Provocation for the latest round of pot-banging came from the discovery earlier this week, that at the behest of Guelph Museums, a City of Guelph crew had chopped off the steam heat line on the back of the tender with a cut-off wheel, without consulting with or even informing the volunteer core about it.

Sadly, that is what you get when dealing with bureaucratic morons at city hall. If they had even one piece of brain in their head it would be lonely. Same sort of thing goes on at other cities as well.

You are more than welcome, but you'll need more than my one voice, so see if you can encourage others to post her.
Just read the next posting--AAAAUGGH!!!! And what did they do with the parts they cut off??? Tossed, I'll bet! Hmm, illegal disposal of hazardous materials????? A artifact care & documentations policy needs to be created & enforced--that's what museum directors/curators do!! (or should do!!).
That part could have been carefully unbolted and stored in the coal bunker. . . .

Yes it could have been very easily unbolted, by a volunteer. All they had to do was send an email and any of us could have come down to the locomotive and taken care of it.

We have no idea what happened to it, other than it's "in storage".

Must be missing something here....



So a member of the public advises City Council of a dangerous situation and possibly liability of injury to children and they take action and remove the dangerous metal.. you know that would happen as the City would not like a lawsuit...

Seem's to me that there was no need to contact a City Councillor...? Could you not have been due diligant and simply removed the offending piece,seal it up and store it temporarily?

Peter,

This is a result of the Committee's decision NOT to build a fence. Had there been a fence, that child would have been kept away from the locomotive.

The point of telling the Councillor was to show that having the locomotive unfenced is inherently dangerous to both the artifact and the public.

The other problem is that the City just chopped off the pipe without telling any of the volunteers. We don't know where it is or if they damaged it or what.

This creates a slippery slope, as people injure them selves on the unfenced train, is the city simply going to come along and start chopping parts of the locomotive?

Sorry Joe but even if there was a fence, there would be nothing stopping someone from possibly injuring themselves on that metal.. Could have easily been resolved.. at the end of the day its the Locomotive that has now suffered....

Yes Peter... there would... THE FENCE! The whole point of the fence is to KEEP PEOPLE AWAY. I don't think a 3-year old child is going to hop a 6 foot fence?

Imagine for a moment, if the City of Sarnia decided to take down all the fencing around 6069, then start chopping off parts that were inconvenient to them. You wouldn't like that much would you?

Your missing the point I was trying to make Joe.. if there was a Fence up and they had open days tours etc there would be little to stop someone injuring themselves on that metal..inside the fence..

Peter,

If there WAS a fence and they had open days, there would be someone there to supervise the public and make sure no one was injured!

Much like *I* was able to stop that young child from cutting himself up. I saw what was happening with my eyes and intervened.

Ya dig?

It seems the museum manager just don't like fences period...

http://www.guelphmercury.com/news-story ... -on-fence/

Edit: perhaps they could have repurposed that fence and used it to protect 6167 rather than leaving the locomotive "fenceless and defenceless"

Looks like 6167 is in trouble again:

https://www.guelphtoday.com/local-news/ ... uLJeCadvE0

Here's another article.

https://www.guelphtoday.com/local-news/ ... 00-1655644

I get lots of hate for my "how not to restore a steam locomotive" bloviation but seriously, don't do what we did. Man she looks awful, it's only been 5 years since she was unveiled.

Now this whole thing went pretty FUBAR about a decade ago. I can't understand why the city engineer chose that exact spot. I'm pretty sure that even back then we all knew what GO Transit's long term plans were (to build a platform literally where the locomotive presently sits) and I think I have documents from GO stating these plans that predate the move.

As well, the locomotive missed sitting on City property by literally a few feet. Why the engineer chose to place the locomotive on someone else's property (AND having to pay rent) is yet another mystery.

And now it seems the railway has ripped up the lease.

I see a lot of hate in the comments section of these two articles, and can you blame the people?

The Guelph Junction Railway never got involved in the project (which originated in 2002), though at least one member of that organization was involved in the 6167 Restoration Committee, but of course not as a representative of that group. They liked to meddle and talk about the locomotive, but I never saw them come out...

The committee and restoration work was open to anyone who wanted to participate and the amount of local participation in the project was rather limited, with a significant portion of the work being done by volunteers coming from quite a ways away.

I've probably said this before, but they are really pushing their luck with this project. At what point do people just throw up their hands and say "scrap her"?

It was a miracle that the restoration even got funding back in 2003 (though this was delayed until 2007, so that work finally stated in 2008), and if my memory serves me, the city spent about $350,000 on the restoration. I think the move may have cost about $100,000 and I believe it was paid for by GO Transit/Metrolinx.

Of course the same people that worked on her before will be on hand to do any prep work necessary for the next move, assuming its not to a scrap yard.

Joe, the Guelph Junction Railway is owned by the city, or did you mean the Guelph Historical Railway Association?

Yeah.

I asked around about these news stories and the answer I got was "fake news"