I was given the business cell phone number for the BSM guy responsible for the disposition of the lathe. It's been busy every time I've tried it this afternoon and evening.

Wanna apologize for your cussing?

The museum numbers provided will get you a recorded message (the 0264 one) or nobody until someone is there this weekend (the 1164 one).

I'll pursue Plan C regarding contact info.

The problem, as I was told, was that they have had numerous parties--supposedly over a dozen--start a whole chain of:

"Can you find me a local trucker who can take it?"
"Can CSX load it in town? Can you call and find out?"
"How about NS? Will they let us load it nearby?"
"Can you find out if they can get a flat car for us?"
"Oh, can you get me the number of some local crane guys? Can they come out and get me a more accurate weight?"
"Can you see if those top brackets come off?"
"Can you give me a run-down of what all is in storage? Have you tested the motor lately? Can you?"
"Can you take it further apart before the guys come?"

and finally, of course, after hours of phone calls, boot leather, etc.:
"Oh, sorry, it'll cost more than we were thinking....."

To probably exactly quote the guy in charge, "No more. We're tired of this [stuff]. I'm sick of looking at it. We're cleaning the place up so it stops looking like a [bleeping] junkyard and attracting the vandals and graffiti punks. Put the photos up, tell 'em to come and get it. We'll tell them enough to save them a wasted trip to see it, but the grunt work is theirs. All we need is a cash deposit to make the scrappers ignore it for another year."

Southwest flys to Baltimore. Light rail from the airport gets you to within four blocks of the place.

In the imortal words of (the infamous) Les Kasten, who has talked to more tire kickers in the railcar equipment business than anyone on earth, "If you can't afford a ticket to St. Louis [Baltimore, in this case] you can't afford to own it."

(Actually, the concrete to hold this thing down to terra firma will probably cost more than the acquisition)

I think Sandy made it perfectly clear up front that the BSM was tired of tire kickers. No fair picking on him.

Steve

It certainly does sound to me as if the BSM is intentionally trying to make it difficult for anyone to acquire this lathe. I am sure any of us would certainly enjoy a prospective buyer to come swooping in, cash in hand and purchase a machine from us sight unseen, no questions asked and following right behind him an armada of cranes, trucks and riggers. Doesn't happen like that very often. Its not on the same par as buying a T shirt from the gift shop! Nobody in their right mind is going to sink a major commitment of cash into a machine such as this without asking a few preliminary questions first.

Alex, I really don't know your intentions with this thread.You posted photos and an offer to sell, but when someone replies with an interested party you basically shut him down. So what is the point to all of this nonsense?

BTW if the BSM officials think it is too much of a pain to answer phone calls, maybe they are not the right people to be leading that organization. I am the go to guy for my organization, and I get calls in the early morning until late at night, when I am up on ladders, deep in pits, operating cranes, welding, etc.etc. Its part of the job.

Was this lathe initially donated to the BSM? If so, was the intent of the donor that the lathe be parked outside for 20 years then scrapped, or did the donor have some expectation that the machine would be used? Doesn't the BSM have an obligation to at least make a good faith attempt to find a home for this lathe? Could it be considered an artifact or is it still a piece of capital equipment? Oh I don't consider a "good faith attempt" your chastising Mr. Bohon for having the audacity to find someone interested in the lathe.

P.S. Good luck scrapping it. Thats a lot of iron to bust up.

I can answer the "few preliminary" questions, and in fact I did with the initial posting, photos, and measurements (and I even get questioned with "are you sure it's 60 tons?"). What has seemingly inevitably happened is that a "few preliminary" questions turns gradually into the "Spanish Inquisition" that eats up man-hours, phone bills, etc. all on behalf of the potential recipient, all of which goes to waste when the parties making the inquiries change their minds. The other problem we've run into is someone pursuing this on behalf of another organization without their knowledge or consent--or money.

If you are high enough on the machine-tool pecking order that you feel a need to verify the type of electric motor, the serial number, or whatever, then you know enough to know whether or not this is worth your trouble and to arrange an inspection trip. Hell, it's right out in the open, and it's not like there's anything you can steal off of it! Swing by late at night! Come and have at it, be our guests! Time it right, and we may even throw in a streetcar ride! Dial up "2000 Falls Road, Baltimore, 21211" on your GPS! You can't miss it!

IN FACT, HERE IT IS ON GOOGLE STREET VIEW, SHOT A COUPLE MONTHS AGO!!!!!
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=1900+Falls+Road,+Baltimore,+MD+21211&sll=39.325384,-76.63325&sspn=0.007801,0.013797&g=2000+Falls+Road,+Baltimore,+MD+21211&ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=1868+Falls+Rd,+Baltimore,+Maryland+21211&ll=39.313943,-76.623979&spn=0.001951,0.003449&z=18&layer=c&cbll=39.313865,-76.623874&panoid=AemGmo22VUNuCuIXBuIFoQ&cbp=12,53.54,,0,23.51%20%20%20%20

If that fails, enter "1868 Maryland 25, Baltimore, MD 21211" and look at that big red thing between "Big Jim" the Backhoe and the green shipping containers. (The derelict WMATA bus you see was the first victim of the scrapper; it had been cleaned out of parts first.)



I would hesitate to berate a crew that, every time I see any member of them, has grease/mud/metal shavings/etc. all over them, and in the past two months have seen every moment of spare time eaten up doing emergency repair work to a line after major snow/tree damage, emergency tree trimming, etc. The guys who have the time to answer phones, etc. don't have the official authority to make the decisions.



This was way before my day, but as I am to understand it, the arrangement was pretty much identical to this one: "We gotta move it or lose it; ya want it, come and get it...." It's not like it was purchased and has someone's name on a plaque on it.


Now: I got permission to forward a certain phone number to certain parties. You'll hear from me by PM or e-mail as appropriate.

I kind of understand having been caught in the middle on this one several years ago - all systems were go until it was time for my ED to commit the funds, then all of a sudden he became disinterested and dropped out. Frustrating and disappointing on so many levels.

Still, it does seem obvious that a contact person who is easily reached is the minimally sensible requirement for any kind of short-fused effort. If you are going to make it time critical, you have to be in a position to be responsive yourself.....

In the 21st century, we can google riggers and truckers anywhere in the US can be found in truck stops, browsing the net for a backhaul. Asking for a recommendation isn't unusual, and BSM must know which riggers they have had better experiences with and which they would avoid, so no reason not to share that experience. Baltimore has a lot of formerly busy industrial resources available. The only difficulty I reached in almost doing this a few years back was one indecisive individual in a position of authority at the other end of the project.

dave

I should reiterate that the decision to not openly share all contact info is mine and mine alone. I know firsthand what the individuals that will ACTUALLY have to do the REAL work with this project have on their plates already--the sunburn, the saw wounds, the twisted limbs, strained backs, you name it.

Show, up, look it over, make a token deposit, and sign a paper saying you assume responsibility for it and will have it gone within a set amount of time, and sure, we'll find you every trucker and crane we know of.

Like the lost engines of Roanoke, those engines lingered in the scrap yard for 50 some years till attention was given to them and finally moved, and it took a 3 way deal from 3 parties to organize manuever and do it all.
Was it worth the preservation and toil and trouble to move the engines? You betcha.

Will Harris did a phenominal job, and moving a lathe should be chicken feed.

The lathe may not be a pretty thing to look at, it is however a reality of the railroad. I recall the movie "Last of the Giants" s the UP movie showing off the Big Boy and they go into the shops of the crews working on its large wheels putting treads on and so on and it is an impressive movie.

Somebody's eyes might be sore, but there is a reality behind the lathe.

We'll see what happens, but whomever can get something rolling it probably will take some time. the lost engines took time, this will too.

Just to be clear, what is the cost now to hold it for a year and what is the cost to buy it?

It's not set in stone. The figure I was quoted was $4,000 to a fellow historical non-profit, which is what the BSM is told they would get for scrapping it on site. There is a report of a for-profit pursuing it, and some discussion as to whether the price should go up for a for-profit among people that may or may not be in a position to influence the matter.

I do not believe a firm "deposit" price has been set. Some are more interested in seeing it go the heck away than in the money. I would wager that the concept of "deposit/holding" would be highly dependent upon whether they've ever heard of you or not (say, a fellow rail/traction museum, a local museum, etc. versus someone walking in off the street).

As "unprofessional" as it may sound to some ears, I would suggest that the stated answers would be different to, say, the Baltimore Museum of Industry, a private railroad car shop in Delaware, and "Steve's Museum of Elephants, Lathes, and Trumpets".

By the way, just an update:

There appear to be a couple parties making serious inquiries about this lathe, and I'm optimistic--though it's still not certain--that it will be spared the fate of scrapping.

However, just to be on the safe side, I had posted listings on the Classifieds here, at Railswap, and another site. Just covering more bases, you understand.

Let's go over the tally of responses I got from those listings:

*Six or seven people saying "you should contact [railroad museum(s)] and see if they're interested." Okay, folks, we already know about them, they know about us/it, and they either aren't interested or don't have the money to move it or anything for it to do, and indeed one of the parties suggested is one that strung the BSM along for quite some time before backing out......

*Several responses from people (most apparently uneducated in the use of the shift key and/or punctuation) asking for information already listed in the ad....... including two folks asking for pictures, when the listings either had photos included or had plainly labeled links to said photos...........

*One inquiry about the "capacity" of the "Niles crane"......

I'm beginning to sympathize more and more with the somewhat caustic, cynical attitude of the guy who made the threats/plans to have it scrapped.

I hate to think what would have happened had I posted it on eBay or Craigslist. I haven't ruled that out as a last-ditch "Hail Mary" strategy, but............

There may be a market for that lathe that is well outside of the railroad preservation community and the scrap market. I once bought a large lathe from the Copper Range Railroad. My intended use never came to fruition, so I tried to sell it. It seemed rather hopeless as one prospective buyer after another called with lots of questions about what kind of tooling was included (there was none).

Then somebody gave me what I was asking, and said he wanted the lathe to use as a component of a special machine that he was building. Therefore, I would conclude that there might be an actual industrial market for that Niles lathe. It is somewhat of a shot in the dark, but there may be a buyer who will pay considerably more than scrap value.

I would definitely place that lathe on ebay and craigslist. I also might pay to place it for sale on an industrial equipment site or two. Never underestimate the market. It only takes one buyer to get it done.

If you post it on Craigslist, some of the "ladies from the Avenue" up here in Hampden may show up.

Might be a good time... ya never know... lol.