It's been a while since we had anything from our favorite collapsed railroad museum, so here's an update, beginning with the OFFICIAL news from their website and PR folks:

"Dear Friends of the B&O Railroad Museum:

William L. Withuhn, Curator of Transportation at the Smithsonian InstitutionÂ’s National Museum of American History, assembled a national team of curators from various railroad institutions to assist with the damage assessments of locomotives and rolling stock. The team included: John Bechtel of the North Carolina Transportation Museum; David Dunn, Ryan Kunkle, Allan Martin, Steve Meola, and Mark Volatile of the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania; and Walter Gray and Kyle William Wyatt of the California State Railroad Museum.

Over a span of three weeks, this team collaborated with the B&O staff to complete damage assessments which will guide the future restoration of the locomotives and rolling stock. Construction of wall shoring devices and protective scaffolding shelters around the locomotives and rolling stock has continued as well.

Images as of Friday, April 25, 2003 are available [at the link below, in the form of slide shows by date]"

More info: It appears that the Museum will be incapable of extracting the major locos in the roundhouse with the turntable apparently being damaged, so protective "cocoons" are being constructed to protect each loco while rebuilding of the building is under way. As far as I have been told, rebuilding will involve removal of the remaining lower roof and replacement of the entire outer circle with a replica of the oriinal, fabricated with steel instead of cast iron.

Specific photos in the slide shows will show the body damage to certain locos, including dents to the cab of St. Elizabeth's 4.


B&O Museum Updates
lner4472@bcpl.net

Personally, I don't think they could do a much better job at keeping us informed as to the progress they are making. The "slide show" format works very well. I'm also glad to see they have brought in respected preservation people who actually know what they are doing, rather than paying high-priced, unknowledgable consultants to learn what it is they are working with.



ryarger@rypn.org