I have the misfortune to report a pair of breakins at the Southern Forest Heritage Museum at Longleaf, LA.

Last Sunday night, the enginehouse was broken into and a number of car and Freight car truck parts were stolen from those that had been stockpiled for a project. Yesterday the same same theives returned with a larger truck and a number of steam locomotive and freight car parts were also stolen.

We are in the process of making an inventory of missing items as I write this, but should anyone approach you regarding railroad parts that they have for sale, and they cannot establish a bill of sale for such items, SFHM would appreciate you notifying either:

Claudia Troll,
Museum Director
Southern Forest Heritage Museum
318-748-8404
longleaf@centurytel.net

or

Everett Lueck
Director of railroad operations, SFHM
281-222-5652
elueck@att.net

In addition, if any of you have been recent visitors to Longleaf, and have taken pictures of the "artifact piles" in the engine house area, we would appreciate it if you could send those photos to Claudia to aid us in our inventory. There were so many things there, that we cannot establish all that is missing without your help.

Everett Lueck

Have you called all of the local scrap yards? Get on the phone quick! We had some steam engine parts stolen in January, and by quickly calling the local scrap yards were able to recover four irreplaceable wrought iron shrink links, and also apprehended the thief.

For everyone else, go out to your property right now with a digital camera and photograph every piece of metal on your property and in your buildings. We did that and was able to show the police where the shrink links were stored at on our property before being stolen.

All local scrap yards were notified within hours of the first breakin. We notified them again on Monday. So far the items that we have identified as missing, thanks to either pictures sent to us by our volunteers, or by visitors who have heard about it, include 8 5" X 9 " freight car truck springs, a 10-12" shiv wheel pulley, and a pair of belt pulleys on a line shaft which was used in the machine shop at one time. At this point we have not been able to ascertain whether any railroad specific items other than the truck springs have been stolen. The fact that the thieves struck twice, and were after certain items appears to point to persons who reside in the locality.
We have photographed again everything in sight, but still solicit photos of any of the "artifact" piles from anyone who has photographs of the museum.