If I had to place MY money, it wouldn't change the equation. The GG1 isn't B&O. End of discussion.

Neither is CNJ 1000. So clearly some rules are made to be broken.

Edited to add:

Oh wait...there is actually nothing in their mission statement limiting things to B&O and related companies. The GG-1 does fit what they say here:

http://www.borail.org/Mission-Statement ... useum.aspx

Steve

What so many of you fail to think about is the future. Just because a certain item isn’t rare right now is NO indication that it will stay that way for all time. People have talked about all the GG-1s. But you never know what might happen, several of them might be scrapped for independent reasons, then suddenly a hulk of a GG-1 might be valuable after all. But if you scrapped something that could be stored, THAT’S IT. This is the reason why I’m sure that many types of diesels will not be represented in museums in the future. Steam was romantic in its time and even with the scrapping frenzy of the 60s, quite a few engines got saved for displays. You’re not going to see that in the future.
And because something is rusting away right now, that’s NOT a promise it’ll stay that way or be worse. I’m going to use airplanes as an example. I’ve seen airplanes that have corroded down to a set of wing spars and an engine mount get turned back into a flyable airplane. One restoration of a B-24 bomber (which I’ve flown on more than once) was categorized as “replacing everything but the shadow.” That plane was considered bell beyond even a static restoration and today it looks like it just rolled to a stop from its last WW2 mission. A gent started buying crashed and abandoned military airplanes as early as the 1950s and kept them on his farm. http://svsm.org/gallery/soplata87 He’s since passed on, but many of the planes he sold are flying today. Good thing he didn’t listen to the type of people who are posting here, as many of these planes wouldn’t be around in any form. Many of these will someday be museum pieces.

Let's see - this started out as 2000 Cars Must Die and has morphed into The GG-1 That Refuses to Die.

Getting somewhat back to the original topic, I would support the fact that "we" have over-collected and will need to make hard decisions to make room for future historic stuff. Or adopt the IRM model that a new acquisition must come with a barn space dowry of $x thousand dollars. Either way, it reminds me of the song "they all rolled over and one fell out."

Wesley

CNJ 1000, and by extension the CNJ Camelback, are justified under two conditions:

At the time, the B&O had operating control, through stock ownership, of the CNJ and Reading (and the C&O later owned the B&O, adding to the "incestuousness" and C&O/B&O/WM/CNJ mess; and I won't even get into the South Shore Little Joe and interurban they had for a while...);

and the B&O owned an identical Alco-GE-IR 60-tonner, #1, but the CNJ loco was built first, making it marginally more historic (and it survived). Camelback 592 also neatly fits several "holes" in the broader historic mission not filled by B&O steamers that didn't survive long enough.

That is correct.

Nobody knows how public interest is going to flow. There could be some bizarre, "freakonomics" occurrence - like the F40PH becoming a pop-culture icon - that we cannot possibly foresee. All these kids coming up on MSTS might wake up and go "Wow, all my work is just bits in the ether - how about doing something REAL." The first successful HSR project is going to have a real impact on the social landscape. We just don't know.

Some stuff is not random though. As railway museums mature, their capability for restoration tends to improve. They get better shop facilities, better tools, more practice, they attract better experts and they gain more confidence. It's a serious mistake to go through the collection with an eye toward what you're capable of repairing TODAY. If people did, that would produce our 2000 right there.

In fact, in my experience different people with different experience see TOTALLY different possibilities and problems. I walk through a car and see A B C. Someone else walks through a car and sees D E F, which I consider to be cosmetic and highly fixable. Classic case, the unit in bad need of a paint job "it's a goner", gimme 3 days with a roller and suddenly it's preservation-worthy. Bombed out CTA 4000, some would say "buncha scrap money", I can name 50 chicken coops that'll be happy to take those trucks and controls.

Of course the only way to predict the future is to have the power to shape the future. If you want the decision of whether a car is restored to be settled DEFINITIVELY and FINALLY -- then it is your ultimate exercise of power, today, to scrap the car. Power corrupts.