> Where is B&H #11 now?

In Middletown, NY. Owned by the Middletown & New Jersey RR. This freight shortline acquired it as a "future energy crisis backup locomotive" (US coal vs. foreign diesel fuel), but (as far as I know) have done minimal work towards returning it to operating condition.

Regards,
Jim Robinson

A couple of quick comments on something that has been mentioned before, but I'm not sure we are taking seriously.

Over the past couple of months, I have talked with numerous fellow members of the transportation-related preservation fields (read rail and marine) who have seen real potential opportunities for preservation of historic equipment fall through because of rising scrap prices. Three examples:

1.) Two ex-GTW 59000-series Automobile cars (dreadnaught ends to boot) in Illinois were lost when after lengthy negotiations with the owner of the siding they were sitting on seemingly had them preserved fell through. Someone outside (most liekly a scrap dealer) told him of rising scrap prices and he suddenly sold for scrap with little warning

2.) The ongoing saga of the Lewis G. Harriman, a beautiful and smaller (read much more managable tpo preserve) Great Lakes freighter seems to be now a lost cause, when it was sold for scrap rather than given to a group which had been trying to work out a deal to preserve it for some time. The owner of the scrap yard, Purvis Marine, is not unfriendly to marine preservation, but he is a businessman first, with a business to run. If something isn't done in about 5 months (and read into this a miracle) she will go they way of all of her brethern of that size.

3.) Idler flatcars for carferry in Port Huron-- the last of the idler flatcars for the former C&O/ Chessie/ CSX carferry operation between Port Huron and Sarnia was lost when CSX decided to sell them for scrap rather then preserve them. I'm afraid the last ferry they served, the P.M. #10, recently moved to the "Frog Pond" in Toledo will also soon be lost, along with the two remaining Wabash/ N&W/ NS carferries, which remain there with her do to the same trend.

We all speak about preserving these pieces of our industrial past, we have all seen postings for months now that scrap prices are going up, but yet we do little to organize into a coherent single voice to do anything to stop it. Time and time again when someone makes the effort to try to do preservation of this type, we end up degrading into useless arguments about "why should this be saved instead of that" instead of pushing for a single goal. Think if everyone posting on this board united into a single voice to preserve a piece of equipment, rathr than dropping into the usual argument and ranchor that seems to always happen.

Maybe there is little that we can do, maybe it is already too late, but if there is something that CAN be done, do it NOW. How many times have you passed that little used siding with a 40-foot boxcar or other piece of equipment and thought it should be preserved? Maybe some sort of concerted effort needs to be done now to document these cars while we can, and then tackle each as a separate issue. I know, money, and where will it come from? Maybe if we concentrate on a single effort, we would have a better chance of getting that kind of support as well. If you were a philanthropists, rich or not, would you give money to something that had 100 people behind with a coherent plan of attack, or to four or five guys who "kind' of think it would be great to save that rusted park engine?"

The cases above prove that waiting until tomorrow will most definitely be too late. And what makes steam locomotive our historic diesels will be exempt?

TJ



Lewis G. Harriman Site

tjgaffney@phmuseum.org