I found out today (Saturday) that Atlanta & St. Andrews Bay (The Bay Line) chop-nosed RS-1 No. 904 has been scrapped. I don't recall hearing or seeing anything about this on RYPN, so I hope this is not a duplicate of a previous topic.

The locomotive had been on display in Panama City, FL for many years at Gulf Coast Community College. I do not know the details, but there had been an effort to preserve this unit, which apparently had gotten in the way of progress (a new building) at the college. The individual who was attempting to save it and get it moved had approached the governing body responsible for its fate, and had left a meeting with the understanding he would be given time to work out something out. Soon thereafter, however, he was driving by and found the locomotive being scrapped.

Heres a photo from back in 1980. From other info I've found, it was placed on display in 1973:

http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/showPi ... ?id=299049

Unit was from the class of 4/1943, BN 70810. No photos of the scrapping apparently.

Seems ASAB 904 was actually at a MUSEUM! Still trying to confirm this.

The shell of the locomotive was at the Panama City Junior Museum. There was no prime mover, no generator, no traction motors, just an empty shell. It had been moved from the Community College a couple of decades ago, when 23rd Street was widened and made into a main artery.

There was certainly no way to restore this locomotive to operation.

They said that to Doyle to...who pretty much started out with a cab and some bent metal..

Yes, but Alco PA's are a lot rarer than RS-1's, several of which still see semi-regular service.

The one detail I'd like to hear is the motivation for scrapping. Had it become hazardous in some way? Someone in such dire financial straits that the scrap money was critical? Ownership dispute? Someone not paying storage fees or taxes? Scrapped by mistake?

No, it was merely in the way. It was offered to anyone who would pay to move it and no one figured it was worth saving. It had been considerably modified by The Bay Line while in service, including a low hood on the short end. When the college got rid of it due to street widening, the Junior Museum took it. When the Junior Museum needed the land for a new building, no one was willing to take it off its hands. It was available for well over a year on a you move it and it's yours free basis..

I first found out about it exactly a year ago, from the individual who was trying to get it moved to his private property. He indicated it was going to cost $25K for the move. I couldn't invest any time or money on it to check it out for Thronateeska, primarily because I was under the impression it was a completely intact loco that would have to be moved by truck. I knew we didn't have the funds to move it. Had I known it was just a shell it may have been economically feasible, but now is too late...

Its all about communication.

And the same thing is about to happen with the Lost Engines of Roanoke, same reason. We have no field data, so we're reduced to arm-waving speculation about the situation. I didn't even know the scrapyard had a connected rail siding until last week. And if I didn't know, neither do people who are expert at moving trains in this situation.

The information conduits in railway preservation are very poor, and that's a problem. RyPN is a step in the right direction, but we really need much bigger steps -- we need an express train to the right direction :)

Do we really have a problem gathering things to restore, however?

The average museum seems to have a far larger problem in *restoring* and *maintaining*.

While it's always sad to see more stuff scrapped, as a field, preservationists have a mixed to poor record. It's not from lack of trying. It's more from lack of funds and manpower. For every big name shiny preserved engine there are ten rusting away, maybe more.

I think a solid argument can be made that the current preservation model is not sustainable. There just isn't enough income to support every potential or even every significant potential preservation project.

If I'm right, it will mean having to make some hard choices about what each museum is about, and what they invest their money and manpower in, and what the future holds.

Since many (most?) people who have an interest in railroad preservation are older, we see the results of the steam locomotives, 1st and 2nd generation diesels, freight cars, passenger cars and trolleys that were "saved" essentially for "free". A lot of this was because steam, passenger cars and certainly trolleys all became more or less instantly unneeded over a very short period of time. Diesels were less so since they could be handed down to shortlines and now even some smaller worn out diesels are valuable for the frames to build up something new upon.

Now 20, 30, 40 years have past and it is obvious to anyone outside of railroad preservation (and hopefully to increasing numbers within) that the vast majority of the stuff "saved" will never be restored. But we know the outrage and "fan" press coverage there will be when XYZ Railroad Museum is bankrupt, or the government authorities order a site cleanup and we see the GG1, 0-6-0, and ex-whoever passenger cars (the ones with fire damage, no windows, and no floors) getting cut up. I know of at least 3 trolley museums where not only the cars, but the tarps put over them 25 years ago are starting to rot. Yet I don't believe these organizations can get the consensus necessary to do the unthinkable and scrap what is beyond any reasonable chance of survival. Look at the Ohio Railway Museum where certain members are threatening to chain themselves to certain pieces if they are removed.

Frankly, I think the last person from the generation who "saved" this stuff is going to have to depart - and we have to hope there will be someone left to carry on - before the needed scrapping begins.

There is much equipment out there to be "preserved". It has been discussed ad nauseum here and elsewhere that museums should be and in some instances are going through a rationalization of their collection. Where equipment is merely being held (unrestored/unpreserved) in one museum's collection, it might be "preserved" in another's collection, if the exchange can be made. (Boy, that's a real statement of the obvious, isn't it!)

As for my interest in the Bay Line RS-1, Thronateeska does not have a diesel locomotive in the collection. It would be nice to have one, and since our steam loco is an ALCO, I can think of many interpretive benefits of having an ALCO diesel locomotive in the collection as opposed to a Baldwin, F-M or EMD. I (me, personally, not the museum) actually purchased an RS-3 (with no local heritage) with the intent of painting it as a Central of Georgia unit for exhibit at Thronateeska, but the project fell through when my mechanical partner backed out of the deal. I have since sold it and it still sits, unmoved and untouched, right where it was during the time I owned it. As has been said about railroad equipment, the purchase price is the cheapest part of ownership. I could not afford to move an RS-3 with a dead wheel, and the cost of finding and replacing a wheelset was prohibitive on the budget I had. CSX probably would not have moved it simply because of how rough it looked, and I know it would have taken much more than replacing the dead wheel to get it safely moved on its own wheels. I feel lucky to have basically broken even on the sale of the unit. It wasn't stored for free, either.

So, the Bay Line loco would have a tenuous connection to the Albany area, but it could have come into the collection with some justification and stayed painted Bay Line. Since Thronateeska has no track over which to operate a train (not yet, anyhow), having a dead loco (even a gutted shell) is as good as having an operable one.

We tend to think everything in our collections is worth a mint. We all know how "important" and "historic" our "artifacts" are and are loath to let them go for free to a new home, regardless of need or justification. An exception was how Thronateeska has benefited from the gifting of Georgia Norther combine 38, which was deacessioned from MOT's collection in 2004.

HOD Bill made reference in a post earlier this month about the Heart of Dixie having 3 F-M locos (I think they are all H12-44's) sitting around in the display yard at Calera. Lacking an ALCO, the CofGA had some H12-44's and one could be painted as such for exhibit in Thronateeska's collection. But is there a chance of the HOD gifting one to Thronateeska? With money so tight it seems more likely that one or 2 of the 3 they have would be scrapped for the money before one would be given away. They would still have one for exhibit purposes. (Bill, please don't take this personally...this is just for purposes of discussion. I'm not picking on HOD, although I did unsuccessfully try to get the remaining metal RPO fixtures from the burned out B&O RPO over there in order to restore the 60-ft section of Thronateeska's ACL RPO.)

Sort of like a museum having multiple Pullman sleepers. To that museum, every one of them has some significance and regardless of condition, they wouldn't dream of letting one go to a museum that is without any Pullman representation without some sizable exchange of cash. But with money tight, it then becomes an issue of "do we pay for the car and hope for future restoration funds" or keep on looking for a freebie we can put the money into actual preservation?" Meanwhile good cars are becoming rust buckets for lack of attention.

And let's not forget the costs of moving this stuff. It seems if you don't have upwards of $20K (and more) available to move something you can't do it without donation of services, and that seems to be less of a likelihood these days. Cranes on both ends of a haul tend to be the highest cost (assuming the equipment doesn't require special hauling equipment). Everyone here has probably dealt with this, but for those who have not had the "pleasure", the cost for NS to haul the Georgia Northern combine from St. Louis to Savannah where it is being restored was only a small fraction (around 6%) of the total costs, the other being the cranes and labor to load and properly tie down the car to a flatcar, and the reverse when the car arrived in Savannah.

I hate that the RS-1 was cut. Could Thronateeska have made something of it? Probably. Will there be other opportunities? Probably. Will there be enough funds to move something like that? At the rate the economy is going, probably not. This does not bode well for many pieces languishing in museums or privately held across the country, and museums like Thronateeska probably should not expect to be able to get anything more than what is already in their collection.

At the very least, this RS-1 shell could have been used for "parts" to keep another RS-1 alive.