Howdy, Does anyone have the contact details for the S2's current owners? I'd passed on this item via a couple of social media type sites, and been asked for contacts. Lot's of interest! I'd pointed everyone back to here. Would be nice if she could be saved. Have fun everyone, David Notarius, knee deep in the mud of the Cambridgeshire Fens, in damp England.

" . . . and also be able to bend the rules".

If it's OK, why would anybody have to bend the "rules".


" FRA does require a waiver for freight cars over 40 or 50 years old. Do they require a waiver for locomotives, cabooses and/or passenger cars"?

The FRA requires a waiver for everything that's not compliant with the "rules".

Silly man, you should know how this game is played!
Original post: "Someone's* gotta save this locomotive/car/whatever right now, I'm looking at the scrappers walking toward it right now!"
Reply post: "Geez, why didn't someone post on this earlier? It takes time to get something like this moved..."
Original poster: "Never mind that! Someone's gotta save this!"
Reply poster: "*sigh*. Okay, where is it?"
Original poster: "It's... in a scure location for the moment."
Reply poster: "Yeah, but where? If you think someone should save it, they'd really need to know where it is."
Original poster: "I'd rather not say at this time..."
Reply poster: "Then it deserves to be scrapped and you have prevented it from being saved. You're so stupid, i hope you don't have children."
...and thus, the torches get lit and it becomes razor blades a week later.
Then, a few weeks after that:
Original poster: "Well, hope you all are happy, it's cut up now. Someone should have saved it!"


* You know, that magical 'someone' which really translates to, "someone other than me"...

You need someone to "bend" or suspend the railroads internal rules against plain bearings. That is different from the FRA's rules which are codified in Federal Law (the CFR)

Greg

Ask anyone who's dealt with this stuff enough:

The real reason these "rules" exist is to give a railroad, or its employees, carte blanche to refuse something it doesn't WANT to handle. In a sense, it's no different from refusing a stranger permission to take a short cut through your house or property, simply because you don't know or trust him.

Railroaders, from the lowliest switch thrower to the VP-Operations, are petrified of anything, and I mean anything, that might ruin their day, because the military-style regimentation of railroad management and operation means that the slightest mistake can come back to bite them hard. What sounds like a common-sense friendly request to you sounds to them something on the order of "You want me to tow your truck out of the ditch with those chains attached to my puny car? Do I LOOK like a tow truck?"

When the orders come from "On High"--such as they did with moving PRR GG1 4935 to Washington DC and return a while back--it has less to do with kowtowing to the bosses' orders than it does with confirmation that "the buck will stop" with the bosses, and not on the underlings, if something goes wrong. I would suggest that our problem, as an industry, is that we no longer nurture those friendly, useful relationships with railroad officials, and vice versa.

I have talked to the owner today and sent contact info to those that have PM me, I will not post his info on the open board with out his OK.
The Alco is sitting on the FM&P sub in Uniontown Pa (fayette county) the owner wanted to move it to Westmorland county were SWP RR has connection to CSX, NS, and W&LE, but SWP has track rights on about 3 miles of CSX track in Connellsville to get to FM&P and CSX said NO to the move.

Tim C

If a unit might be beyond a certain build date and has friction bearings there could be an exemption for it, its not like the engine is going to be run with regular service trains. If the line is cooperative you might get a special run coupled to the engine, even donate the move if you're non profits. I know about the interchange move, but its not like the engine would be ignored in the middle of a huge trains, you should/would have to give it full inspection crew to go with it.

Aside from that I thought, well, there may be a set of spare diesel trucks with roller bearings and swap them out for the move. Or if you can just swap freight trucks under it load the trucks onto a flat....

Anyways I don't think it should be so impossible. This is a very unique engine and we surely would not want to see it scrapped. Money is one thing, value another and irreplaceable museum piece worthy of preserving is another thing. Hope you can find an alternative than just scrapping.

Not to be obnoxious, but sometimes the right question isn't asked.
Did CSX refuse a move of the loco under its own power or did they refuse any movement of the loco over its trackage?

[pops head up, looks across town at sister B&O S2 9163 at the B&O Railroad Museum, essentially untouched since its 1990 delivery/donation.... turns the other way, cranes neck higher, looks northeast to West Chester, Pa. and sister B&O 9115, later Rohm & Haas and Wilmington & Western 3, now out of service at WCRL....]

Really?

I was not aware that a railroad that has trackage rights had a duty to clear every piece of rolling stock that it wants to move over the host railroad. A 3 mile move would have taken at most 10 minutes. It would have been done and over with before anyone even knew it.

I don't know for sure but I am sure the move was to be dead in tow to westmorland county, CSX has been hard to deal with. When we had the RDC we moved it to westmorland a few times in tow by SWP and had to pay for a CSX crew
on the SWP train to get over the 3 miles of CSX track that SWP had track rights on.

The relationship with SWP (owned by carload express ) was good, with the increased rail traffic on the FM&P sub and them buying the track they were not comfortable with the risk of passenger trains, we had 1 year notice they were not going to renew contract.

Tim C

Unless it is spelled out in the trackage rights agreement, the host railroad can't refuse to allow the trackage rights tenant overhead passage. I know "standard" trackage rights agreements usually (where I deal with them, in freight) don't outright ban locomotives on friction bearings.

I know of a few cases where a trackage rights move went under the cover of darkness, and nobody was the wiser at the host. The equipment being moved wasn't in violation of the trackage rights agreement, but it was easier to avoid the fuss.

I also know of cases where the local manager for the host has said "Technically we aren't supposed to allow this, so please get over the road quickly and without incident and I'll report it as a revenue freight move."

Has the railroad museum in Baltimore been notified of this? I know the RDC went back to them, but I would think an S2 native to the B&O would be of interest to them.

Does anyone know why the locomotive must be removed from the property so quickly? Is it in the way of anything?

How soon are they talking about scrapping, and is there any way we could collectively start some sort of fund raiser to save it?

"Has the railroad museum in Baltimore been notified of this? I know the RDC went back to them, but I would think an S2 native to the B&O would be of interest to them".

If you will re-read this thread with comprehension you will discover that it mentions several times that this locomotive was originally a Richmond, Fredericksburg and Potomac unit.

Just because somebody paints a locomotive blue and stencils "Baltimore and Ohio" on it does not make it a Baltimore and Ohio locomotive.

Words mean things.

Okay... have there been any updates?

I talked to the owner this week end, he has not made a final decision on the fate of the S2. There is some hope it may get sold, if not he would like to see it parted out instead of just cut up, but scrap is $180 - $200 a ton and the Alco is around 115 ton.

I hope it can find a home

Tim