Now to stir up yet another hornet's nest here:

Would anyone care to nominate the one cancer-riddled hopeless basket case that they would scrap, just to put them out of their sorry misery and to divert the energy used fretting over them to a worthier candidate?

In *theory*, any surviving loco or rust pile should at least offer some hope, whether it be a parts source or a pattern. The Simons 0-6-0T #2 pictured below in the "lost in the woods" thread, for example, supposedly has a solid boiler, and therefore could provide the foundation for another "Thomas" rebuild if the need were there. But it would be more cost effective to build another SR coach from scratch than to salvage the pile of iron oxide in the Lynchburg park. Regretfully, with a huge number of duplicates elsewhere, the same can be said for the adjacent C&O 2-8-4.

Other nominees: The GTW/Northwestern Steel & Wire 0-8-0s (is any excursion line willingly going to operate an 0-8-0?); the Roanoke scrapyard locos; the Preston steamers in Madley, Pa. (far too expensive to even retrieve, let alone rebuild); and certain neglected passenger car bodies here and there, historic or no (honorary Lackawanna MU nominees: two in brush along a short line in central Pa., which I just added to the thread below)...........

Am I committing blasphemy?

lner4472@bcpl.net

> In *theory*, any surviving loco or rust pile
> should at least offer some hope, whether it
> be a parts source or a pattern.

I would dare to say that a railroad museum should not “scrap” any piece of equipment that is in anyway historic, no matter how bad its condition. However, there are many pieces that should be dismantled, with attention given to salvaging parts and producing documentation that cannot be produced via any other means. The Oxford English Dictionary defines scrap(v.) as To break up into scrap-iron (machinery or ironwork which has become worn out or superseded); to consign to the scrap-heap. In terms of railroad preservation, this would mean destroying a piece of equipment without making any attempt to preserve parts or to document the specific history of the artifact. The latter includes recovering paint samples, documenting current and prior lettering, examining prior repairs, etc.

The Canadian Museum of Rail Travel in Cranbrook accomplished just such a project with a composite CP/SOO sleeper they received as a donation from the Wisconsin Central in the 1990Â’s (see link below entitled Curzon Story). The parts and documentation can be used for supporting restorations, and the documentation would also provide a new source of information for researching both equipment construction and railroad rebuilding/maintenance practices.

I have been working on a proposal for coordinating museum collection management for a few years now (I hope to have it ready for publication by the middle of this year) which will directly address this issue.



Curzon Story - Page 10
rrhistorian@hotmail.com

I think that perhaps "dismantle" would be a more appropriate word for the situation described above, where preservation of important parts and information is achieved. The organization with which I am associated has a good track record on preservation but has made some mistakes in the past. The one piece of equipment that we most wish that we hadn't scrapped is the electric freight motor from the Hales Bar Dam. Hales Bar Dam was built back around 1915 by the Tennessee Electric Power Company (TEPCO).

By 1920, TEPCO owned the streetcar lines in Chattanooga and Nashville. Rather than buy a locomotive to operate the spur from the dam to the Nashville, Chattanooga and St. Louis Railway main line, TEPCO hung a trolley line and converted a former Chattanooga streetcar into a rather strange looking freight motor. Tbe cab in the center of the car consisted of an ancient trolley or horse car body with large open deck spaces at each end. The car's traction motors were replaced with four stronger motors and it was equipped with necessary air brakes and couplers. Problems with the rock under the Hales Bar Dam led the Tennessee Valley Authority to remove the dam once one at Nickajack (just downstream from Hales Bar) was completed. Preservationists managed to rescue the freight motor before the line was inundated only to see it scrapped later by the museum.

My own opinion is that scrapping or dismantling should remain as an absolute last resort, especially where donated items are concerned. Potential donors or contributors may be less inclined to support your organization if they feel that equipment that they donate may not be managed appropriately.

awalker2002@comcast.net

>I think that candidates for dismantling should include duplicate or near-duplicate pieces of equipment, as well as pieces that are outside of the scope of the collection (every organization has a collection scope in their mission statement?). However, we should first try to find a home for such equipment with another preservation group that would want such a piece.

As far as equipment that is not owned by a preservation organization, if a group does not want to or is unable to acquire a piece, it should at least try to publicize it to the preservation community.

Remember, we can not preserve everything. I think it is better to have a smaller collection properly housed in an organization with an ongoing restoration program than to have a larger collecton neglected and stored outdoors.

Also, it also depends on the overall number of any item of equipment that is preserved. I do not think there is a need for 70 or so preserved Lackawanna MU cars, or 10 of 14 Red Arrow 1949 St.Louis cars, for example

artschwartz@sprintmail.com

> Now to stir up yet another hornet's nest
> here:

Actually Mother Nature is doing a heck of a job at no extra cost! No need to speed things up.

lamontdc@adelphia.net

In 20 or so years of reading museum newsletters, I note it happens all the time. People are always "scrapping" paint and "scraping" old rusty iron!

ryarger@rypn.org

> Now to stir up yet another hornet's nest
> here:

> Would anyone care to nominate the one
> cancer-riddled hopeless basket case that
> they would scrap, just to put them out of
> their sorry misery and to divert the energy
> used fretting over them to a worthier
> candidate?

SCRM has a SOU lightweight coach that is probably good only for scrap. It's SOU #800, which was renamed "South Carolina" at some point. That's why we have it.

The car is 85 feet of junk. The problem is that it's a Pullman. Pullman heavyweights were sturdy cars, but owing to Pullman's war with Budd, their lightweights suck. The damn thing's an 85' long battery, full of corrosion from galvanic action. It's so bad we're afraid to move the thing too much for fear that the trucks will come out from under it. The interior is in pretty good shape, so the seats and such could probably be salvaged.

We've got another car that's an old Army hospital car. It's just an empty shell. I'm thinking about proposing that we gut the 800, rebuild the hospital car as a coach or combine, and use the 800's seats in it. Then scrap the 800.

The South Carolina Railroad Museum
mconrad@compuzone.net

Matt, if you are a museum and not a train ride, wouldn't restoring the hospital car as a hospital car be a more appropriate idea? Coaches are cheap and easy to find out there from retired commuter stock.

Dave

> Matt, if you are a museum and not a train
> ride, wouldn't restoring the hospital car as
> a hospital car be a more appropriate idea?
> Coaches are cheap and easy to find out there
> from retired commuter stock.

> Dave

Everything's a tradeoff. We've never considered restoring the car to its original condition a viable option for a couple reasons:

1. The car was used as a part of the Strategic Air Command's radar train in the 1950s. SAC modified it pretty extensively, removing just about everything from the interior that made it a hospital car. They also closed up one set of loading doors. Then the car was used by the Marines for target practice. It's just an empty shell with no floor.

2. There's a fully-restored USA hospital car just up the highway at Spencer (I did a little work on it in the middle 1990s). Spencer did a fantastic job on this car, having better facilities and tools than we have.

For a while, we were going to make the car into an open-air coach. It may still get this treatment. The running and draft gear are in excellent shape -- in fact the roller-bearing, six-wheel trucks are like new. Because of that it would be nice to turn the car into something we can use, rather than a static display.

The South Carolina Railroad Museum
mconrad@compuzone.net

I know of one of these made in to a really cushy dinner......... intersted in starting a first class service or dinner train?



btrue@vt.edu

> I know of one of these made in to a really
> cushy dinner......... intersted in starting
> a first class service or dinner train?

Actually, a first-class parlor or lounge car is one option I've considered for the thing. We've got a lot of old sofas and chairs for some strange reason (sometimes I think we ought to change our name to The SC Living Room Furniture Museum). They'd work well in a lounge or parlor car.

We curretly offer first class service in our 1924 SOU diner #3157. The diner works well for this but it's by no means perfect. I personally think that the regular coach seats are much more comfortable than the chairs in the diner. The tables are removable and I suggested taking them out and putting comfortable sofas in there -- that didn't go over too well.

I dunno... I just might adopt the SAC car as soon as I finish my current restoration project, getting paint on our 1911 SAL business car. The weather and other projects are making this work go slo-o-o-o-owly.

The South Carolina Railroad Museum
mconrad@compuzone.net