I agree with the above reply about restoring a classic car. Also, anyone remember the saga of the men that went to Greenland, tunneled thru hundreds of feet of ice to retreve a Lockheed P-38 Lightning, and restore it. The recovery itself cost millions. The restoration even more. Weither it is a classic car, locomotive, these things are restored for the shear love of them. Why else would so much be spent that could never be recovered?
I sure don't know all that has gone on with 1361, but I still await the day she returns to the rails.

One of the things that makes RYPN so extraordinary is this meeting place, and considering what we went few a couple months ago, should be reflective for a moment for the value of this interchange. Scott, I commend you for your responses here, and Mike, to get the REAL STORY from the people ACTUALLY INVOLVED, befreft of press spin, oversimplification, etc. And to let the others involved in the industry learn from it, be it PRR specs, Form 4's, et al, so we can move forward.

I'm frequently asked about situations like this, and having this forum, and the contributions to it, is worth so very much to all of us, when an issue like this comes up. Thank you all.

This quote concerns me greatly. At some points we discuss training the next generation and at other times we want to live in a super secret society that no one can penetrate. With SP 3420 I found communicating with everyone to be very beneficial on both technical and political issues. With 3420 front flue sheet issues of being welded we discussed the issue with many people both in and out of the tourist railroad industry. By communicating with people we got different ideas of how to solve a single issue. These different ideas can then be evaluated for the best plan for 3420. By having communication we can come up with a better solution.

The other option is silence or deception. By being silence we limit our support (financial and volunteer form) and begin to destroy our organizations long term existence.

A classic case recently came up at a Museum when a mid 20s shop supervisor employee told another even younger employee not to ask a person with 50 years of railroad diesel shop experience technical diesel questions but instead ask the supervisor because he knew it all. By that one action there went the museums ability to use that resource because a supervisor's ego got in the way. By telling people not to ask questions we hinder or even stop learning and all of the railroad books out there do not tell you everything.

Do we need to burry our head in the sand until we have another boiler failure issue on a locomotive that we can not ignore?

Respectfully,

Robby Peartree

I find my self in the strange position of defending Ross…

In this case I take his comments as saying let the steam tech guys do the job of fixing the boiler, be it from wear or design issues. Let the rest of us stay out of the game of second guessing….

Steam loco boiler work in the early stages at best an educated guess at what will be found, and what work will be needed. So, in this case let the worker bees dive in and get the job done without second guessing early assumptions…

Let Scott’s crew do its job, let Scott and company do what they need to do to find funds, don’t assume slow progress is anything but a complicated repair.

I enjoy the reports… Scott and company have been open with the progress reports including the problems found.

My apologies for putting Mr. Hees in the uncomfortable position of supporting me.
To set the record straight I'm 100% in favor of complete transparency in all things including work on railroad equipment. Over the years when on occassion some of my folks have shown displeasure when "outsiders" (those not part of the crew) would take a serious "look around" on one of our engines I'd do my best to convince them that it was a favor to us as just maybe they'd see something we'd overlooked! And in fact on a couple of occassions that's happenned!!
What I meant by my posting regarding another attempt at returning her to service is simply this.
There are in our "industry" by my count a grand total of 6 proven professionals who make a living restoring MAINLINE steam locomotives to service. Of the 6, 5 are still actively engaged in the business as we speak (albeit much of their work from time to time involves detailed cosmetic only restorations) and all 5 have a PROVEN track record of locomotives they've been in charge of restoring-- locomotives that have gotten out there and performed successfully. Most of you know all 5 by name.
If as and when Mr. Geist decides (if he so does??) to throw another chunk of money at the 1361 to return her to service-then for gosh sake hire one of these pros-put him in absolute charge of the job and keep EVERYONE else out of the way!!
It's that straight forward.
IMHO-Ross Rowland