Reading the NYC J saga below about losing #5433 by clerical error, I was wonder what urban legends exist about what might have been saved.

Legend in the east is the DL&W Pocono 4-8-4 supposedly turned down by the City of Scranton (ironic, huh?) Then there is the B&M E-7 that Nelson Blount had and let go of.

Lets leave the Dick Jensen flames out of this, and go for in the inside dirt we may not have heard before.

Rob Davis

superc@monmouth.com

Well, now, Fair Park a Dallas Texas scrapped a 2-10-4 shortly after the TP gave it to them in the early fifties.

Something really perverse; the late Arther LaSalle purchased an ex Morgans Lousiana & Texas 1880 4-4-0 from a sugar mill at Meeker, La. about that same time. It was a Baldwin Triple dome(two steam)with most all ornamentation still in place, and he had refurbishing done. As the story is told, it was scrapped while he was gone on buisiness!!!

Around 1970, the Willis shortline at Enon, La. torched a 1880 TP Baldwin ten wheeler that had been running just eight years before.

If you count the Paulson Spence collection,and some late park loco scrappings, the state of Louisiana may hold the dubious distinction of scrapping more steam locomotives in the preservation era than any other.

lorija799@aol.com

I can think of several especially ironic ones right off the top.

SR&RL #24 was actually bought for preservation and stored under cover in a purpose-built shed in Phillips for several years until the owner decided to sell it for scrap.

Then there are the two 3' gauge Baldwin 4-6-0s in at CAI Frank Pais that were ringers for ET&WNC #9. They were scrapped sometime during the 1990s because the locomotives were getting too much attention.

And then there is the (perhaps apocryphal) story of the two EM-1s that were on their way to the B&O in Baltimore, when some overzealous yard superintendent decided to curry favor with his higher ups by scrapping them.

Glenn



christenseng@altavista.com

> Reading the NYC J saga below about losing
> #5433 by clerical error, I was wonder what
> urban legends exist about what might have
> been saved.

> Legend in the east is the DL&W Pocono
> 4-8-4 supposedly turned down by the City of
> Scranton (ironic, huh?) Then there is the
> B&M E-7 that Nelson Blount had and let
> go of.

> Lets leave the Dick Jensen flames out of
> this, and go for in the inside dirt we may
> not have heard before.

> Rob Davis

Here's some I know of:

1. A Central of Georgia "Big Apple" 4-8-4 which the railroad announced would be saved but a subsequent change of management scrapped her.

2. Soo Line 2-8-2 #1025 was beautifully restored by the railroad for placement in Rhinelander, Wisconsin only to have the people (politicians?) of Rhinelander reject the engine when they found out that the Soo wouldn't maintain it. This was a double tragic loss because #1025 was former Monon engine #508 and would have been one of only two Monon engines preserved (the other WAS preserved by the Soo Line.)

3. Many, MANY moons ago, TRAINS Magazine carried a news item that the Seaboard Air Line was preserving one of their beautiful 4-8-2's. Never heard anything beyond that and the engine was obviously not preserved so don't know if that was a bonifide item or not.

4. Speaking of TRAINS Magazine, during the years David P. Morgan was editor, the mag was very quiet about promoting steam locomotive preservation probably because they didn't want to "upset" railroad management. But DPM DID come out for the preservation of IC 4-8-2 #2613 calling for its enshrinement in Louisville's Kentucky Railroad Museum which would certainly have been a logical place for the IC's finest class of steam power. The engine however, ended up scrapped.

5. CNJ Camelback 4-6-0 #774 which made a number of "Farewell to Steam" excursions and which eastern railfans tried to get preserved to no avail.

There are also some engines that were scrapped AFTER being formally preserved and some that SHOULD have been preserved but those are for another thread and another time.

Les Beckman (HVRM)



midlandblb@cs.com

Burlington Route 4001, a 4-6-4 Hudson was built in the West Burlington Iowa shop's as the Q's second streamlined Hudson.

Without getting into all the great details about 4001, she was one of the last steam engines overhauled at the Q Denver Shops in the late fifties.

After her overhaul, she was towed to (if my mind serves me right and it usually doesn't!) Lincoln Nebraska and set up for service. The call never came, and she went to scrap having never turned a wheel after her overhaul!

The 4001 picture (after the shroud was removed) is a link from the Denver Public Library's Otto Perry collection, enjoy....

Regards,
Burlington John

PS - sad is the fact, that although many Q steam engines were preserved, not one of the coal hauling 6300's are still around.


Burlington Route Historical Society

cbqjohn@msn.com

> 1. A Central of Georgia "Big
> Apple" 4-8-4 which the railroad
> announced would be saved but a subsequent
> change of management scrapped her.

Local intelligence has it the Big Apple was actually displayed in the city of Columbus, GA and was so quickly and badly vandalized there it was cut up inspead of sold for scrap value to a GA shortline as an operating engine.

Given the way Columbus stripped and sold off parts from 223 when it was in their care I don't doubt the story.

I regret actually buying gasoline in Columbus and giving any support to its economy before I was aware of these stories.

Dave

irondave@bellsouth.net

ET&WNC #11 was offered to Johnson City, TN for public display, but the locomotive was refused. She was quickly scrapped, leaving only the #12.

stealthnfo@aol.com

I have heard two stories about EM-1's that got away. The first was reported by John Hankey in his magnificent B&O Museum article in Locomotive and Railway Preservation. Apparently the shop forces had held onto an EM-1 that they were going to send to the museum at the earliest opportunity. However,an over-zealous accountant with too much time on his hands discovered that no money had been received for the sale of one engine, and finally located it and had it sold for scrap. Do not forget that the B&O was financially destitute at the time they converted to diesels.

The second story is that another EM-1 survived under the protection of a roundhouse foreman for several years, but when he finally went on vacation, his temporary replacement had it cut up.

The only reason P-7 Pacific "President Washington" and Q-3 2-8-2 #4500 (the original USRA steam locomotive) survived, is that they were purchased for scrap by the late Ed Striegel of Striegel supply in Baltimore. Striegel was a former B&O man who knew the historic importance of both engines. He asked the B&O management at the time if they didn't think these two engines should be preserved, and when they said no, he held onto them until new management took over and accepted them back for the museum.

The latter two could be counted among "Miracle Saves." Too bad Striegel didn't get an EM-1.

kevingillespie@usa.net

I heard the city of Cincinnati was offered a C&O 2-8-4 but turned it down. This engine was given to another location I think...maybe Washington Court House, Ohio engine!! Thus the engine did not get scrapped, but had Cincinnati taken it, perhaps yet another engine may have been donated to the alternate city, thus saving one more. There were a lot of the 2-8-4's saved thankfully.
Greg Scholl

Videos and such
sales@gregschollvideo.com

Here is a story on both losses and "miracle" savings.

At the end of steam, the Long Island Rail Road was going to donate a steam locomotive to each county in which they operated steam, Suffolk, Nassau and Queens. Each was to get a Pennsy build G-5 4-6-0, 39, 35 and 50 respectively.

Nassau County agreed and got #35. Sufolk County said no, but luckily the owner of a carrage mausum in Stony Brook stepped in a took thier engine. Queens said no and so #50 was cut up, leaving only two LIRR steam locomotives preserved.

Roger


Belpaire@aol.com

> Nassau County agreed and got #35. Sufolk
> County said no, but luckily the owner of a
> carrage mausum in Stony Brook stepped in a
> took thier engine. Queens said no and so #50
> was cut up, leaving only two LIRR steam
> locomotives preserved.

Here's a brief and true addendum to the G5 story. My father was one of the two Supervisor's of Track who were given the jobs of placeing the locomotives in Salisbury Park and the Carriage House Museum. Dad went to Tom Goodfellow and advocated to save at least one other locomotive for snow melter service on the eastern end of the railroad. The response was that the road was being modernized and other equipment was available. Saving a steam locomotive was an expensive anachronism, and the request was shot down. For years afterward, a partially scrapped steam locomotive sat alongside the mainline in Holban Yard, being slowly reduced to bits and pieces until around 1957 or 58. At the end of steam, Oct., 1955, LIRR still had #24, #35, #38, #39, and #50, available for service. When Goodfellow's second in command (I believe his name was Schultz) offered the locomotives for preservation, only #35 was to be saved for Nassau County. The Carriage House got wind of Suffolk County's "thumb's down, and had the locomotive donated to them. I don't know it to be accurate, but I have been told that plans to save all five locomotives by donation had been put forward, but finding donees to take them was difficult. #35 and #39 had taken part in the "Farewell to Steam " exercises, so they were chosen as having been in the best shape. #39's Keystone number plate had been removed as a gift to ex-Dodger, Roy Campanella, so #38's plate was mounted on the locomotive. #38 herself went to scrap. Campanella's heirs have no idea what became of the original number plate to this day.
#39 was repainted by the railroad before she was stuffed and mounted, but #35 went to display in her last run condition. She was grimey, rusty, bedraggled, and really BEAUTIFUL! For some reason prior to her retirement, the railroad painted her cylinder head and smokebox front with aluminum paint, the only one to have been done as such.
Now the great news is that both #35 and #39 are still with us, and in the hands of dedicated preservationists. Neither locomotive is anywhere near service, but #39 is apparently along the way. This past summer #35 was moved in pieces to the Oyster Bay Yard, where steam made it's last stand, and will be reassembled (hopefully in running condition) at that site. Both groups have websites and extensive collections.



glueck@saturn.caps.maine.edu

> PS - sad is the fact, that although many Q
> steam engines were preserved, not one of the
> coal hauling 6300's are still around.

Nelson Blount made an attempt to grab one from Sterling Wire sometime in the early 60's. Blount was a good friend of Ron Ziel, whose notable book, "Twilight of Steam Locomotives" has a detailed photoessay on "The Death of 6316". Ron's work encouraged Blountto try to rescue a CB&Q 2-10-4, but when he got there all that was left were two being used as stationary boilers, and the drivers had been cut off along with running gear. I read that eventually one of the locos exploded and that ended that.
Ziel's "Twilight" is a terrific book. In looking at it in 2002, it is interesting to see how many locomotives were still available for rescue in 1963, and even more interesting is how many found protection and survive to this day. There is also the converse, and Ziel documented endless lines of Clinchfield articulateds, Bigboys, and other mainline locos awaiting the torch. Sterling Wire would have been America's Barry Yard. It was site destruction site of GTW, NKP, CB&Q, and Lord only knows what other steam. Great Northern had rows of Mikes set up for unfreezing ore at the same time.

Would somebody kindly invent a useful time machine?


glueck@saturn.caps.maine.edu

Over the UK, there were several steam engines (I can't recall which ones) that were marked for preservation, and had "SAVE" written on one side of the boiler. Unfortunately, the man doing the scrapping approached them from the other side, didn't see the writing, and scrapped them anyway.

-James Hefner
Hebrews 10:20a


Surviving World Steam Locomotives
james1@pernet.net

The stories of communities that turned down display locomotives are many. I understand two or three towns along the C&S narrow gauge were offered engines, but refused. At St. Albans, Vermont, the city (whose biggest employer at the time was the RR)was offered choice of a 2-10-4 or 4-8-2 for the park. After some deliberation, city fathers declined, citing logistics, even though this would have been an easy snap-track move down Main Street off the Richford Branch.

bobyar2001@yahoo.com

Is Lafayette, LA the only town in the US to scrap two different engines on two different occasions?

They scrapped the 4-4-0 "Sabine" during the WWII scrap drive. It was the first engine to roll into town following completion of the railroad.

Next, they acquired T&NO Mk-5 #743. It was the engine I played on when I was a kid. When they wanted to build a recreation center where she stood in 1970, they just scrapped her. She had been on display less than 15 years.

-James Hefner
Hebrews 10:20a

> Well, now, Fair Park a Dallas Texas scrapped
> a 2-10-4 shortly after the TP gave it to
> them in the early fifties.

> Something really perverse; the late Arther
> LaSalle purchased an ex Morgans Lousiana
> & Texas 1880 4-4-0 from a sugar mill at
> Meeker, La. about that same time. It was a
> Baldwin Triple dome(two steam)with most all
> ornamentation still in place, and he had
> refurbishing done. As the story is told, it
> was scrapped while he was gone on
> buisiness!!!

> Around 1970, the Willis shortline at Enon,
> La. torched a 1880 TP Baldwin ten wheeler
> that had been running just eight years
> before.

> If you count the Paulson Spence
> collection,and some late park loco
> scrappings, the state of Louisiana may hold
> the dubious distinction of scrapping more
> steam locomotives in the preservation era
> than any other.


Surviving World Steam Locomotives
james1@pernet.net