Per a report from the reliable Altoona Work website/Facebook page:



2018 photo:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/lrmyers/4 ... 492949229/

Yes is has been cut up. The process started about a month ago. I took a picture of the car on its final day of its existence on Thursday while on my way to class downtown. However I can’t get the picture to up load. One thing I will say is, that the car was beyond saving. Once the fluting was removed, you could see right through the car. EDIT: from what I understand, the crane and it’s tender might also be on the chopping block as well, along with the old observation that is there.

PRR 8351 Birch River was a Plan 4140 10 Roomette-6 Double Bedroom car built by Pullman-Standard in Lot 6814 in 1949 for service on Southern Railway trains.

As mentioned it had stainless steel sheathing over a conventional steel structure.

Phil Mulligan

The structural kiss of death for all the corrosion and rusting that took place under the stainless sheathing.

Many years ago I was led down a lineup of assorted PS cars with stainless steel sides by an experience carman. He showed me one of the quickest, and saddest, tests I ever learned.

He went to the fluting, just above the sill, and banged on it HARD with his fist bottom.

Rust rained out between the side fluting and the sill side. Yikes.

He then showed me the side a a car with the fluting off. It was just toast, particularly around the connections. Moral of the story wasn't just PS vs. Budd, it was looking at the window condition and seals, because that's how the water got in to begin with.

So shiny, and so sad.

Just so it is on record, the Red Heavyweight observation that is there, has been into the same spot where Birch River was cut up. I have no idea if it is also being cut up or not.

https://www.railroadcity.org/museum.html

Check out the link for the official press release on the deaccessioned equipment.

Did anyone know about this before the photos showed up on Facebook? It appears that they posted the news release on their website but I did not see any mention of it anywhere else.

Apparently the wrecking derrick was operational or nearly operational.

Was Duquesne ever advertised here, "for free" or otherwise?

If that is a sister to car 120, it ought to be worth some measure of restoration.

Likewise, if the crane was serviceable, or nearly so, was it advertised? Was anyone at the Elkhart museum that has NYC 3001 asked?

7511 Duquesne was on Ozark for a very, very long time, but to my recollection was never offered here on RYPN.

120 and 7511 were both built as class Z74D, but later changes reclassified both. 120 to Z74dR, 7511 to Z74c then Z74cR. They *are* sisters, but at least 5 other Z74 variants in addition to 120 are preserved or in private hands.

7503 Francis L. Suter is on the Strasburg Rail Road.
7504 Wm. Penn is at W. W. Atterbury Military Museum.
7505 Martin W. Clement is in private hands in Houston.
7506 Illinois last noted at Midwest Railroad Preservation Society.
7510 Pittsburgher (later Strasburg, currently Olliver C. Joseph) is a stationary office in Bellville, Illinois.

EDIT: 7510 is for sale on Ozark.

It all comes down to the selection of materials that will be in contact for extended periods of time during the initial design process.

https://inspectapedia.com/BestPractices ... rosion.php

When selecting materials that will "sleep together" for many years the "galvanic potential" of the materials becomes an important design choice.

These design details where less well understood back in the 1940's, 50's, etc.

Stainless against Stainless will last practically forever. Stainless against "plain steel" has a lifetime of 2, 3 or maybe 4 decades.

It's all determined by the choice of materiel and is hard to understand without a metallurgist involved during the design/specification process.

I had a discussion with the director of the museum yesterday. The crane was shopped around to various other entities, short lines, museums etc. with no interest. As it is dismantled there are some components that will be salvaged and either retained or will be going to other interested parties. Same goes for the passenger cars.

The museum is trying to clear track space for future operations as well as bring the collection down to a sustainable level. As it stands now the museum's track to access NS has been full of overflow cars for years, to the point where anything coming in and out has to travel THROUGH Altoona Pipe & Steel's building.

they made the best out of a bad situation that they could.

This website has additional information on the restoration efforts made with PRR 7511 Duquesne:

http://www.trainweb.org/altoona-ry-muse ... quesne.htm

Outdoor storage in a harsh climate took its toll on the paint scheme. However, the side stills still look solid.  The press release noted that there are weak spots in the floor. This is to be expected for any car that has a kitchen, and it is not an unrecoverable situation. 

The opportunity that I see for the car is marketing its sale for use as a building. While not preservation in the traditional sense, it does allow for a better use than scrap. But, the direct-contact and press-release communication strategy (vs. using a detailed website and reaching out through industry websites like RYPN) effectively closed off that window. 

Likewise, if the car is to be scrapped (as it seems likely), I hope that the unique PRR trucks will be salvaged along with the new (circa 2008) windows and the interior fixtures, including the stampings that comprise the interior partitions and ceiling panels. These have uses in restoring other cars or creating interpretive exhibits. 

I was the Assistant Terminal General Foreman at Elkhart 1993-1994. Early in '94 the Mechanical Department at Conrail had a significant regime change. The new CMO came to visit Elkhart on a bitter day in February and saw the wreck derrick idling behind the shop and questioned fuel consumption. That day marked the end of the 250 ton derricks at Elkhart, Conway, and Selkirk. The derrick lingered behind the shop until spring when we packed up the whole outfit and sent it to the Sam Rea reclamation plant at Hollidaysburg.

The tender was a modified NYC 60 ft. baggage car that had a good portion of the carbody removed to accommodate the the 250's 45 ft. boom. If I recall the riding car was a former Lehigh Valley coach that wound up in Winslow, NJ.

When it was ordered out it was an incredibly costly operation just to stock the kitchen with the the required food. It didn't matter if it was just going over the rerail in the classification yard by agreement the diner had to be fully stocked.

BTW we called the riding car "The Penn Central Hilton"

EBL

Does this satisfy your requirement of transparency?