What? You never heard of "The Casey Jones Chapel of Love"?

Given the divorce rate, I'd wonder if the association of marriage with train wrecks isn't ironically appropriate but socially undesireable....

but that would be hijacking this thread so I'll refrain from doing so.

dave

Does anyone know if the engine had prime mover problems or it was just bought and gutted for shipping purposes? Just wondering why/how it went from a running loco to a shell.

..and a locomotive that we could and probably did ride behind just a few short years ago. I guess its a bit unusual for any of us to see a locomotive that made it into preservation, then restored to its original livery and used on excursions to be gutted and shipped half a continent away. Certainly a failure in there somewhere.

I did ride over Horse Shoe Curve, both ways, behind the BM&R duo (and their two CR helpers on the point) in 1988. So you can imagine how bittersweet it is for me and about 700 other passengers on that trip.

But as I recall, neither of these nor the Bennett Levin duo are in "original" condition. All four were part of a set of five E8s rebuilt with HEP (and I think upgraded 567 engines) by Amtrak. If you want an original-condition PRR E8, there are still a couple of them around, including two ex-NJ Transit/MARC-lease ones in eastern Ohio with steam generators at least available......

That makes the "What happened?!?" question even more relevant. After an Amtrak upgrade and conversion to HEP, why was it essentially scrapped? Were the parts worth more than the whole?

Yes, obviously the wedding chapel guy doesn't need a 567 prime mover to power his pipe organ. But how did he end up being the high bidder on this instead of some museum or tourist railway? Nobody thought an upgraded E8 was worth saving?

I also had the opinion that Bennett Levin kept his equipment in first class condition. So, once again, the question of how it deteriorated so fast comes up? Or maybe it developed a problem that ended up making it not worth fixing?

Bennett Levin does keep his equipment in first class condition (or above). However, this loco was never part of his collection, hence the somewhat less than first class condition.

Update:

Loco was moved to a nearby shopping center in 2013, and is now painted SR green:

http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/showPi ... id=3564931

More here: http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/locopi ... x?id=57323

I'd call that an improvement over the wedding chapel. Still goes to show that no restoration is permanent. A lot of the stuff I was excited to see restored to operation in the 80s has again fallen into disrepair.

With this engine, did they flat out junk the prime movers?

It's been two years, so I'll take another crack at this topic...

Not sure when the prime movers and internal components were removed, but the interior of #5706's been gutted and turned into a dining room. The restaurant has a Facebook page-- Trio's Train Stop-- which shows pictures of the interior. it appears that the cab is relatively intact however.

Story I heard was that the engines were removed for reuse. I also remember this locomotive had HEP generation, which was also removed and reused.