Gentlemen,

The owner of that equipment is one of the few people alive who I view as more qualified than yours truly to make the determination of whether someone is merely an over-enthusiastic and somewhat naive railfan or falls somewhere further down the scale. When he uses that term I tend to regard it as a professional opinion based on observation, knowledge, and experience, not a pejorative.

This was hardly his first rodeo - Some of you may recall that back around the end of the last century he had to deal with an organization which was considering legal action because the intended paint scheme on a recent acquisition of his was not to their liking.

GME

Habitually? You mean the one time, earlier in this thread, I have used that term in all of my one thousand, two hundred and twenty-nine posts here? (Something I know because I just did a search of all of my posts.) I actually just heard that term on October 13 (something I also know because I searched for facts).

In which case I apologize and strike the comment.

GME

Not needed, but accepted. I actually think "train odors" is more of a smear than an ad hominem attack, but I still think it is funny (and apt). I don't like the rancor over there, and would like to keep it from here.

Thank you.

I have been seeing the term quite often lately and as I have been known to refer to a certain board as Foamer.net and a local one as Squirrel.net, I'm really not objecting. I believe Brother Vondrak is familiar with the the origin of Foamer.net. Squirrel.net was the natural result of a goat rope on a well known regional railroad after a train had a radio failure and was located by the superintendent checking the observations posted on that particular board. He is alleged to have asked, "Why do those #$%^&*@ squirrels know where my trains are when my dispatchers don't?"

We have, however, digressed. As I suspected the equipment was not salvaged until after there had been an attempt to find homes for it and those parts which were still usable did not go in the tip

GME

I have been around railroads my entire life. Was 4 years old when a old hogger sat me on his lap and gave me a cab ride on a steam engine. I have yet to see a person foaming at the mouth when they see a steam engine. Anyone who uses that term is a idiot and I have no respect for them. Furthermore if this person is the head of a tourist railroad or origination then I will not support or visit them.

I realize this is his personal property however this was a wrong decision and he should be called out for it. E units are not common. I have seen F and E unit noses in museums, hobby stores, and other places. They are a good attraction for the business and a great conversation piece. I am positive had he offered up for sale there would have been many takers. I am a fan of the Marc E units and I don't think $10,000 would be that bad of a price and would even seriously consider buying it myself. Yet it went to scrap. Damn shame.

I am also tired of hearing how locomotives are scrapped because they can not be restored to operation condition. So what? Museums are full of dead locomotives. They can be a static display. There is a children's museum in Manitoba that has a F unit inside the building. The little kids run in and out of that locomotive all day long. It's been a huge hit and people come far and wide to see it.

With the scrapping of a E unit a few years ago at the Illinois transportation museum, and another panned upcoming scrapping of a F unit at some museum in New Jersey, it would seem these people running these museums could care less about these historic locomotives.

The cost really is rigging and transportation, then where can you put it. Can you be a you call we haul service for locomotives with no home? Can you immediately remove and pay scrap for a unit?

I always say you can't save them all.

When I worked for a class 1 I did what I could. I gave plenty of CPL, crossings, etc to local historic groups and tourist trains, the only thing was it had to be easy, and half the time I was snubbed....

Example I offered a small old operators building with a clause of push a flat car down the connection two days from tomorrow and I'll load it(they had a bunch of flat cats not in use.) They hem and hauled and two weeks later asked if they could have more time, said sorry had to get rid of it, it's in the bottom of a gondola full of trash. A few years later I asked if I could drop off the retired. CPL signals, they said yes, immediately told me where and tipped my guys delivering them with free tickets for their kids. I found a 1930 era per passenger car that was trashed except the seats I offered to cut out all the seats palletize them and load it in a truck or trailer for a restoration of a 1905 passenger car. The restoration group said, no too new then asked me for money to help buy reproduction seats at a cost of several thousand per seat....

Pity you'll never visit the East Broad Top...
Just about every usable piece of the F unit in New Jersey went to restore other units. Where did you think restoration parts come from?

Meghan

Better get ready to start cutting checks when the Iowa Pacific F and E unit fleet starts to get sold off.

How quickly a good deed with K4s or narrow gauge goes unremembered. And how quickly no good deed donating parts goes unpunished.

I feel reasonably certain that of all people who would have made the effort to preserve the B&O unit, EBL would be at the head of the list. Note the earlier commentary (from 2 decades ago) regarding its possible chances. It has been a very long time since then, including the disappearance of any real reason to have a B-unit running.

I will say only this, and not by way of criticism: it would be nice to see a note in "Before you scrap it post it to the Classifieds" whenever there is to be a cleanup on somebody's aisle 4, even if it only serves as a lightning rod for the foamite establishment... I'd bet somebody at Juniata Terminal could have used Tom's $10K.

Tom - A serious question: Will you, at a moment's notice, drop $10,000 plus freight/shipping on a E-Unit nose? Please advise, and I will keep me eyes open.

For the rest of the armchair railroaders on this forum. What annoys me the most is your bemoaning loss of some hulk that EVERYONE has known about for years. If your XYZ Railroad Museum is in a position that needs THAT specific locomotive, car, or whatever it may be. Let your wishes be known to the owner and come to the table with money. Just like AOS did with the Camelback, start negotiations and work to acquire what you want/need. Don't just assume that every rust bucket in the back forty of every museum is "preserved." It's further annoying that folks with no stake in the game (or can't put money with their mouth is) want to quarterback privately-owned equipment. It's perfectly within the owner's rights to do as he wants with the E-Unit. IF it were so special, the B&O Museum wouldn't have deacessioned the unit, or at least with the caveat that it went to another museum.

Here's the catch.

Juniata Terminal got where it is by being serious, knowledgeable, and experienced. They don't muck around, be it with passenger cars or freight service.

They would damn well say, "Okay, you want what's left of that thing? Find us two spare E-unit Blomberg A-1-A trucks in acceptable condition, and give one to us and one to the guys in New York State first. Then you can have the whole locomotive--as soon as we get what we need and you show us your contract to move it out by rail, truck, helicopter, barge, or whatever, F.O.B. our storage track or siding--and we'll even move it wherever we're allowed to on our switching contracts so your folks can get at it easier! Everybody wins! Oh, and we'll give you three months to engineer this....... maybe a few more if you show us you're making what we consider REAL progress.... and by the way--where were you five or ten years ago?"

One of the nastier jobs of the "real" rail preservationists is accepting reality and refusing to cravenly cater to the occasional "deluded" wannabe preservationists, recognizing that the prospects and expense of relocation and restoration are far beyond any sense of reward in specific cases. I have personally been halfway through the grueling work needed just to allow the physical relocation of an E-unit a couple states away, and found myself saying to my co-workers, "Do the guys getting this loco REALLY know what they're getting into???" The one replied "Well, they came out here and looked at it and inspected it, and somehow they still want it!"

You can speak hypotheticals all you want.
Show us the party ACTUALLY offering $10,000, and we'll talk.
And there's little or no guarantee that the ultimate end result won't be the same.

There is a fundamental problem with this presumption.

NOT "everyone" "knows" about "everything."

We STILL don't have a national, coordinated, updated "preservation database" in spite of the Internet being popularly accessible for 25 years now. And very few of us are, or even can be, the "walking encyclopedias" such as the late Dave Ingles, George Hart, etc. were. If a true opportunity out there exists, one that can be heavily rationalized and defended in both logistical and financial terms, it is incumbent upon the proper parties to bend the ears of the appropriate parties to formulate a strategy. The management of museums have enough on their plates keeping what they have painted and safe. I've gone to folks who should have known better to suggest an approach to preserve a piece, and found they were totally unaware of the piece's existence, let alone strategizing how (and, far more importantly, WHY) to save it!

You want that, or one example of, [fill in the blank] saved? Where? How?

Alexander,
Perhaps I should have put an asterisk behind "Everyone". You're correct. Naturally, not everyone knew of it's existence, nor it's endangerment. I would argue that the major players and anyone seeking out an E-Unit, with the wherewithal and financial means to purchase, let alone move, likely knew of its existence. Not unlike the bids solicited from the former Reading Camelback. This thread is 18 years old and it's easily searchable in the archives. If you're looking for a piece of equipment and hungry, start your search here. Every piece of equipment is a different situation, but it's not as if this unit was a last minute barn find. What I see is armchair preservationists demanding preservation, with no real plan or funding in place. Has any museum stepped forward and exclaimed "Damn, wish we would've known. We could have raised the money in 60 days and it would've been an asset to our mission." Crickets? Or just someone shouting for preservation?

Could the owner(s) have listed the equipment in the classifieds or contracted a dealer to sell it? Sure, that's a responsible approach as a steward of any tangible artifact. But, again, we're talking about privately-owned equipment, where a jury of hot air has no real say. Be proactive and put money where your mouth is.

For the record, I think a preservation database is a good idea. The traction/trolley folks have done an admirable job of keeping tabs on every former streetcar, whether "preserved" or a chicken coop.

I think ADMIV is spot on here. What you are describing, sort of the way you would look for a specific kind of automobile, isn't how a lot/ most preserved pieces are acquired. Often the people doing the saving didn't have any interest in preserving that type of equipment until they knew it was in danger. For example, two members of this board found an ex-PRR wood caboose in someone's backyard in NJ, decomposed almost down to a steel frame, and are well on their way to restoring it. From what they have described, neither of them was looking for an ex-PRR wood caboose when they stumbled upon it.

I'm more interested in the principle of preservation than this specific case, I honestly doubt the E would have sparked much interest, because a museum devoted to the B&O gave up on it, but I wonder about the other two pieces. And to me it seems that a lot of the justification for cutting up pieces, in this case and others, reeks of defensiveness ("if you don't like it, whip out your checkbook" etc.). IMHO.