Great Northern & Cascade Railway in Skykomish, WA announced that BNSF is cutting up the GN SD9 that was donated a few years ago. The locomotive was donated to the city, but the city changed its mind and refused the donation, so the railroad pulled the plug. Another one bites the dust. Update your rosters accordingly.

https://www.facebook.com/502596523109143/posts/2584586564910118/

Is there a reason why a locomotive in what appears to be visibly good exterior condition is being scrapped this summarily, without at least an inquiry about donation to another city or museum?

Is there a reason why someone, or several someones, is not attempting to recover rare or re-usable items from this locomotive if it 'has to be' scrapped?

Call for action seems to be appropriate here; I can't help from where I am now, but surely some of you can start something going in time.

Does it have traction motors?

https://www.facebook.com/GNCRailway/pho ... ater&ifg=1 "with a little work it would probably turn over and run. The wiring to the drive motors has all been disconnected and stolen long before we got it. I was hoping with the permission of the club and KEVIN if the engine stayed with us, I would be able to get her on board and go through it to make sure it would turn over and fire up. I have worked on that series of EMD locomotives many times."

I hope the city explains why they didn't accept the locomotive. This whole situation seems pretty bizarre. There isn't much to Skykomish and rail fans have always been welcome there. The miniature railway is on my Facebook feed and they have done a good job with their railroad. I have not been there in many years but it looks like the locomotive is right next to the miniature railway.

As with any conflict there is always two sides of the story. I can't imagine the city of Skykomish would reject the locomotive with out good reason. I am certain it is probably something petty. They must have made the BNSF railroad pretty pissed off for them to cut the locomotive up on site. Sounds like a lot of venom towards the city. It's unfortunate they could not tow the locomotive to the Toppenish railroad museum or the Pend Oreilly Valley railroad for possible use on their excursion train.

If it does get cut up I hope someone films the process. I hate to see locomotives cut up but you don't get it on video too often, and this is a good location to film it.

From AOTT Facebook:

"Inside information about the GN SD9 from the mayor of Skykomish:

Skykomish, WA shared a Page.
2 hrs

Here is the situation with the SD9 locomotive...it's taken a couple of days to try to sort out the facts and current status.

Regardless of what folks have heard and the rampant rumors, I have found out (and know) this much so far. The first that the town heard of "BN scrapping the Engine", was a few days ago when it was posted on FB. I called and talked with them yesterday, and it seems there is somewhat of a mis-understanding. I'm not sure who else may have said what to the BN in the interim...I've been Mayor here (part-time, and basically volunteer) for just the past 6 months and have had my hands pretty full with other "stuff". The last and only action the Town has ever taken (a couple of years ago) with respect to the Engine is that it took the position that it should not be re-located to somewhere close to, or in front of (blocking view) of the restored Depot...this was based on local citizen's input at the time. And this was in response to a proposal by the GNCRy to move it into such a spot,... they felt that was the ONLY option. The Town Council's postion was that we would find (and need to fund the move to) a suitable location within the Park whenever the time came. After that, until this recent hubub, there had been no communication between BN and the Town. The assumption was that we would deal with this when it was necessary, which didn't seem to be immediate, given that the BN had allowed the Engine to sit in place for some 6 years already. At this point, BN has told me that there is some time to try to save this, but time is now of the essence. That is what we'll be attempting to do.

Here is what is needed to accomplish "saving" and relocating this Engine for future display in the Park. 1.) Finding a suitable location within the Park, and probably the more difficult, 2.) Getting the funding to move the Engine ($40-50k preliminary estimate) and to restore, display and maintain the Engine for the future. Additionally, as most of you know, none of this happens by me alone...I will be getting citizen and public feedback, and final authority from the Town Council.

Finally, I'm not sure how some of these other rumors or speculation have started; it's not a good use of my time or energy to attempt to try to address all of those, but I can tell you this: I've always been in favor of saving this Engine, but I am not (nor is anyone else ) the sole voice of this Town. As for me, besides being the current Mayor (which position I stepped into as mentioned above), I've served on the Town Council for about 10+ years previously, so I've been here through the Cleanup and have always been (and still am) a primary supporter and advocate for both the Depot Park and the GNCRy/mini-railroad. I also own and run the Cascadia Inn Hotel and cafe, which hosts the Virtual Railcam. If you want to correspond with me directly, all are welcome....I will tell you what I know. Otherwise, I will keep folks posted as this develops.

Henry, 425-293-1937....hsladek@msn.com"

In other words, we weren't planning to do anything and are shocked, shocked I tell you that BNSF threw up its hands in exasperation.

Does this mean that the engine has been donated to the City, but in order to accept the donation, they must move the engine onto their property and off of a site where the engine has been temporarily staged for the donation?

That's about the size of it, though "temporary" seems to have stretched for six years.

You would think that after 6 years that someone in that town would have something on paper by now. I used to live in Washington and the stupidity I have seen by both the Governments and some of those rail road museums is beyond belief. I used to volunteer at the Snoqualmie railroad museum. I was driving by one day I noticed one my favorite locomotives was missing. It was a box cab electric from the Butte, Anaconda and Pacific Railway. I said "what happened to that electric locomotive"? The guy running the museum said "oh we sold it for scrap". I said "are you crazy why would you do that"? He said "the price of copper was high.

Another fiasco was the city of Seattle running the Spirit of Washington dinner train out of the city so they could turn the right of way into a bicycle trail. A good ten years went by with nothing being done. All that time the dinner train could have still been in operation.

Knowing Washington, the town of Skykomish will hire a adviser who knows nothing about railroads for $50,000. The town will do a environmental study for 3 years for the locomotive display which will cost $150,000. They will put the cost of building a state of the art, environmentally friendly display area complete with bathrooms, at $500,000. They will get funding and start the project. Project will fall behind. Cost's will balloon to $1.2 million. Locals demand a stop to the project. Project will remain unfinished. Locomotive will be donated to some other museum.

Just to set the record straight Snoqualmie never had a box cab from the BA&P. They did have a steeple cab from Kennecott Copper

#724 B+B GE C/N 10868 06-1929 80 ton Trolley/Battery Electric
Utah Copper #724 Bingham Mine, Utah
Kennecott Copper #724 Bingham Mine, Utah
Puget Sound Railway Historical Assn. Snoqualmie, WA 1984
Northwest Railway Museum Snoqualmie, WA 1999
Scrapped 2000

It was scrapped because the museum was being evicted from their storage site and some stuff had to go.

The city of Seattle had nothing to do with the dinner train. BNSF abandoned their line east of Lake Washington and the Port of Seattle bought it in 2008. The line has been cut in several places by road construction and in 2014 about six miles was converted to a trail.

And further, while the "Port of Seattle" obviously has 'Seattle' in its name, it is actually a King County agency, as it is all the voters in King County that elect the Port of Seattle commissioners.

https://www.portseattle.org/about/commission

While the Spirit of Washington train did not operate within Seattle, its route was through various other cities within King County.

http://trn.trains.com/news/news-wire/20 ... -displayed (paywall):

"BNSF confirmed it was done waiting for the locomotive’s future to be resolved. “This locomotive has been out of service for over one decade,” BNSF spokesman Gus Melonas wrote in an email. “It sits on BNSF property and is attracting trespassers and vandalism. It isn’t movable, fluids have been drained, and it will soon be scrapped.” No date for that action has been set."

With the deal with the City apparently now voided, what is the chance of a new and credible buyer coming forward and making a decisive deal with BNSF to acquire the locomotive? I think BNSF would consider it if they believed the new buyer would move quickly. I am just wondering if the engine really has to be scrapped at this point.

I don't want to get off the topic of the original subject, but as usual I have to disagree with the opinion.

There has never been any kind of eviction of any kind regarding the Snoqualmie railroad museum. If you have any facts to back that statement up then I would suggest you post it. They have only grown into a first class railroad museum with longer tracks over the years.

I will stand corrected that the locomotive that was scrapped was Kennecott Copper #724. It had nothing to do with eviction as that locomotive was sandwiched between all the rusting steam locomotives which are still there. As I said before it was scrapped because the price of copper was high and there was a lot of it in there. I heard that straight from the director of operations as he said " It was scrapped. do you know what the price of copper is right now"?

As far as the dinner train fiasco. The lease expired with BNSF which they were not going to renew. The BNSF railroad was abandoning the line and the line was going to be put up for sale. Many people wanted the dinner train to stay including the cities of Renton, Bellevue, and Woodinville where the dinner train brought tourism as well as jobs. The winery in Woodinville would be especially hit hard as that is where the train stopped.Plans were discussed to buy the line with strong support.

For the sake of argument I will just say that King County and everything it represents (Seattle, Renton, Bellevue, Port of Seattle, WSDOT, etc) wanted a bicycle trail and heavily influenced all involved including the BNSF. This rail trail was a excuse to get $166,000,000 (in 2007 dollars) from the Port of Seattle to buy and build the trail. The Port of Seattle in exchange would get a airport valued at $173,000,000 from King county. It's a astronomical amount of dirty money disguised as a trail project.

You could write books on this corruption. They railroaded several cities, a winery, a dinner train, and countless others so they could have a excuse to move hundreds of millions of dollars to a project with a price tag so unbelievable few took it seriously. But they did it. $166,000,000 for a bicycle trail (which should have probably only cost a few million) with money lining every politicians pocket who had anything to do with it. Everyone got fat sucking off the taxpayers teet. If it was a robbery it would have been a perfect crime. That is all I am going to say about this matter.

http://www.eastsiderailnow.org/spirit_o ... ngton.html
https://www.heraldnet.com/news/tracks-f ... d-transit/

The Snoqualmie museum started on land leased from Puget Sound Power and Light. In the 1980s the BN donated the line from Snoqualmie Falls to near North Bend (later extended). Puget Power wanted the museum off of their land where much equipment was still stored. The lose of the track on Puget Power's land required the disposal of much equipment. My point is that someone didn't just think "Hey the price of copper is up let's scrap that loco." Among other things the electric was not relevant to the collection and there are several other examples still around. I am not saying the loco was not historic and deserved to be saved, just that choices had to be made and it lost.