I really get frustrated with the folks that are so regimented they can't stand a little sidebar or fun. Good grief people, this forum falls in the category of CHATBOARD and unless your going to run for Pharoah or Pharisee, well to quote Sgt. Hulka from the movie STRIPES- "lighten up, Francis". Assuming all the wannabe hall monitors are involved in operations, exactly why are you involved? Its supposed to be FUN!

In any case, the R&N SD-40/SD50 is water cooler stuff, but there's plenty of preservation related fodder in the discussion, although its essentially unintentional. How many non-dash 2 SD 40's remain? Its GE built contemporaries (some Dash 8 and everything prior, are essential gone from Class 1's, right?)

Now is an especially critical time, if you want to preserve an SD-40(-2). It won't be long before they are scrapped, retired or converted to something else. The economics of getting another 20 years, better fuel economy and lower emissions makes every aging locomotive essentially a future rebuild. Anything worth having will be rebuilt, I think. So how to you preserve what was arguably the most successful and ubiquitous locomotive of the era between the mid 60's and mid 80's?

Think of how EMD, arguably the master of diesel design essentially couldn't make anything better than the SD-40 and its Dash 2 variant for a couple decades. The 40, often rebuilt a couple times is still in service,but no longer in an apex deployment. 45's are almost gone; 50's are being rebuilt as fast as the can derate or replace their 645 prime movers. NS even calls their rebuilt and derated SD-50's "SD-40E's".

Also we see here an unfortunate repeat of a consistent problem in this advocation, missing the "twilight".Early on, preserving steam seemed paramount. It had the romance, it could be had for scrap value, and there was plenty of mechanical knowledge out there. Look what happened. Now we look back and wish there were more RF-16's, PA's, FA's, Baldwins. Of the hundreds of E-7's, there's 1 (ONE) left.
Ditto on FM Trainmasters. (And yes, the oddballs from Baldwin were significant, they represented the rigor mortis of what was once the king, the F-M's are significant because they were essentially an example of the difficulties of penetrating a high capital cost market).

Just as there was one individual who carried through on recognizing the value of the F-40 (he** its ugly, but..better than a P-42), will we be wondering what happened to all the SD-40's? Obviously they were a success; and the SD-50 wasn't because the cost of coaxing a few hundred extra HP from the 645 was problems with durability. I think its important to save the failures; there's lessons in that as well.

For that matter, look at the SD-60's, some less than 20 years old being converted to ECO's. How do you preserve an original when every old caterpillar is a butterfly in waiting. Steam was preserved because it had no value in reuse; and some railroads were pretty good at buying a little goodwill with foregone scrap sales; but even in that environment there were pretty significant omissions and perhaps worse -near misses (CNJ 754 was lost for a lack of about 5 grand, even in the mid 50's that should've been a feasible amount). I haven't even mentioned the four-axle market; a GP38/GP40 is the equivalent of gold in the used market.

The idle banter is useful, even if its not intended or obvious.

Thanks SuperH
I don't mind having some discussion, and usually don't mind the nonsense. Railfan foaming about one thing or another gets on my nerves but I will let it go if it all leads to something. These new posters are not explaining themselves very well, though they are definitely interested. You guys: Please try to tell us more than a twitter in your posts, though. "No." by itself in my book does not stand as a worthy post. A "no" with some explanation is great.

I really have no concern about second generation diesels, though I know the guys at one of the museums I frequent are really dedicated about it (maybe with tunnel vision).
Thanks,
O.

Tunnel vision or tunnel motor vision? :-)

Best,
Mike

What about the P30CH? Gone like the Trainmasters.

Or, frankly, anything modern. NCTM said they were saving some WMATA cars, but they said it on April 1, so *shrug*

Or these things, which I'm seeing out my window right now.

Preservation has many faces and our beloved equipment has many spirits. There has been nothing that compares to the spirit of steam. We all have our passions and one day some might lament that a P30Ch was not saved. I have to wonder if a P30CH pulling some converted gondolas on a long disused branch line will ever stir the same passion as a worn out old tank engine. Many of us are only interested in the dinosaurs but I find I am becoming a dinosaur myself. What I think is vastly different from many of the younger people in preservation. If someone wants to make the effort to save an F-40 i applaud them. I wish someone saved couple of ALCO DL-109s but I would probably have sent the last DL-109 to scrap to save one more steamer at once point in my life, now I might think differently.

One day??? I wish there was a P30Ch saved. I've never seen one in person, and never will.

I narrowly missed seeing them on the Sunset Limited. My dad and I had just come into LAUPT off the San Diegan, we knew the Sunset was up there on a nearby platform, but we had to get to the airport. We just didn't take the time.

Anyway, a thing can be preserved and still fail to be preserved. South Shore cars, Lackawanna coaches... many preserved, many "operated", but none operated authentically. 4000-series El's were widely acquired and narrowly preserved. And of the vast overpreservation of GG1s, none run. I can understand the big steamers being a bugbear to maintain... but an El car? How hard is that?

I was told by Nat Capitol Trolley Museum members when I visited a couple weeks ago that preservation of a WMATA Metro car at NCTM is all but impossible, save for a static display. The roofs are supposedly so lightweight they can't walk on or nount a trolley pole or pantograph atop them, and the curves at NCTM are FAR too tight for such a long car/married pair.

We all know the problems with opinions...

What content is right and wrong for an online forum is a community issue, not an issue of individual opinion. Usually the more vocal users of a forum will espouse what they deem to be the way it should be, but the true test of what the community wants is not measured in opinion but in usage.

At least, in a well run community that's how it works.

You can find plenty of examples of poorly run communities, and quite a few in the railroad hobby world.

Instead of expressing how we would, individually, rule a forum, I humbly suggest that you just use the forum and read or contribute (in meaningful ways) to the content you find appropriate for those are the numbers that will matter to admins and site owners.

Rob

Regarding saving "light rail vehicles" (the example above showed two San Francisco Muni "Breda" articulated LRV's): A few of the Boeing LRV's from San Francisco have been saved, and I think at least one from Boston MBTA has been converted into a work car. The first "new generation" light rail line in the US, San Diego, is still running units that went into service nearly 30 years ago, and I've heard some preliminary, informal discussion of saving one, but last time I looked, they were still in revenue service.

The repeating debate over "who" should be able to participate on RYPN and "what" topics they should be allowed to post about, gets very amusing when people associated with groups that have education as a part of their mission want to bar others from participation in "their" discussions. But at least it keeps the flow of postings moving along. When you look at some other railroad oriented sites, discussions that used to get five or six postings a day are sometimes only seeing one new item a week now. Whatever the cause for the reduced rate of postings, it seems very ominous for the railroad enthusiast hobby and the railway preservation industry.

This industry lacks public visibility and often suffers from its inability to spread the word to anyone not already in the membership. With out of date websites, ineffective e-mail lists, and feeble public relations efforts all needing attention in many organizations, it seems self defeating to try to keep new participants from taking part in the discussion because their interests and concerns may not exactly align with those of the existing members. The problem with out of date websites is particularly troubling, because it is a resource that takes relatively little time and effort to maintain, but is being wasted by many groups. You hear lots of impressive excuses why people can't find the time to update their websites when they seem to have all the time in the world to spend on internet discussions. This is one area where some new participants in preservation activities might be able to provide additional support.

When you look around the preservation organizations and see that everybody has gray hair you had better be concerned with who is going to support and maintain the industry and the collections in the future.

PC