Hello, my name is George Marsh and my father and I used to own an Alco S3 located in South Boston. This is BRT No 0409. It is with great sadness that I report that the locomotive was illegally cut up by the city. Despite it's looks No 0409 was by no means abandoned. My father and I just have not been able to afford to move it. We tried to sell it to the Downeast Scenic Railroad but they did not act quickly enough. It is not their fault the locomotive was cut up. The city came in with no warning onto the property and started cutting. The worst part is that the property belongs to Massport NOT the city of Boston. No 0409 was my Dad's pride and joy and our family is truly heartbroken by the loss. I joined this forum specifically to share this news with you guys. I feel that you should know. I hope events like never happen again and I will do what I can to help ensure this.

Thank you, George Marsh

Hi George,
I am very sorry to hear of this. Having seen this locomotive for myself, it was far from being unusable, either from repairing it to operation, or for spare parts to keep other units like it operating. I wish we could have purchased it from you folks, but the reality of such acquisitions is that it involves much more than meets the eye and unfortunately, you cannot save everything. You and your father have my sympathies.
Leverett Fernald

The way to prevent reoccurrences of incidents like this is to alert the railroad preservation community as soon as it is obvious that the locomotive is in jeopardy, not after it is already scrapped. No one can help if they are unaware.

Nothing happens fast in the preservation world. It takes weeks, sometimes months, to prepare a locomotive for interchange. I know of people, including myself, that would be interested enough in an S3 to want to help.

Was it stored here:

http://binged.it/1afK859

Has anyone considered suing the city for the illegal act?

I totally understand the time it takes acquire such a large thing like a locomotive. It's not your fault that it was cut. I did not know this was going to happen. If I did my father and I would have done something about it. There was no warning so there was nothing we could do. I also forgot to mention that it was cut up in November of 2013. Legal action will taken and yes it was the locomotive on Cypher Street.

lets make this a shout out, anyone with equipment not on their own rails on a non-museum circumstance should be looking for a permanent home. We just had a Jensen moment here.

George,

I was down at the auto show at the convention center this weekend and took a ride down to see the S3. I was shocked that it and the rest of the stuff stored down there was gone.

Was there a problem moving it? I seem to remember it had roller bearings?

Michael Thomas

For anyone interested, there is talk of scrapping the S3 at the railway museum in Montreal. She reportedly has a cracked cylinder liner or possibly block. Perhaps another party might be interested in harvesting parts?

Thanks, cityzoo, I've alerted our board and am contacting their president to confirm and suggest the idea of harvesting parts. We have an operating S-3 and are a related organization. Hopefully, if their unit dies, it will help maintain ours into the future.

Not to hijack the thread-

George, this experience has to be a heartbreaking one for you. Obviously you were trying to prevent such an occurence but were taken by surprise. My condolences to you.

Steve Hunter

wm303, I posted here (almost 4 years ago) that this loco may be in jeopardy...sorry to hear of this, George.
viewtopic.php?f=1&t=29254&p=140061#p140061

FYI, if anyone is curious what this S3 looked like before the torches got lit, here you go: http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/Locopicture.aspx?id=62613