The Class A Shay and Climax locomotives are nearly extinct. The Class D Shays are all gone.

I'm a little bit surprised that no one has mentioned two locomotives at the B&O Museum; the "President Washington" Pacific and Mikado #4500, the first U.S.R.A. engine built. When the Baltimore & Ohio was sending out its steam to be scraped, these two engines ended up at a scrap yard (forgot the name...sorry) with other steamers. But the scrap yard owner didn't scrap these two but kept them around knowing their history, until the museum eventually accepted them as donations.

Les

Trains magazine about 20 years ago mentioned how those two were saved, but reported that he sold them back to the B&O when corporate had a change of heart with the museum and promised to preserve them.

So presumably the scrapyard owner at least broke even on the deal, and accomplished his goal of saving them at the same time.

I'm a little surprised that the E7 at the RRMPA was not mentioned. The last surviving member, of arguably the most successful diesel passenger locomotive design, was ordered scrapped. I can't find the details, but as I understand it, a Penn Central employee "hid" it, and sent a different locomotive to the Great Beyond. This person (or persons) arguably put their own jobs on the line, in order to save the E7.

He (or they) should get some kind of medal.

JR

I'm guessing Striegel Scrapyard in Baltimore is what you are referring to? RDG T-1s 2100 and 2101 came out of there as well. Not exactly our version of the Barry Island Scrapyard in the UK, but not insignificant either.

Ed Striegel was the owner of the yard. From what I could see he was parting out diesels, then scrapping the hulk.

Ed did indeed hold 4500 and 5300 until B&O could buy them back. As it happens, when now affiliated B&O/C&O reopened the B&O Museum, with 4500 and 5300 displayed, they ran a series of fantrips over a weekend between Baltimore and Washington using mostly RDG's open-window coaches and pulled by RDG 2100. They also sold tickets for the positioning trips between Philadelphia and Baltimore.

When it was time to sell the T-1's, Charles Bertrand, a B&O man, was President of the Reading Company. I'm sure he remembered what Ed had done with the 4500 and 5300 and sure enough, Ed did it again with 2100 and 2101.

Phil Mulligan

All,

While not a locomotive, CPR "Saskatchewan" #38 (business car) was stored at CP John Street Roundhouse in the late 1950s (1958 to be exact), when it was found by a member of the CRHA on a business trip to Toronto ON. It was retired and was about to be disposed of in the following few months.

Over the next few months, the CRHA made some inquiries to CP and luckely enough, was given the car in donation.

"Saskatchewan" was William Van Horne's private car and was built by Barney & Smith in 1883. It was part of the train who was at Craigellachie BC at the last spike in 1886 and transported his body back to Joliet Ill when he died.

If the car had not been found during that business trip, this car might have never been saved.

Len

Richard

In addition to Nelson Blount on 1218 and others. I want to mention a name which is seldom noted on 1218, and that is George Greenacre. George worked at the Union Carbide plant in Charleston, W.Va. and gathered many parts from the other two Class A locomotives there to make 1218 as complete as possible. Without him, 1218 would not have been nearly as complete.

I still recall seeing the photos with a big "Do Not Scrapp" (sic) painted on the tender enroute.

Ken Miller

While I 'm sure some of the trips between Baltimore and Washington were fantrips, most of them ran as the scheduled local passenger trains between those two cities, normally operated by RDC's. There was an air-conditioned B&O coach in the middle of the train for the regular passengers, who were expecting a short train of air-conditioned RDC's. The best part was the sound of 2100 pulling out of each intermediate station trying to keep the local's schedule. It failed since it didn't have the acceleration away from intermediate station stops, not to mention they had to wye the entire consist at each end. They did get the train up to the maximum allowed speed of 70 mph between stops.

It was a wonderful sight, and sound, to behold.

Yes the B&O Iron Horse Days trips ran on regular Balto-Wash schedules. The Capitol Limited ran as itself and the steam train was a separate section. There was a B&O coach mixed in with the RDG cars (and a B&O dome sleeper!) and the food service was a B&O Diner modified with a long counter probably to serve beverages on the Race Train.

Phil Mulligan

I read someplace, maybe here, that Northwest Railway Museum requested that one of the units be sold or donated to them.

The trains were sold for $21,000 total. That's a bit over $10K each. I'm pretty sure NRWM could have come up with that, and say another $20K for trucking costs. (They're small and easy to truck, but crane costs would add up.)

I got the distinct impression that Amtrak wanted them gone, forgotten and erased from memory. No reminders of the accident thank you very much.

https://www.trains.com/trn/news-reviews ... alifornia/

.

"Members of the Southern Rail Commission also traveled to the Pacific Northwest to determine whether the Talgo Series VI trainsets Washington was selling might fit into future plans for a proposed New Orleans-Mobile, Ala., service. According to the commission’s Knox Ross, “We went all the way out there with the understanding that we were going to meet with representatives of WSDOT, who would answer specific questions about the equipment. None of that happened, and the third-party representative they sent to meet with us wouldn’t answer any questions, so we didn’t bid.”
I think it might have been WA state who wanted them gone, they were the ones to send out a crew with limited knowledge of either the route or the new Charger locomotives, with only one group familiarization run before the accident.

For clarification. The Cascade Service is a state sponsored Amtrak service. WADOT and ODOT own some (but not all) of the equipment, along with ATK. The trains are operated by ATK with ATK crews.

There was a 14-page thread on here at the time about the wreck: viewtopic.php?f=1&t=41469
The state was behind the push to reopen the bypass early, before PTC was ready, because construction needed to be completed by mid-2017, and operations by the end of the year, to collect stimulus funds: https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-ne ... was-ready/

Also, the engineer and conductor were trained by a private consulting firm hired by the state, not by Amtrak: https://www.railwayage.com/regulatory/a ... annel=home The money quote: “In the search for a root cause, this is possibly a failure at the shared P3 (public-private partnership) strategic level of complex railroad projects for one person to have clearly assumed an ‘I’m in charge’ role to provide high-quality locomotive engineer training. Someone needs to get this straightened out. Who’s going to take charge?”

Amtrak, as the operator, could have said no, but that would have required going against pressure from the customer.

I passed under that bridge every night for a time. This thread is going way off topic.