I may be doing a small comparative study project in the near future involving the costs of steam restoration and need a little bit of starter info.

I need locomotives that have been fully completed to operation (i.e. 4501 is fine, but 611 I don't need) and have been completed within the last ten years. Plus I need at least the ballpark estimate of what the restoration cost start to finish, pennies don't matter just the overall close estimate.

It would also help if I had engines of various sizes (I.E. switchers to mainline engines) to make comparisons against.

Thank you.

I would gently suggest adding in original estimates versus final actual costs.

It's far better to hear a competent, reliable estimate that came in at or slightly under budget than the bad cliché stereotype--and it will be wielded against you, government project or not--of government projects often coming in far above original estimates. But, of course, you're not likely to run into an archaeological project or endangered species when taking apart a locomotive boiler, either.

You might get a better (and more accurate) response if you let people know why you're doing this study ....e.g. student project, feasibility study, etc.

and one problem with something like this is how do you count the value of volunteer time.

Bob H

As a separate line item... Actual cost plus number of volunteer hours.

If anyone has this info as well, thats actually a good idea. Thank you.



Student Project.



Not interested in volunteer hours in the scope of the project. Just pure money spent in dollars (and overall time spent start to finish) in comparison with size and complexity of locomotive.

How can you compare two similar engines, one restored with primarily paid people, and one with volunteer hours, without accounting for that? At the least the volunteer hours should be multiplied by a fair labor rate and added to the total.

Even if you don't assign a value to it, you really must account for volunteer hours, donated parts and services. Preferably, identify the time by category, splitting out professional services, skilled trades, and general labour. Include it as a note if you must.

Otherwise, all the research you're doing is of no value- how can others learn from it if you hide such an important part of the cost? They could end up with horribly underfunded projects, abandoned with a locomotive in a million pieces. Oh wait, that already happens due to poor estimates.

And remember- the volunteer time has a value beyond just saving money- most matching grants will allow you to assign value to this time and donated services and materials as part of your matching funds.

Not being difficult or mean, just trying to help you see why this needs to be included. You can't compare costs between projects unless you understand where the labour came from.

Steve Hunter

Man hours (Person hourse?) is really where the cost is. If you can do a lot of the work in-house with volunteers who have the skills, it can save you a lot of money. I'm certainly not knocking our steam contractors, they provide a valuable service.

Greetings:
You might find some useful information in my post of Nov. 16, 2011 on the thread titled "Valley RR 3025 Ready to Roll?"
I would note that we didn't "count" the volunteer hours in the total cost of the project. My guess is that they totalled over 2000 during the 2-1/2 year rebuilding.
I would further note that when all was said and done (read: when No.3025 began earning money) the bottom line was about $600K...
Good luck!
J.David

There are quite a few factors that go into the restoration of a locomotive, so if you're looking for more in depth data there are several important points to consider and I would not forgo volunteer hours.

Now, for people mostly wanting to know as a curiosity you might give a vague idea. It's still very dependent on locomotive complexity and condition, though. Is a switcher that operated in the past 10 to 20 years and was stored inside or is a mainline beast that's been outdoor displayed for 60 years? I imagine, as a guess by the way, that most all steam locomotive restorations end up looking at 6 figures, at least 100-200,000. As a very special case on the high end of the spectrum, Union Pacific expects the 4014 4-8-8-4 restoration to operating condition to cost upwards of 1.2 million if I recall correctly.

Simply put:

The rebuild of NKP 765 from 2000 through 2006 cost just shy of $800,000 with 15,000 documented hours.

Additional work and mechanical upgrades (such as roller bearing conversion on tender) through 2011 represents a total amount of about 1.2 million in little over a decade.

The average lately has been about 15,000 a year divided between an average of 70 people.

KL

As a contrast, at the Museum of Transportation in St. Louis, I was always amazed at how cheap our streetcar restorations were by comparison. Of course, no boiler to worry about, but because the museum itself had a decently skilled set of volunteers, we could do a lot of work in-house, including welding and painting. Ususally the most expensive item during a restoration was paint. I think we had spent less than $10,000 restoring our St. Louis Public Service PCC by the time I moved to Utah last year. The "big ticket" items in that restoration was having the motors and mg set rebuilt, upholstery and paint.

I think you have a wide variable on costs because you may also be talking about a small teakettle 0-4-0 which may have taken practically nothing but a lot of volunteer refurburbishing and some needed bucks spent here and there. Between the Big Boy, the C&O 2-6-6-2 where you expect large costs, others like 765 somewhat median...the range is variable. How talented your volunteer team is can keep costs down. But one thing is for sure, for a large engine, you need and organized group, pro/volunteer to make it happen, or money does nothing.

2000 volunteer hours would be VERY LOW. As a comparison, that is 250 8 hour days, or a year of full time work with a few holidays off. Or 5 volunteers putting in an 8 hour saturday for the whole year.....

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