There is, of course, a difference between well-organized preservation and simply obsessive collecting, though often that line seems to be blurred in this hobby/business.

Railfan Magazine, years ago, had a cartoon of a railfan diving for a rail employee's discarded cigarette butt in mid-discard-flight, and the (presumed) wife saying "SURELY you're not collecting prototype cigarette butts!?!!"

Well, this turned up in a list of items for sale listed by a member of a specific-railroad-centric Yahoo Group list:

"cast manhole cover, P.R.R. Co. T. & S. D."

I just had to pity any relatives of the collector who had this (though to be fair, some of the rest of the list was indeed stuff that could have preservation/restoration uses).

Any other nominees for the most patently absurd "preserved" railroad artifact? I mean, I would nominate the guy who had a caboose toilet, except some bloke will probably want that for an accurate restoration years from now.

Actually a cast manhole cover is a valuable item at a museum, particularly if you are recreating a street scene, or hope to one day.
http://www.forgotten-ny.com/STREET%20SCENES/manholes/manhole.html

By themselves, they are more interesting artifacts than cigarette butts - that sure is an odd one. Garbage can be interesting, given context. I recall seeing melted marbles and other weird stuff - leftovers from the Great Chicago Fire, in an overall display on the subject at the Chicago Historical Society.

How about 9 stone ties, still in the original location where they were laid about 1831? The rail was removed in 1851.
Main Line of Public Works, South side of Edgely Rd., Fairmount Park, Pa.

Other ties from this line have been moved and preserved in garden walls, etc.

Not sure if your post is tongue-in-cheek, showing the public the not so romantic side of railroading is important to future historians. This is similar to the prominent place the toilet facilities have in the mock-up of the shuttle craft at NASA in Houston, TX.

Romi Romano

Boy, could this be fun. But first, the guy I pity is whoever fell down the manhole after some foamer stole the cover.

My nomination is the two Sharon couplers locked in eternal coupling in the park near the junction and the 4-6-4 in Galesburg, Illinois. I'd nominate the first 10 feet of the 2-8-0 that are on display in Mississippi, but that's not a whole object.

Aarne H. Frobom
Objet d'Art, Michigan

Not sure what you are talking about here. Is this just the front end of a locomotive, perserved Soviet style on a plinthe? If so, where?

Those stuffed and mounted locomotive noses are my nomination for the oddest preserved RR item; why not the whole locomotive?

I don't know what's in Mississippi, but in Dupo, IL there is the front of a Missouri Pacific Spot series 2-8-0 sitting against a building. It's as far back as the cylinders if I remember correctly. Other than the old SLIM&S 4-6-0 at the Museum of Transportation in St. Louis, I think that's the whole of the MP's steam preservation program.
Damned shame as the MP had some nice stuff they could have saved. Oh well.......

Since preserved toilets have been mentioned here, has any group preserved an INCINOLET (sometimes called the "turd toaster" or the "fart burner" depending on which railroad was using them). Having an Incinolet as a working display would be a RIPE opportunity to expose your visitors to the authentic ODOR of 1970s locomotive operation, at least for a few seconds before they fled the premises.

PC

An odd item allegedly preserved from the last run of a CNS&M Electroliner was the "Last Electroburger", which, according to legend, was preserved in a railfans freezer for over 30 years. However, after the fan's death, the burger could (thankfully) not be located.

Jeff

Back in 1990-1991, we (Connecticut Trolley Museum) salvaged some manhole covers from the Connecticut Co. streetcar shops in Hartford at Vernon St. I can't remember what they said, but they were identifiable as streetcar company property.

I have long heard about this front section of the MP 2-8-0 in Dupo but have never seen a photo. Anybody out there have one? BTW, I heard that the MoPac offered the entire Consolidation to Dupo, but they decided to only take the very front section. I don't know if that is what actually happened or not, but at least it beats turning down the whole locomotive, as a few places did do.

Les

Oddly, what touched me the most of all the photos of the B&O roundhouse disaster posted on their (old) website, was one of a wet, crushed and now spoiled B&O branded tea bag.

Bob

At the Bluegrass Railroad Museum, I believe at the Ky. Railway Museum and the Kentucky Historical Society are examples of the limestone sills over which the Lexington & Ohio Railroad first operated between Lexington and Frankfort Kentucky. As best we can tell these sills were about a foot square and approximately 14 feet or more in length. Spaced approximately 4' 8 1/2" apart the two rows of sills ran from Lexington to a point overlooking Frankfort where an incline operation was used to lower the cars down into Frankfort. On the inner portion of the sills was iron strap rail for the wheels to run on. Holes were drilled into the limestone and wooden pegs were used to hold the strap rail in place. Where there switches of some sort? We don't know. They would probably have been built of wood if they ever did exist. We believe that most of these sills are still in place underneath the former CSX/L&N line between Lexington and Frankfort.

I'll nominate the quite-well-preserved East Broad Top "delivery truck", which is painted in pullman green, with the EBT logo painted on the truck body. Like many other things on-site in Orbisonia, it is flash-frozen in time, as-is, where-is. Most people have no idea that they even ever HAD a truck, but during the ARM convention, we had the opportunity to see it for ourselves - "Hey, did you see the old delivery truck in there???" They had a TRUCK????

C'mon, a 1950's truck, intact, preserved on the EBT? That's at least got to make the final list for complete oddballs in railroading.

Consider it in the context of the shut-down-and-walked-away-in-1956-time-capsule that the EBT is, however, and that's almost to be expected.

"Oddball" would be someone showing up for "Railfan Weekend" there dressed in the same clothes and toting the exact same camera and tripod as some railfan participant in a 1940s or 1950s excursion on that railroad. "Obsession" would be if the cameras were loaded with 116 film.

[guilty party whistles innocently and wanders away...........]