http://www.trainorders.com/discussion/r ... 10,1851911

http://www.trainorders.com/discussion/r ... ?1,1851622

Info (and some healthy debate) on the Fred Kepner "collection" in Oregon.......

Martin alleges that three of the steamers have been restored to operation recently. What I would ask if I were a TrainOrders member: So what's the asking price of any loco someone wants? Maybe not everyone expects everything handed to them for free, but there's still the developing image of this being the next Paulsen Spence collection............

Are these restorations recent? Where are these restored engines going to operate? It's amazing just how much is going on in preservation and even with the power of the web things go unnoticed.

I did not get the impression that any locos have been restored recently, but each of those 3 had been restored many years ago. Shay 8 was one of those pictured in the B/W photo and very recently; and she sure doesn't look restored now.
My $0.02 - I'm glad he spent the $ to save and move them. I'm sure that the right offer of $ would do a lot to secure an engine for a qualified group or individual to restore.

Mike Stillwell
Buena Vista, VA.

He didn't appear to save anything...these engines were all saved by someone else years ago. Kepner just bought them, and in some cases I know of, kept some fairly responsible and capable entities from preserving them and, in some cases, operating them.

Floating this to the top:

Anyone heard anything on this "collection"?

[crickets chirping, tumbleweed tumbling past]

Someone with some apparent ties to the "collection" under the name/"handle" "Loggerhogger" had been posting (mostly old photos and past reminisces) to the Steam forum of TrainOrders.com in the past couple years, but I stopped paying attention.

I don't know much about the Fred Kepner steam loco collection but here is a old glass plate negative i picked up a few years back of one of the engines he has 2-8-2 #100 in much better day's when it was used in the woods on the logging RR that some of you might enjoy seeing and perhaps some may not but here it is anyhow.I only bought this because being a engineer i like the old locomotive photo's from the past with the crew members standing alongside.So let the crickets chirp and tumble weeds tumble on by!

In the old glass negative the tender is lettered Charles R. McCormick Lumber Co. and under the cab window is #100 The scanned glass negative is rather dark but thats what shows on the negative when you look at it with a magnifying glass.From what i could find on the web it was built by Baldwin in June 1926 #59284 as Charles R. McCormick Lumber Co. 4 It was sold as Pope & Talbot Lumber Co.#100 in June 1938 and sold as Santa Maria Valley RR #100 in 1942.It was sold as White Mountain Scenic Ry.#100 in 1962 and sold as Wasatch Mountain Ry.#100 in 1976.It was sold to the Fred Kepner estate in 1999.

In another web photo i found of her on the Heber Creeper in Aug.1979 she has a different tender.Anyone know what became of the tender shown in the old glass negative? I'm guessing the glass negative had to have been taken before 1938 because she was still lettered for McCormick but she also must have had her number changed from #4 to #100 before they sold her to Pope & Talbot.

What is the condition of #100 now?

Here's the image,had to resize it smaller.Don't see any handbrake on the tender! Maybe they would throw a small log under the wheels out in the woods to chock them!

That "someone", as I'm sure you very well know, is a gentleman named Martin Hansen, and his posts just as frequently concern current news as they do "old photos and past reminisces". The two links you posted were for discussions that took place in January 2009. Does this constitute news or just another opportunity for you to demonstrate your expertise and cast others in a negative light?

For your autobiography, may I suggest borrowing from the late David Brinkley..."Everyone Is Entitled to My Opinion"?

Jim Tatum.

That glass plate is the work of Darius Kinsey and a photo from it is on the dustjacket/cover of the book "Kinsey Photographer;The Locomotives" and was taken at Seabeck Wa. I believe...The tender IIRC was swapped when in service at Santa Maria...don't know what became of the original.

Cheers, Dave

Hey, in order to access the archives and post a link you must indeed be a TrainOrders member...and you are Sandy, aren't you...Well, of course you are.

Dave, Thank you very much for the information on the glass plate of #100! I had never heard of Darius Kinsey before or knew that this photo was on a dust cover of a book that you mentioned.I bought the glass plate "yes on Ebay" from somebody in the midwest that i can't remember who or what i even paid for it now? I guess now i need to buy the book to read up and learn about Kinsey the photographer and see his other old photo's of locomotives he captured long ago.

This is what i like about RPN,there may be some on here that may be critical of ones questions asked or pictures posted,but how are others of us less knowlegable in certain areas supposed to learn anything if we don't ask or maybe post a old photo now and then.I work for the RR, am 50 yrs.old but there's still a hell of alot of stuff i'd like to learn about from railroadings past before diesels came into the picture!

So when somebody like Dave or anyone else for that matter who can fill in the blanks to questions asked without leaving a sarcastic remark wich i notice periodically from questions asked or post's by some not so knowledgeable posters,i for one at least appreciate it when somebody fills me in with something i don't know about.

Thank's again Dave!

You are welcome Mr.Kuenzel. I don't know how to post the link, but if you google Whatcom Museum you can read the story of Darius and Tabitha Kinsey and look through the collection at their website...his photography was incredible.

Cheers, Dave

Thank you Jim, well put. Snarky comments get very tiresome don't they?

My apologies for the apparent "snark" of the tone of my reply; to be honest I had forgotten that I had originally posted the original links.

And, also to be honest, following TrainOrders is simply not a priority for me any more, as the "signal-to-noise" ratio (in common with a lot of other sites/forums) has simply made it not really worth my regular perusal. I took a quick look to see if I could find a recent post invoking "loggerheader"/Hansen, and found none. And no, I'm not a TrainOrders member, and I had posted the original links back when they were part of the fresh discussion in 2009. Links work whether you're a member or not; you simply can't access the forum archive to search for topics if you're not a member.

I will point out that, for all the commentary and snark back at me, NO ONE has actually answered the original questions of January 2009. Supposedly three locomotives are now operable. Annnnnnd.........?? Are they just going to sit there, as someone's private playthings? Have any of the parties that supposedly wanted locos from the collection to be given to them come back with enough cash, or been given a firm price for which to raise funds?

Annnnd--[dramatic organ chord]--what about Naomi?

I am loathe to contribute to this discussion, but careful reading of Martin Hanesn's post will reveal that he said those three locomotives HAD been restored in the past after their original working lives had ended but LONG before finding themselves in their present state in Merrill. He was offering this as evidence that they could be restored again in the future. In other words, none of these engines are currently operable. It is my understanding that one of the engines had been sold from the Kepner collection since this discussion originated. Regrettably, I am unable to recall which.