http://www.illawarramercury.com.au/stor ... ke/?cs=298

http://www.illawarramercury.com.au/stor ... -berkeley/

Yeah, okay, you can hate me for this.

Not in the least. We live steamers love this sort of article.

And maybe there is hope that one day we'll see a thread about a CP or PGE steam locomotive recovered from a Canadian Lake! Well, perhaps a bit more difficult but doesn't hurt to dream does it?

Les

Was either one a Pennsy B-6? Seriously, though, bad enough the bastards strip copper from real locomotives and passenger cars, but now they go after live steamers? Where will it end?

I bet it was an inside job. What junkie knows a live steam locomotive's boiler is made of copper? Not all of them are either, many here in the US on one of that size are steel anyhow. Most often any exposed boiler copper is painted black, and the internal stuff is all covered with soot so to hide the copper.

I suspect what happened was someone stole the engine to sell and then realized the live steam community is too small and it couldn't be sold, so they stole what they could and then junked the rest! Even then the guy would need to know what the thing is and worth, so likely some affiliation. It really sucks when members of your own fraternity commit such crimes against each other. I hope it isn't the case, but I just don't see how your average meth head would know that the boiler is copper.

Lastly one other thought, from the picture that looks like a 4-6-0 in 1.5" scale, that thing needs to weigh a few hundred pounds. It isn't a simple 1 man lift, probably unlikely someone looking to make off with $150 in copper will be taking with him a Bobcat or something to lift it with. So how did the thief make off with it? Most clubs have a loading facility on the premises but when no one is around it should be under lock and key if for nothing else to keep kids from playing with it. Perhaps it occured during a meet by someone who noticed the thing unattended and snuck it into their vav, but otherwise someone would have had to come by off hours, figured out how to use the loading equipment and take it. Once again I am suspecting an inside job.

It is pretty awful however you look at it.

I don't know how deep the lake is but keep in mind it doesn't take more then 5-10 pounds of steel to sink most swimmers to the bottom. So either Mark Spitz did this or they dumped the parts by boat.