Note that the only bidder on the cars wanted the owner to pay HIM $7500 to remove them...

http://www.pressdemocrat.com/article/20 ... ew-bidders

That's more common than you think. A pal of mine had a WW2 tank he was needing to sell because he was moving. It'd been out front of a VFW hall and he bought it when that hall was torn down, and he stupidly thought it'd be easy to restore and run the thing. That never panned out and when he tried to sell it, he thought he'd make mad coin. When no collectors wanted to give him anything he felt was acceptable, he looked into it's scrap value (this was at the height of the thefts of metals). Even then, nobody wanted it because it it's weight. He too got several "offers" from people to take it off his hands, and most wanted him to pay the costs of moving it off his land so he could give it to them. In the end, he donated it to another veterans group. But still, he got really soured on people and how cheap they are (his words). I told him he actually got schooled on perceived v/s real value...

Boy, ain't that the truth. Combine Mark Twain's "it ain't what you don't know... it's what you know that just ain't so!" ... with John Maynard Kaynes and his "sticky prices" theory... A guy fixes a value in his head, and no dose of reality will yank him out of it.

Get a whole region of people who think like that, and you have the housing market. The MLS history is full of sale prices only made possible by those crazy neg-am loans. The sellers are mass-hypnotized by those prices, and hold out for the very few buyers capable of paying them... and those few often have cash! A real reversal from when 90% of the homes sold in San Francisco proper used interest-only loans.

Annnnyway... the NWP guy partly dug himself a hole by giving such short notice on the sale. Maybe this will give the market more time to work. Besides you can't just dump a bunch of stock into a specialty market like this. Two years back, just as the market was struggling to absorb the mass dumping of Brookins/Trolleyville stock, the MOT also had a fire-sale, and if I recall, someone else as well. Bad idea. Maybe the guy will stick them on Ozark Mountain and see what happens. Slow and steady wins the game.

Did anyone ever determine the heritage of the equipment? I'm guessing the gallery cars were SP, but that's just a WAG. Anyone got any ideas? What is the current configuration of the cars?

Thanks,
Mike

Having driven along part of this line a few years ago, I'm curious as to how some of the cars came to be scattered as they are, especially since a number seem to be just abandoned on what looks to be the main. I'm also curious about the distribution of equipment on the Catskill Mountain Railroad from years ago.

Original thread here. viewtopic.php?f=1&t=31329&p=158178

Most of these cars were SP Shasta Daylight cars, if I'm not mistaken, used on the 1984 Worlds Fair trip.

Back in the news, passed on by a friend:

Mitch Stogner, executive director of the North Coast Railroad Authority, looks over a rail car near Asti Winery in this April file photo. NCRA is attempting to auction off the rail car.
CHRISTOPHER CHUNG/Press Democrat
By STEVE HART
THE PRESS DEMOCRAT
Published: Monday, October 17, 2011 at 9:00 a.m.
Last Modified: Friday, October 14, 2011 at 4:21 p.m.

Historic train cars on the Northwestern Pacific Railroad are up for auction again, and bidders have until Oct. 28 to make an offer.

The nine cars are stranded on the railroad between Healdsburg and Eureka. They include seven passenger coaches once used for North Coast rail excursions.

They're owned by the North Coast Railroad Authority, the public agency that recently restored cargo service in Sonoma, Marin and Napa counties. The line remains closed north of Windsor.

An auction earlier this year drew only one bidder, who wanted the authority to pay him $7,500 to take the cars away.

The authority rejected that bid. In the current auction, bidders are not required to bid on all nine cars, although package bids get preference.

Cars located in Willits can be inspected Wednesday. Those in Healdsburg and Asti can be viewed Friday.

A bid package with more information is available at the authority's website, northcoastrailroad.org.

When I was visiting a steam cotton compress, the owner showed me what appeared to be a spare part. He tried to have it hauled off for scrap; but was told it was too heavy, and take too much cutting torch gas to cut it up to make it worthwhile.



For the same reason, many of the old compresses were left behind when the buildings were demolished. It is a shame more railway related items were saved for the same reason; though at some point the land they are on will become valuable enough to pay to have it cut up and hauled off.



Most of these were located trackside, so they are railroad related. This compress is now being used as a general warehouse. Removing the compress would involve hiring a crane big enough to raise the parts up through the coupla, swing it over the tracks, and set it down. It would also involve shutting the railroad down; so they decided to just leave it in place.



Someone went through what must have been a great deal of trouble to remove this one. But, I guess they found out that no-one wanted to haul it off. So, it is still sitting in a field across the street from the compress building.