No, the auction listing was not removed from ebay; it ended at its scheduled ending time. Here's the completed auction:
EBay item number: 233219187439, 1944 Baldwin Locomotive Works Steam Engine

The relisted ad states that the locomotive "was stored inside until 6 years ago".

Is this true?

Relisted and price dropped to $375,000, obo. There is an Andrew involved in the upkeep. Don't know if it's the same person.

I have a message sent to the Andrew in question. I will let you know what is going on. The person in question goes under the handle "the Alco kid" on this group.

This photo taken by JT Mangan from 2006 shows it being stored under cover.
However, it appears to have been moved outside sometime between 2006 and 2010.

The photographer appeared to have gotten exclusive access to the locomotive in 2006, check out his album here:
http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/archiv ... x?id=11714

As I recall, the building collapsed one winter, and the engine was pulled ahead to allow the wreckage to be cleared. The building was not rebuilt.

correct

I recall seeing this engine out the window from a fantrip on the W&LE circa 2001/02, and by then the engine was outside under a tattered tarp. So it has been outside since well before 2006, from what I know.

All,

After the restoration of the 643 was completed at the ex-B&O Glenwood Shops around 1989 or so, CSX forced Glenn to move so they could tear down the huge backshop complex. She was stored in doors there at Glenwood the entire time she was getting rebuilt where she was run back and forth indoors about 1/4 mile each way under steam.

Glenn then found a home in the former P&LE car shop building sometime between 1990 and 1995 or so. This building still stands today, but all track was removed when CSXT moved to develop the property around 2000-2005 or so. I worked on 643 there during the summer of 1996 when we very nearly fired her up. 643 was then moved outside and that is probably where CTJacks saw her sitting under a tarp where she sat for a year or two. Glenn then moved her to the spot where she sits now on the other side of the CSXT mainline and to the west of the ex-P&LE car shops where she was indeed under the timber shed roof structure until about 6 years ago when the shed collapsed. So, yes, for the most part, she has been kept indoors with the exception of the last 6 years or so.

Sadly, there are many of us out there who have worked with Glenn on the 643 to varying degrees over the years and have all helped try and give good advice but largely to no avail with no corresponding action or course change to get 643 to a safer place. Few of us are anxious to jump and drop everything now with this past track record. I wish him the best in securing her future once again now that it sounds like there is a very real deadline to get her off the property.

I do know that if she could be moved over about 200' of temporary track to what is left of the controlled siding that her spur used to be connected to, there is an active rail-served customer less than a mile away where she might be stored temporarily until a better permanent home could be found. IMHO, I just don't see her leaving the property in any other way than either on her own wheels via a shoofly or in pieces in scrap dumpsters. While it would take a LOT of cooperation from the current/new landowner, the adjacent Class I and the private industry down the track and literally no major hidden sub-surface utilities but I think the geometry would work to build a temporary shoofly with a connection to a siding that sees little if any use that dead ends currently at the cantilevered signal that is immediately adjacent to where 643 sits right now. Don't shoot...I'm just the messenger here.

Sincerely,

Rob Gardner

And there it is.

There is another "official" B&LE 643 facebook page besides the one I posted earlier:

https://www.facebook.com/BLE643/

This one claims that Mr. Campbell has been contacted and that the auction is a joke. Yet the listing remains on Ebay. I'm curious as to why the diesel and water tender weren't listed as well.

Please note that this page is run by a Mr Shaner who has a reputation of not being the most trustworthy of folks.


Rick Rowlands commented on the AoS facebook group page about being contacted about if his group would like the engine, and there were other comments indicating the land that Mr Campbell's collection sits on having been sold

Here is a link to the post in question. https://www.facebook.com/groups/1365093 ... %22O%22%7D

I have worked in two scrap yards. One as a burner and one as a crane operator. Most scrap yards will give you nothing for locomotives and many will charge you just to get rid of it. They treat it like a building that needs to be demolished. Becker Iron and metals in Illinois is one of the few scrap yards scrapping locomotives. They only accept them if they don't have to buy them. They get the locomotives with no engines, generators or other parts that can be resold.

When I was working for Ceeco in Tacoma, Washington they bought and scrapped the fleet of BC rail electric locomotives. I can't remember if it was 6 or 8 locomotives. But anyways it was taking 4 guys over a month to scrap one locomotive. We eventually had to pay contractors to finish the job. Owner said it was one of the worst decisions he ever made and didn't make a dime.

I know when I was cutting rail road track and wheels I could cut enough to fill two gondolas in one shift. It would take several guys probably all month to cut up that steam locomotive. In the end you would have two gondolas full of scrap from the steam locomotive from a month of work.

Can you find a couple of bozo's who will pay you some money for that steam engine for scrap? Sure. Is there some scrap yards that will take on that project? Sure. But I would say you are looking around $3,000-$5,000 dollars if you are lucky. Last time I took a load of scrap to a scrap yard (about 4 months ago) unprepared heavy was only selling for $60.00 a ton. A look at a New Jersey scrap yard is paying 3-5 cents a pound for steel (you bring it in). https://rockawayrecycling.com/scrap-metal-prices/ If you are sending a crew I can guarantee it will be half that. Even if you could drag it down there you are only looking at $12,000 at $60.00 a ton for 200 tons of steel.

No scrap yard is going to touch anything with asbestos in it. They wont take it no matter how valuable it is. If you did, and if the steel mill saw any asbestos residue on the processed scrap, they would reject the whole rail car and you would likely be banned for several months if not permanently.

At that price that steam locomotive isn't going anywhere. Better off to donate it to someone and write it off as a loss.

Thanks for the info on the second facebook page. A recent comment on it by Mark Gatto says that the listing is for real and that the locomotive needs to be moved within a couple of months.

Here's the updated listing:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/1944-Baldwin-L ... Swnodc0Iku

There was an outstanding article in the R&LHS magazine several years ago about the counterbalancing problems and dynamic augment of low-drivered 2-10-4's like the CB&Q class, and the very similar B&LE series that was done without lightweight rods due to WWII alloy restrictions. "Counterbalancing 10-coupled power" or something, that relates driver size to rpm's and singled out certain designs.

Anyone seriously interested in this locomotive for anything else than museum display needs to do their homework on this class. There's good reason why B&LE had to really, really upgrade their line to handle these.

I saw the locomotive in Greenville as a teenager, it was lovingly stashed away with the 0-10-2 in the Greenville roundhouse. That locomotive is now on display in Greenville.