I notice that the list of IRM Deaccessioned items still shows ex-GTW #8305, Northwestern Steel & Wire 0-8-0 #05, as still being at Galt, Illinois. This engine was supposed to be moved, to Quincy, Illinois I believe. I've asked before about whether the move ever took place, and never heard for sure. Maybe the deaccessioned list just hasn't been updated.

Les

The '76 isn't gonna be brought back. Ever. There's almost nothing left to save anyway. While its current state wouldn't be totally prohibative of a cosmetic restoration, several factors are insuring that it won't happen.

1) No Money
2) Doesn't really fit with the B&O's collection.
3) Do we really need -another- GG1 sucking up cash when there are already so many others in various states of restoration/preservation?
4) No money
5) it won't ever leave the B&O property. Even if the B&O management let it go (which they probably would be happy to do) it can't be shipped by rail or truck without serious work. Rail is completely out due to the frame cracks that sidelined it to begin with and the fact that CSX has 0 desire to be bothered with it. Trucking will be prohibitively expensive and it would have to be cut into its component pieces to be able to make such a move, thus destroying what little historic fabric is left.

I hate to say it as its somewhat cliché, but you can't save em all. Sometimes you have to put on the big boy pants and cut it up so that something else more deserving can live.

Real preservation requires tough choices. If you don't have tough choices, you're too rich or you're doing it wrong.

Russ Swinnerton.

Rail is not "completely out." GG1's have been shipped by rail since their retirement from service, including the B&O Museum's former GG1, 4890, west to Green Bay in 1995. CSX can certainly choose to wave that around as an excuse, but it would be somewhat far back on the cumulative list of potential reasons/excuses to reject such a move, including such matters as brake lines, brake shoes, etc. Potential frame fatigue/cracks is the excuse for not restoring a GG1 to active high-speed excursion service, and a fairly legitimate one as well.

Suffice it to say that if a major multi-million-dollar client of CSX, such as a coal mine or auto maker, wanted the loco moved for them, I would wager the "stars would align" pretty quickly.

Is B&O's mission only B&O (or other Chessie / CSX entities) or Baltimore area railroading in general? Even if the former, it's not that outrageous to think they could make an exception for a GG1 which operated nearby. I don't see anyone saying it would be okay to scrap a Big Boy because 8 of 25 exist.

Yes, we are only talking about preservation & cosmetic restoration. (Making one run, by various possible means, has been discussed elsewhere and you'd certainly start with one in the best condition. But that's NOT what we're talking about here at all.) If it stays put then it's just the commitment of space, and cosmetic repair & paint. Either way I hope someone saves it.

I note the B&O Museum still shows it on their site, even in the sad present condition.

Steve

Not to bring up another gasoline soaked topic, but if the 2101 is in such deplorable condition how can anyone expect the GG-1 to be given any love.

But those were different times, AND, while there has been a recent move of the one at the RR Museum of PA (I think, maybe it was a different one), that one was in significantly better condition. I've been up close and personal with it, and this one is SHOT.



If there was that type of money behind it, I don't disagree, but in the world of real possibilities, it's a goner.

A cursory search turned up this photo from 2006. It looks pretty bad but nothing that couldn't be needlechipped, Bondo'd and painted. Maybe some new metal welded in and ground smooth. What seems to be a missing door and the need to fabricate new grills would be an issue but not insurmountable.

http://tinyurl.com/bqn97v5

But five more years have elapsed. I wasn't able to quickly find photo that was noted as being more recent but this video turned up from a couple of months ago (assuming it was shot not long before the upload date). She becomes visible about 30 seconds in.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kcc-arr5hkw

So about the same only presumably worse if one got closer to it. But goner?

Steve

That (Baltimore-area railroading) was the thinking when 4890 was acquired in the 1980s, by people/forces connected with the Baltimore Chapter NRHS (primarily George F. Nixon, Chapter founder and who bled PRR red more than he did B&O blue, if you get my drift). As I vaguely recall, 4890 was among the last selected from Amtrak's fleet for the "$5,000 f.o.b. Wilmington, Del. to qualified preservation non-profits" offer. 4890 was also, as I recall, the only one saved with rebuilt elevated air intakes as opposed to the as-built lower intakes; I've wondered for decades if that was deliberate or just fate.

4890 was deaccessioned in 1994-95, right after Nixon's Sept. 1994 death, and there are still a few Baltimore-area railfans that seem to hold this rather egregious faux-pas against the B&O Museum. I understand the increased focus on a more precise mission, and frankly none of the more rational alternatives--Perryville's "museum," Bowie's museum, Gaithersburg's collection, or even plinthed in Baltimore's Penn Station, like Harrisburg's--were available at the time, or would have ultimately ended up with logistical problems all their own.

For all the "over-preservation" of GG1's, the only one anywhere near context is Harrisburg's. It would be nice to have one at Washington Union (ANY GG1 but 4876, mind you), or somewhere along the Corridor, but that simply isn't happening. And 4876 isn't the only one in jeopardy from neglect--there are still two stranded near Cooperstown, NY, and two in the hands of URHS New Jersey rusting away........... so "over-preserved" needs to have an asterisk......

I helped prep for shipment the ex-B&O/FRA/DOT E8 that was deaccessioned and claimed by the West Va. RR Museum in 2004. It had been stored directly nearby, probably on the same track.

We were utterly flabbergasted at how many pieces of copper there were to cut out of an E8's brake lines. The crack fiends, in their desperation for cash from a NEARLY-ADJACENT scrap yard, had even taken power saws to the generator armatures, and yanked every last bit of loose wire and burned it in the cab to get some of the insulation off. And I ended up cutting holes into the rusted sides of the sandboxes and literally shoveling drug needles by the hundreds out the nose.

As I recall, it took us over a week just to replace enough brake lines with iron piping to get it to the point where CSX could move it legally and with waivers. And the whole time, the other guys and I were muttering to ourselves, "Does [project leader in West Va.] know what the hell he's getting into with this pile of $#!%??"

http://www.wvrailmuseum.com/bo-e-8a-92.html

To go back to the original question: 4876 has been there for several more years. If there's an intact, accessible piece of non-ferrous metal anywhere on it, I'll be flabbergasted. It'll probably take a lot of work in the shop just to make it moveable any distance beyond switching.

All the more reason it should stay at the B&O Museum! LOL

Steve

Steve (et al), the scrapping the Big Boy analogy is exactly what I'm saying. The B&O can't (or won't) be restoring this G. (I'm not speaking in any official capacity) They, like all of us have limited funds and are directing them at other projects. Furthermore, no one else has the money either. A group tried and thought $50K would be enough. Boy were they shocked. So, what about a cosmetic restoration? Possible, but with no indoor space at the B&O available, you're spending a lot of dough to simply delay the enevetable. Then what? Ten years down the line, it'll be right back where it is now and money that could have been spent on a more worthy project has been wasted.

There is an unfortunate reality which some folks are unwilling to accept. Not everything that has been 'saved' should have been, and the heard has to be thinned to save some of the better pieces. There are lots of GG1s. If 4876 falls to the torch, it's not really a great loss. It may actually be more of a 'win' because the money saved by not restoring it and the amount made by selling it to the scrapper can go to fund something else more deserving... Something that there is only one or two of. If some benefactor comes along and is willing to spend his money to restore this G, go for it. "He who pays the piper calls the tune", however as long as money is needed elsewhere and the B&O lives on a budget, this unit will sit as it is, and that's the best case scenario.

Also, the picture above is fairly accurate of its current condition, however that's it's best side. All around the nose, the steel is rusted through and many parts of the interior skeleton are showing through. Around the end doors is the worst. It's sad, but it's the circle of life.

I know the idea of culling the herd is a popular one, but I see no point to it.

One would think, by the conversation here, everything worth preserving is already "preserved" in one form or another, but a scrapping last weekend of a vintage industrial motor that never made it to "preserved" status makes me rethink the conventional wisdom.

Collect ' em all before the scrapper gets them. Then be mature about finding them better homes if you can't support them.

Scrapping without an immediate reason is counter-productive. And scrapping without all the details may be even worse. It is not safe to assume that the person making the decision always understands the value of the artifact. It IS safe to assume the guy holding the torch does not.

I see plenty of cases where hoarding is hurting an artifact's survival, but there are very few examples where the scrapping of lot A is what directly enabled the saving of lot B. Not saying that hasn't happened, but it isn't common.

Your mileage may vary. :-)

Rob

What was that $50K supposed to accomplish where it wasn't enough?

Steve

A lot of people are under the delusion that you can just make a phone call and the scrappers will come and whisk away your junk and hand you a nice big check. The fact is many pieces of rolling stock require money to be put in to scrap them.

I heard that we had "over-collected" so many times that I posted this thread to test the theory. My rationale is that if we really did overcollect, this list should flow relatively freely. It did not. We got a few quasi-lists in a few states, but not even 100 cars identified, and even then, not identified specifically i.e. by number.

We also got a lot of complaints about the very concept.

The conclusion I thus reach is that, at least according to our feelings on the matter (and what else is there???) we did not over-collect at all. We saved a lot of equipment that we consider relevant and important and we want to see preserved.

So maybe we ought to think about preserving it.