We have been trying for over a month to find out the disposition of the steam saddle tankers formerly owned by Jacksonville, Florida chapter NRHS. We would like to restore one as the second operating engine for Savannah, but can't get any response from the officers of the chapter we know how to contact. I find it very hard to believe they were actually sold to a scrap dealer as rumor has it - does somebody in the chapter know who has them and how that person can be contacted? Please respond before it is too late in case the rumors are true.

Dave

irondave@bellsouth.net

> We have been trying for over a month to find
> out the disposition of the steam saddle
> tankers formerly owned by Jacksonville,
> Florida chapter NRHS.

There was something about this on the Tweetsie mailing list a few days ago. Ken Riddle bought the NG one, and someone else bought the SG one. I'll mail you the particulars.

JAC

SteamCentral

Dave, dunno if it's an ex-NRHS saddle tanker but some rusty 0-4-0T showed up my my hometown, Franklin, N.C., earlier this month. When I checked it out a few weeks ago, it had some fading stencils about "North Florida Mall" or something to that effect. No numbers, or anything else but she's right on U.S. 441 South at the Whistle Stop Antique Mall. (I kid you not). Jim

Wrinnbo@aol.com

More rusting hulks in limbo then. What would possess a railroad preservation organization to dispose so badly of artifacts rather than to offer them to other museums for legitimate preservation purposes? I don't get it.......
Dave

irondave@bellsouth.net

They have a website.

Dave, dunno if it's an ex-NRHS saddle tanker
> but some rusty 0-4-0T showed up my my
> hometown, Franklin, N.C., earlier this
> month. When I checked it out a few weeks
> ago, it had some fading stencils about
> "North Florida Mall" or something
> to that effect. No numbers, or anything else
> but she's right on U.S. 441 South at the
> Whistle Stop Antique Mall. (I kid you not).
> Jim


http://www.whistlestopmall.com/index.htm
bobyar2001@yahoo.com

Dave,

As bad as that is, I have heard of worst. In South Africa in the late 1990s, a museum served as a front for a scrap dealer that allowed the dealer to acquire and scrap five ex-SAR steam locomotives since derelict at St Helena Gold Mine in South Africa.

It is a shame that turning an artifact over to a museum does not guarantee it's perservation; it reflects badly on museums as a whole.

-James Hefner
Hebrews 10:20a

> More rusting hulks in limbo then. What would
> possess a railroad preservation organization
> to dispose so badly of artifacts rather than
> to offer them to other museums for
> legitimate preservation purposes? I don't
> get it.......
> Dave


Surviving World Steam Locomotives
james1@pernet.net

What do you suppose will happen to all the stuff collected and not preserved? One side says deaccession is the answer to MY museums problems. The other side says pile it up, we'll worry about it later. Many years ago a group of us were let into the abandoned Mt Claire roundhouse, the trip was arranged by connections because the place was supposed to be broken up, thank God it wasn't. Who is the lucky one that gets to draw the line ???


lamontdc@adelphia.net

It's bad when a museum does something like this. What's worse is when a museum that has material on a subject your researching won't help you or they advertise car diagrams on their website and after sending them money for a diagram, after a year you still haven't recieved it.

When it comes to preservation, there are many ways that we as a group can improve.

I'm not trying to start a war, I just want to point out that the door swings both ways.

Later,

Stuart


gnufe@apex.net

Well, I have been called a lot of stuff but scrap dealer is a first!

I have the little Porter down to bare bones in my shop right now. She appears to have gotten tires in Waycross in 1952, but that is about all the marks I have found other than her 1911 Porter builders plate. I have the saddletank done as well as replacement centers for the sand dome and steam dome. It has been removed, washed out (20 gallons of rust and scale. The tank and domes got their last coat of paint today-black, per the Porter catalog, not Tweetsie green.

Mr. Hargis, the gentleman who had a lot to do with the great Porter book that the NMRA published and several of you I am sure have in your collection, seems to think my engine is the one pictured on page 22 as it has the unusual bumpers on the pilot beam and the open-canopy cab. The 30-inch gauge in the book is a mistake, it is 36 inch gauge. She loaded out of Florida at 21,500 pounds and since I got her home she has probaly lost nearly 500 pounds of rust and paint.

Her boiler is quite dead and I will not even try to hydro it.

I will put up a web page on what we have been going thru with her when I get a chance.

The biggest reason I picked her up (other than she was priced to move) is that I have 2 sons, ages 13 and 11. I felt like they need a little sledgehammer, pinch bar, and spud wrench education. They are damn sure getting one and my 11 year old has the makings of great sledgehammer man, but as of today I am the only one on the crew with crooked fingers.

That standard gauge ALCO tanker the Florida museum boys sold loaded out at about 27 tons but she was missing all four of her eccentric blades, which is a bad thing to be missing. It was headed to an antique mall in North Carolina.

They have a fabulous Davenport 0-4-0 standard gauge siderod diesel at a great price. Super old and really cool and appeared to be complete.

Some of you guys pick it up and get some preserving done on your own--it's cheaper than a bass boat and the exercise will do you good!
Ken (scrap dealer) Riddle

Porter being loaded out n Florida
ken290@hiwaay.net

Relieved to find it was you but still very unhappy the standard gage will slowly scrap itself in a parking lot. We have made an offer for the Davenport but they aren't responding to that either. Hard to do business.

Eccentric blades? Don't sweat it - my shop guys can deal with missing parts.

Dave

irondave@bellsouth.net

Neat little engine. I have a soft spot for dinksters. For what it is worth, Holman boiler here in Dallas recently built two boilers for Six Flags Patout plantation engines (around 11 tons). I think the price I remember was under or around 20k.

I am always sort of amazed by steam locomotives that are smaller than farm steam tractors in the shed.

lorija799@aol.com

Not quite sure but looking more and more like she will get reboilered. We have some narrow gauge track up at Doe River Gorge they might let me run on, but she is a LONG LONG way from going anywhere at this point. All those years in the weather ten miles from the ocean have taken their toll.

On the bright side, she is complete and the parts are not so big and heavy that I can't manage them. I expect to spend the weekend removing the pistons and crossheads and getting ready to jack her up for driver and box removal. Her crown brass looks very good from what I can see but I am going to send the driver sets and boxes over to the Tweetsie shop for cleaning up.



Porter being loaded out n Florida
ken290@hiwaay.net