Had the great good fortune to spend this past week visiting museums in Washington, D.C., Baltimore, and Strasburg. Wonderful stuff happening at Strasburg, as if that's news. The photo freight is amazing, and the seasonal passenger cars are truly beautiful to see.
B&O Museum is elegant indoors, with a full pantheon of railroading carefully presented. The recent snow has been problematic for the parking lot crew, of course.
This is Reading 2101 as she appears today. Fortunately, sandwiched between a Budd Car and some passenger cars. I would love to see this particular locomotive returned to Reading livery and placed under cover. That said, I hope paint is planned for the other outdoor steam locomotives before the visitor season swings in. The Kanawha and 2-6-6-2 specifically would be well served.
The nearby neighborhood is being brought up nicely, but slowly. Painting those locomotives would enhance the general appearance of the area. Not a criticism of the Museum

oh, still in the Freedom Train livery? I have it in 2101 and the Freedom Train on film here.

That's about how I saw Reading 2101 (AFT #1) this past summer, but without the snow on the locomotive. It's sad see the condition Reading 2101 was currently in. My folks have pictures going back to the AFT pulled by 2101 came into Detroit back in 1976. B&O Museum really needs to do some cosmetic work her, or at least moved Reading 2101 indoors into the same building as C&O 490 & 1604.

Unfortunately paint is really expensive:( I have to say, while they do have alot of stuff outside that could use some attention, the B&O museum seems to do what they can with what they've got. It's just that there is so much of it it's hard to keep up. A side note, I believe the last time 2101 was painted was at the Hagerstown Roundhouse while it was being cosmetically restored after the fire. I've heard they did some testing on the boiler at that point and didnt find anything major wrong with it. I assume there must have been something else major damaged from the heat. Anyway, Id love to see her repainted, but kept in the AFT scheme. There are 3 other T1's that could be in Reading you know. Only one AFT2101.

And then there is the cost of labor. As a post reported after the roof collapse a few years ago, they are a Professional Museum, they don't accept volunteer help; just send lots of money.

They do accept volunteer help. I have been a volunteer there for 15 years next month. I serve as a docent, but there are many others in rail operations, mechanical etc.

There are plans afoot to cosmetically restore her as AFT #1. And if you've seen the quality of their other restorations, it wil be worth the wait. The reason she was retired was because they could not tell if the frame without spending cubic dollars to lift the boiler off the frame.

As for the North Car Shop, every piece in there is historically important. They will never remove the Allegheny or the President Washington to make room for a T1. Fugedaoubtit. Ain't gonna happen.

I remember hearing someplace--oh, that's right, right here--about someone that was promising to make a few phone calls and see what he could do to remedy the cosmetic condition of the loco...........

Perhaps that painting will occur in the Spring? There are three big steamers outdoors of equal prestige.

I agree, those locomotive stored indoors should remain indoors. There is work to be done on the Presidential Pacific, easy stuff, too, like cleaning the stoker screw of rust and garbage. This loco needs some decorative parts and a paint job, which seems like fairly low(er) budget items. The Mikado, rescued by Ed Streigel, iirc) sits behind her and needs similar work. The Hudson needs to be polished, another volunteer type job. The Allegheny needs to be revived to full steam and operated by CSX in photo freights, hauling coal as a regular member of the active fleet :-)
Anyway, the B&O Museum is a great operation, and considering everything they've been through in the past few years, they deserve only kudos for their accomplishments, funding, and encouragement for the future.

AMIV, garbage like this erodes any credibility to which you may have ever claimed. Frankly, to say it's petty is an understatement. This ongoing pissing match needs to be removed from here and other boards.

Michael Brown
Atlanta, GA

Some months ago when this topic came up I said that I would call the B&O Museum leadership and see what could be done. I did that and spoke to the Exec. Director and asked if it were possible to arrange a cooperative effort to get the AFT 1 put into decent cosmetic shape.

I said that I was willing to try my best to raise the funding needed and asked if it would be possible to have a crew I contracted ( pros that I know do excellent work at reasonable prices) come in and use the museums facilities for the job. I had my folks go to Baltimore and look her over so as to be able to give me a professional estimate of the time/dollars needed. Their estimate was 7 working days and approximately $ 20,000 including labor&materials.

I am waiting to hear back from the museum regarding their willingness/desire to move forward.

Her current condition certainly doesn't speak well for anyone involved and I sure hope we can get that remedied soon.

There's no question in my mind that she should continue to carry the AFT colors as that's how she looked to the vast majority of Americans in actual service.

Hopefully the call will come soon???

Ross Rowland

Did I state anything factually inaccurate?

Did I name names?

Did I state any opinion about the person that allegedly said something about making some phone calls regarding this situation?

Did I even ask "hey, whatever became of that?"

No.

I left the forum open with the opportunity for Rowland, or anyone else directly or indirectly connected with the situation, to respond appropriately. Rowland has done so.

That loco is a tough and rough sore spot for anyone and everyone concerned. It's becoming a textbook case for why no one in their right mind should go into railroad preservation. The money isn't there to keep her nice-looking or under a roof. The Reading fans want her as a Reading loco. The AFT fans want her repainted as the AFT loco. The B&O Museum is stuck with an eyesore, and they way their administration seems to run, if someone walked up with $100K and wanted her painted by next month, it probably still couldn't happen. If the Museum sold her to the Reading Co. T&H Society, they'd look like the Eastern branch of the National Railroad Museum. And thanks to this being the 21st century, neither the B&O Museum nor Rowland (or anyone else) can just sneak that loco across town to a warehouse with rails in it and turn loose a bunch of volunteers or temp laborers with paint guns, as I personally know has been done a few years back with more than one locomotive in that region.

Rowland quit complaining--if, indeed, he ever actually did--and actually proposed an apparently viable alternative, which is more than most grousers ever do, and I applaud him for that. The Museum can either accept or explain why it's not viable in their opinion. (Or just never respond at all, of course.)

You have another idea? We're listening.

Huh? Paint is the cheapest quick fix to make a highly visible difference at minimal cost from the general public's POV - almost all of whom don't care about exactly which shade of black, whose letters and numbers are on it, where the stripes were put, so long as it looks well kept. Paint is our cheap date dependable friend with benefits: we are our own needy, high maintenance teases that don't put out but make a lot of demands anyhow. We need to dump us and move on.........and concentrate on people we can make happy and reap some reward.

I've made thousands of dollars worth of temporary difference (in the value of good will) with a few hundreds of dollars worth of paint and patching supplies trying to get very low budget startups off dead center and into some form of reality.

A bad paint job costing little but there at the right time for the right event can work wonders. Use it and stop worrying about the details, and the credibility gain with everybody (except railfans and academics - who don't pay the bills) will be yours to build from.

Now, a good paint job....with surface prep and truly good attention to detail will make everybody (except for a few who don't matter) thrilled. Costly? Relative to $500 worth of masking tape and acrylic paints and a couple scrapers, maybe, but in terms of true preservation and legitimate restoration work, still a pretty marginal use of resources. 20K evaporates in design and engineering, machine shop, patternmaking and casting, etc immediately before any tangible result is evident, and the thing still looks like crap, and therefore is to those who believe perception is reality because they don't know any better and don't need to. 20K in a fine paint job well done: a decade of good result.

Just do something and worry later when you can afford to.

dave

I have assisted in painting several locomotives and freight cars, as well as outdoor tanks and trailers, with everything from professional spray paint pots to cheap paint and rollers.

If the choice is there, I would rather start with 2102/1 in its current condition than have to deal with another layer of stuff-going-to-hell to remove.

A half-posteriored quickie paint job on a loco would buy you a couple years at best, and at the end of the couple years the loco would look even worse than it already does, unless you undertook the same amount of intensive prep work (rust and paint removal, priming, etc.) that you would need for a proper paint job. Besides which, they're NOT going to let a bunch of folks grind and paint that thing where it is now, out in the parking lot

And a reminder: This is NOT a Penn Central "dip black" job; this is a multi-color extravaganza with a complex, hand-painted logo on the tender.

A few points. It's time that they think outside of the box. The Cuyahoga Valley Scenic Railroad seems to have gotten sponsors for almost everything on wheels. She is a symbol of America and if the right press was put out money would flow in to restore her to operation. A little flag waving goes a long way.

How about a fundraiser with press releases to every national news organization explaining if everyone who saw her just once back in 1976 would simply send in just one dollar they would be able to paint her and establish a trust fund for future care.

In the meantime knock the loose stuff away and hit her with some rollers and gloss black oil based paint, hide her, put her in a cocoon, or cover her with an invisibility cloak. She is an eyesore and makes the whole place look bad.

Maybe a long term loan to another organization, it does not even have to be a true blue railroad museum. Look at the restoration done on the CP 2839 in the car museum.

There is a way. She just needs someone to lead the charge. Doing anything is better than doing nothing. At least if you try something and get it wrong you learn what wont work. Sitting around waiting for the train ferry to come has not worked.

Not without the explicit cooperation and sanction of the institution owning the locomotive, there isn't. Not unless you want to develop a helicopter capable of picking up a Reading T-1 in the middle of the night.......