When I saw the post for the "PRR T1 Steam Locomotive Trust", I commented:



Well, I stumbled across this today.

http://hudsonrevivalproject.webs.com/

&

https://www.facebook.com/hudsonrevivalproject

It's been around for a while, and it was even posted about once on RYPN, but it hasn't been touched since 2012. So, I thought I would start a new post about it to see what people have to say about it. I hope the group has made progress toward their ultimate goal, and I hope, so badly, that they succeed.

Here is a link to the older post about this:
viewtopic.php?f=1&t=32399

LONG LIVE, STEAM LOCOMOTIVES! May their fires never be dropped for good!

I'll ask the same question that's been asked many times. Where will they run it? CSX won't run it and I think it'd be a stretch to get NS to run it. There aren't many tourist lines out there with a long enough line to make it worth it. So where?

Steamtown could use a US built steamer for a change of pace.

I think that the arguments against building a new steam locomotive based upon "where will they run it" are way premature. Come on, any project such as this will take 15 to 20 years EASY before there is a locomotive ready to be run, and even if there was a bonafide plan in place with firm commitments from lets say the CEO of NS to run the locomotive, by the time the engine was done that guy would be gone and the entire corporate culture could have changed. Look at how NS's corporate culture changed from pro steam to anti steam to pro steam again in two decades. So this argument is really a non starter with me.

I have been following the T1 project with some interest and have "joined" their website and forums to participate in the discussions. They are really taking the project seriously, at least the discussions about solving some of the technical problems involved. It has the potential of taking off and becoming a viable project. Only time will tell.

Even if there is no rational reason to build a T1, I still think that it would be a worthy project. There are a lot of things that us Americans do that make no sense, but we do them anyways because we like them. Some may support it because they want to see a T1 in real life. Some may support it because they want to help solve the engineering problems, and some may support it because they like the idea of a bunch of regular people getting together to do something monumental. Naysayers will always find reasons why something cannot be done. What we are short of are people with vision and a can-do attitude.

I know for sure that someone with the money to have one built just about had a stroke once he came very close to signing the check and was told that the Chinese company he was going to pay to build one, could later charge a fraction to anyone else who wanted one after his was built first. He stopped the project dead cold right then. This was in the early 1990s. I know, because I talked with him when he got back from the trip. Funny thing is, he's totally unknown in RR preservation, just had the money, saw one as a very little kid running and thought, as he said, "It'd really be cool to see one running again."
It's easy to dismiss such a project, but since the British "Tornado" locomotive* was built, there are several in progress, and a few are well along with construction. Never say never!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steam_locomotives_of_the_21st_century

*Yes, I know, England is different. The point is, everyone said it'd never work to them, too, until they got it built and running...

they talk about friction bearings on the J1, heck, just put roller bearings on, if thats what you want to build.

Wow!! Reading through that list of new build steam in Britain is amazing. Half of the projects listed are at least halfway or three quarters done.

MS

Bear in mind, the UK has a Heritage Lottery Fund that gives out sums of money ranging between 1 million and 25 million pounds strictly for heritage projects. Also, history has a far greater significance to average joe over there than it does over here, unfortunately.

As far as railroading goes, they also have the benefit of a national system that is pro-steam.

That is why there are so many projects like that over there, whereas the best we have is Kloke's engines (which are amazing, don't get me wrong).

While it is undoubtedly a benefit, I understand the rationale behind some of the new-build efforts has been that Network Rail (British National track-owning company) does not like the slow (relatively, 75mph) steam engines on it's major main lines (Similarly to our system, they removed too much, and are becoming capacity stretched). The theory has been that the new engines built with modern construction and modifications like rollar bearings, should be able to achieve at least 90 mph certification.

[pounds head on desk repeatedly]

You know, screw that. We had this wonderful ISTEA and TEA-21 program here doling out Federal tax money almost wantonly to seemingly any "pork barrel" project that could somehow be referred to as "transportation efficiency," with a portion of the program set aside for historic and cultural preservation. Why aren't all your steam locomotives running yet? Why do you still need donations to fix that station or caboose? Look at all that free money you had and didn't take! You must be incompetent or unworthy!
</snark>

Look, folks, for the last time: Stop using that Heritage Lottery Fund grant program as your default excuse to be jealous of the well-driven British rail enthusiast movement and/or excuse your own serious shortcomings. This is as tiresome as folks blaming every economic problem on the Chief Occupant of the White House personally.

Building a new steam locomotive replica is outside the scope of the Heritage Lottery Fund. It exists to fund the preservation of old things, not to replace them with new replicas. As far as I can tell, absolutely NONE of the many replica loco projects have received a single quid of HLF monies. In fact, the A1 Tornado project still has liabilities of around £800,000 in bonds outstanding.

The HLF website itself says:

More HLF money than that has gone into various railway station projects as well. That leaves hundreds of locos and hundreds of stations, as well as untold carriages, wagons, diesels, trams, etc. with their caretakers rattling the same donation tins as we do for want of a good grant-application writer or three.

Do your maths. That figure averages out to about £123,000 per loco/tram project, or less than $200,000 each. Now, that would be a substantial dent in, say, bringing LIRR 39, N&W 611, or UP 4014 back to life, or restoring a wooden streetcar or Car 57--but nowhere near enough to do the job, in the case of the bigger projects. Those projects would have to do a lot of "matching grants" or private fundraising as well, just like the British projects have to. And the HLF projects come with restrictions and bureaucracy as well.

The HLF is in no way the "sugar daddy" or "free money ATM" that people who refer to it here seem to think it is.

I would say that it is less "pro-steam" than it is "not steam-adverse." And they, too, could easily turn a corner and become more obstructionist if the excuses were presented. I think the major difference is that "common sense" is actually "common" over there.

$200K may not fully restore a steam locomotive, but it is better than nothing, and could be used toward matching grants or as seed money.

Let's skip the "back of the envelope" balderdash and go straight to the real numbers:

http://www.hlf.org.uk/news/Pages/Steaml ... uu8UfusIw8
£50,000 out of £142,800.

http://www.hlf.org.uk/news/Pages/Jubile ... uu8yPusIw8
£775,800 out of £905,800.

http://www.rail.co.uk/rail-news/2013/he ... -projects/
£1.6 million out of £2.4 million for an Irish museum

http://www.nrm.org.uk/AboutUs/PressOffi ... ngton.aspx
£50,000 out of £150,000

http://www.dukeofgloucester.co.uk/?sect ... nd+Project
£233,800 out of £338,759

Certainly, in some cases the HLF has been a "jackpot" for the restorationists. But for every case like this, there are many, many more with little or no HLF support. Even the well-renown Ffestiniog Railway has been rejected for grants. The HLF has to be regarded as opportunity, as seed money, as a reward for a job well done in presenting and building potential and opportunity, not as a "cash cow" that makes rail preservation easy-peasy in Britain.

You have to be fair here. I used the HLF as just one example of how preservation and heritage works better across the pond. Nor did I say, or even assume, it was a "sugar daddy" of a system. Referring to heritage in general, there's no fund in place in the US that would give 25 million dollars to restore a canal. I'm not saying the HLF funds strictly rail preservation, but it certainly doesn't hurt.

The Hudson Revival Project "support" page has a date of 2011 and indicates they are not incorporated yet. That incorporation "thing" seems to be a really big hurdle for groups planning on building or acquiring locomotives lately. Does anyone know if they have been able to incorporate yet?

PC

Sure there was, and still is. ISTEA and TEA-21, and SAFETEA-LU and MAP-21.

It's not MY fault you guys don't take advantage of all that money out there, via a sharp bulls*** slinger--I mean, "grant application processor".


Now, I'm being cynically sarcastic here. But the reality is that, just like you can't expect TEA-21 to fix your steam locomotive just because you ask them for the money, nor is the HLF in Britain the "easy enabler" or bottomless pot or money so many folks here and elsewhere have made it out to be.