Two 45 ton GE centercab siderod diesel locos on friction bearings are available free to museum type preservationists. One running but needing work, the second is not running but fairly complete. Both look good. Local efforts to save them have not been successful so far, but still trying. These engines are going to be cut up virtually immediately if a home cannot be found. Located in Louisville, KY.

Private message if you are a rescuer, and can move these within the next month or two. A certified letter of intent is needed NOW as a minimum.

Tyburn Railroad in Fairless, Pa. has a General Electric 45 ton Diesel that was built for American Bridge's Trenton, N.J. plant right across the river. The cost of shipping stable mates from Kentucky may be the deal breaker.

Given the price of steel nowadays, I can't believe anyone is passing up free locomotives.

Given the cost of trucking, cranes, extra-weight permits, and diesel fuel, I can.

Why not just take it apart and move it?

I've already committed myself to two free locomotives this year.

That's fine if you own the cranes and have the time and space to disassemble and reassemble it.

Most of us don't own such cranes, trucks, etc. And this strategy runs the very real risk of the "exploded view" situation where parts lie all over a property and never end up fully assembled again. Heck, I've seen that very syndrome at professional industrial sites, never mind rail preservation. And that syndrome is exceedingly common in auto "restoration" as well.

The big problem here is time. How many of us sit behind our computer with a full complement of tools, equipment and money waiting to spring forth into action when a last minute plea comes across the net? For crying out loud, if you want to see a locomotive saved, do not say "you have a month to move it or it will be scrapped"! Moving a locomotive is a little more complicated than plucking your Athearn SD40-2 off the club layout and hauling it home!

Now if the locomotive could be moved sometime next August, well then I'll be glad to haul it away!

Although I agree completely with you Rick, sometimes the owner waits until the last minute to make the "move it or lose it" decision because in their minds, there are museums with a full crew and equipment just sitting in the crew quarteres just waiting for the call. Or the owner has a piece of equipment on someone else's property and the landlord wakes up one morning and decides he wants the tennant out. I think our situation is the excepetion to the rule.

Later!
Mr. Ed

UPDATE:

I'd like to thank all who have responded with concern about saving these locomotives. To date, they are still on the plant property and the plant is itching to get rid of them. Several phone calls and emails have been made, and here is the current status:

I did contact Kentucky Railway Museum first as they are closest and they did inspect and consider, but decided that they did not have the resources to save these engines at this time. They are still recovering from the recent flood.

I did contact French Lick Railroad (Indiana) and they did express interest but do not have the resources to commit either.

The plant management has stated that they are only interested in donating to organizations with non-profit status. Several folks that are preservation minded but don't have this status have been ruled out.

There are three organizations that have met this non-profit criteria that have expressed interest, and as of today all information and contacts have been transferred to plant management for decision making.

Thanks,
Mark

Mark,

I volunteer on a shortline startup north of Asheville, NC, called the Craggy Mountain Line. I spoke with the President re: the "free" 45-tonners and he's interested. He has equipment moving capabilities and the RR is a non-profit tourist/museum status. How can we get on the "interested party" list, assuming they haven't been spoken for.

You can call me at 828-777-5619 during business hours to discuss. We have an immediate need for 1 engine and would consider putting both in operation if the worst of the 2 was fixable without great effort and expense.

Jim King
Asheville, NC

Update:

A party to whom I relayed the information/contacts on these locos, connected with a railroad 501(c)3, says they are currently partway through the process to rescue these locos. As I'm to understand the cryptic e-mails, it's coming down to whether some of the folks needed to move these things (cranes, truckers, etc.) can get their paperwork for road permits in order fast enough. (I could be wrong--it's loaded with jargon.)

Which just goes shows you how complicated a "last-minute" rescue can be, even under the best of circumstances.

Stay tuned.

It's my pleasure to report the following this morning from an associate at the West Virginia Railroad Museum out of Elkins:

"The two engines arrived at our "railhead" with no problems . . . we have both able to move around, and a work session Saturday [June 11th] should chart a cosmetic course for display. We will be in touch later, and out thanks to you and all involved, it is a big step forward for our museum."

Go back to the beginning of this thread. Note how soon they "had" to be moved. This "rescue" was executed pretty much as fast as possible; I'm not sure even a millionaire laying out thousand-dollar bills could have made this move go any faster.

A follow-up note: Today's Baltimore Sun has the story of a rare locally-built 1800's organ that, despite a supposed "understanding" of permitting the dismantling and removal from the now-closed Catholic church, ended up in splinters when the building was sold to a developer who was them apparently told nothing about any supposed interest in said organ; said contractor for the developer supposedly "shopped" the organ around with no takers, knowing nothing about the previous requests to save the organ.
The lesson? You have to be persistent to the point of arrogance and annoyance when you're dealing with a bureaucracy where the left hand may have no idea what the right hand promised.

Congratulations to everyone involved with saving these engines. Chalk another one up for the preservation industry!

Later!
Mr. Ed

I had been watching these engines for 5 years, knowing "some day" they would be in limbo, but never knew when "some day" may actually occur. I told all my contacts at the plant "if anyone ever decides to get rid of these, please call me".

Then it happened just about Thanksgiving 2010.....I got the call with a "come get these engines off our property and get them to a museum or we're going to scrap them shortly".

I had no plan other than to beat the bushes, and beat the bushes I did. Unfortunately all the local museums considered them and decided that they could not act due to one reason or another. Thus, the cry for help here on RYPN.

I want to thank all who stepped forward, including those who were "for profit" and were not considered by the plant. I want to thank the plant management for dealing with the preservation folks, when simply scrapping would have probably been much faster and easier on their part. Finally, I want to thank the recipient of the locomotives for putting their resources into what other organizations would consider not worth saving.

No, these little critters aren't the "last one" or "the prettiest" or "magnificant" or anything other than what they are......little dinky plant engines that played their part in the railroad history books.