan house with bill-of-materials that is refined over hundreds of builds. Same with our carbarns; each of us working in isolation spends tens of thousands on custom, virgin design that does not incorporate "lessons learned". e.g. the moisture barrier I spoke of elsewhere. Develop Standard Design #1, #2 or #3 that can then be customized if needed, are easy to price and understand, and are purpose built to be railroad car-barns, so you're not adapting a design for something else, having to spend a fortune on custom doors, or have a building that falls down when you punt a car through the back wall. Perhaps the museum in the southwest pays a little extra for snow-load they'll never use, or carrying sprinklers they'll never install. But this extra cost will be less than a custom design of their own.

When I first posted this, it was a thinly thought out idea in the back of my mind. Going through it since then, and seeing some of the responses, what I think is the organization needs to be made up of a consortium of railroad museums and other preservation entities, since they are ultimately the 'end users'; and the organization must specialize in moving equipment and financial options to procure & move. These are the missing pieces of the current preservation puzzle.

In terms of who decides what piece of equipment gets saved, there was a lot of electrons devoted to this subject, but ultimately, it is self-limiting. If there is a piece of gear that no museum wants, then it won't get saved, since there will be no one to take it. Otherwise, the group can work directly with museums to form projects to go after equipment.

On movement, personally, I've been looking hard at adapting house moving technology to load equipment by lifting it, and rolling the flatcar underneath, no cranes involved.

Dummy trucks are a much more cost effective means to move equipment. You don't just jack a locomotive up, roll a flat car under it, chain it down and haul it away. There are very rigid requirements for securing loads like locomotives on a flat car. They must be secured by welding steel rods from the flat car to the locomotive.

I'm facing the same issue right now. I have a unit at NRE Capreol that I'm moving to Maryland. It is by far less expensive to do a truck swap than it is to move it by flat car.

How do you get around the alignment control coupler requirement that many railroads demand? Dummy trucks are a good idea though.

Michael Seitz
Missoula MT