Wow, what a case of sour grapes. I wonder how this affects the lease arrangement between the two groups, as I understood it to be a lease for an operable engine? What about the valve stems?

Dennis,
I don't think it had anything to do with "sour grapes". It may have been a case of not doing their homework soon enough and be placed in the a situation where the crew and locomotive was there to make the move and then finding out that the key could not be removed.

Joshua,
No apology necessary. I know the remark was not made to detract from 261 and her crew. The fact is that the lateral motion devices DID their job, but too well. It was just a situation where the #2 driver climbed the rail but did not actually go on the ground. She ran fine on the return trip except for a broken whistle cord. Thank goodness she has multiple "noise makers".............

Don C.

My question is why were the rods cut? There are any number of ways to move a locomotive with cutting the rods. The other question is, how expensive is it to cast new ones?

I am confused. The photo link is not working and the photos from December show the rods in place.

Wesley

Try this...
I copied this link earlier for my own use. It almost looks like someone changed the URL's.

As the story goes, they had good intentions of trying to do the proper thing for the locomotive...sadly, it did not go in their favor. On an unrelated note, it is not advisable to drive out your piston and valve rods with a hammer or hammer and drift. This has the undesired effect of mushrooming out the ends of the rods to where they will not come out lest one has time to grind away the damaged material and then remove it properly.
I would highly recommend calling in a professional for such work.