Rich Melvin reporting on OGR that the #216 sale fell through. Still no official word on who the mystery buyer was.

http://ogaugerr.infopop.cc/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/46660482/m/359104253

Rob

Here's what is reported on the site:

=====================
The sale did not go through.

The potential buyer was looking for partners to share the financial load/risk but could not find anyone willing to participate in the deal.

Rich Melvin, Publisher
O Gauge Railroading magazine

Sounds like 261 was never really ever "sold" -just under agreement.

Stephen

It could be interesting if the publications in the hobby - such as TRAINS - did some reporting on what's going on here. Instead we rely on postings to a web site of a rail-leasing company no one has heard of, along with a lot of second-hand information from the NRM and F.O. 261. Judging from some local NRHS meetings, there is a lot of misinformation out there right now about what's going on and the steam excursion industry in general.

Chris.

Railfans abhor a vacuum. Someone had to step in with "news".

Perhaps, (and ONLY perhaps), a bit more light may be shed on all of this publicly on Feb 27th, at the "Gopher Rail 2010" event noted in another thread.

Mr Sandberg is scheduled as a guest speaker, and while I would not presume as to what he will have to say, certainly he is uniquely positioned with more information than the vast majority of the rest of us.

The comment about railfans abhorring a vacummn brings to mind something I heard earlier today on a sports radio station, the question was asked, "Are sports fans more knowledgeable today, than say,, 20 years ago ?". I wasn't able to spend the time hearing the answers but I'd guess it's similar to what we have here,, we all have more access to more information, and in a much more timely manner, doesn't necessarily make us any smarter though

Many years ago, when i was in the USAF, we had a saying which is still true today.
"If you don't hear a good rumor by 10 a.m., start one!".

With so much bad publicity on the Museum's side, don't you think this was a hopeful show to prove "We aren't such inept jerks after all?" Not good news for the big locomotive, but steam will go on, just elsewhere.
Wait for the other shoe to drop.

note the executive director of the museum is resigning.

Does this mean that the locomotive is for sale again?

David Farlow

Reminiscent of French farce or a Monty Python skit, but taking much longer to play out......I'm sort of hoping they have more misadventures in the works, and they speed it up a bit in the process.

"3 Stooges Railroad Museum - you don't want to buy an engine, do you? Nyuk nyuk nyuk....why, I oughta.............wise guy, huh?"

dave

There actually seems to be something much grimmer playing out here, something that may call into question what many of us might consider the basic precepts of what it means to be a railway museum, and what our goals are.

Let me preface these comments by saying I have no affiliation with the National Railway Museum, these are simply my observations as viewed from afar.

Twenty years ago, NRM looked like a lot of our museums; a bunch of cars and locomotives, some in sheds, some stored outside, a bit of track, and some fashion of train ride.

They then entered their Rail America phase, with a big advertising campaign. That eventually withered away, and the name was dropped.

More recently, they've gone-for-broke, so it seems, and popped big bucks for the "marble mausoleum" display hall. Several organizations I'm associated with were approached about housing their archives in this facility, for a fee of course. Well, the building was built, and I will admit, it is a very nice building. But in recent years, I've seen what appear to be signs of distress; any pretense of having a steam program disappeared, then the de-accessions started. Organizations that moved their archival materials into the building found their access denied unless the members paid an admission fee. The de-accession program seems to be more interested in trading dollars for scrap rather than intelligent outplacement of items that no longer fit the collection. Then we started hearing about the insistence that the 261 bring in considerably higher rent; now that it was to be sold outright.

I don't think we've heard the last of this, by any means.

So, I suppose we have to assume that NRM won't be providing clarification on what's going on in this forum?

I feel bad for the NRM Board, actually. They need to go off on a retreat and decide to either get their act together or resign.

This is very bad theater.

LATEST TRAINS MAGAZINE NEWS.
The sale is still on with a 30 day extension to close.

Um... when have you ever seen a board RECOGNIZE their failures, let alone either "get their act together" or "resign"?

(I've sat on a few boards.)