Anyone who thought that CP would invest a lot of their money restoring this engine without total unencumbered title to it has no clue at to how the real world works.

Thanks Jeff Terry for testifying to this basic fact.

Ross Rowland

Ross, I'm surprised that you would question every other SNHS occurance save for this one. Again, one never knows unless you try. Probably a long shot to be sure, but I have seen much stranger things happen.

Thanks to Jeff for some actual info.

And to add fuel to the fire, this unsubstantiated tidbit from Canadianrailwayobservations.com :

A CP source indicated this could be the final official company event for CPR #2816, and she could be sidelined for good. He mentioned following the event in 2017, the locomotive could be earmarked for donation to a railway museum, (or as CP has done of late, possibly put up for auction sale).

Could somebody post a photo of where the 2816 is currently located in 2017?

And to add fuel to the fire, this unsubstantiated tidbit from Canadianrailwayobservations.com :

A CP source indicated this could be the final official company event for CPR #2816, and she could be sidelined for good. He mentioned following the event in 2017, the locomotive could be earmarked for donation to a railway museum, (or as CP has done of late, possibly put up for auction sale). [/quote]

I don't know where this "unsubstantiated tidbit" came from, but I can assure you that this is not the case. If you doubt CP's commitment to its heritage, look no further than the recent rebuilding of FP9 1401 for service on the Canada 150 Train.

I am not doubting CP's commitment to heritage. I am doubting it's commitment to steam. Especially under Creel.

From Railpictures.net, photo by Kevin Anrusia.

EDIT

The above photo is quite dated. I'll post a current photo when I return home. She's in a much nicer location now.

Jeff, I spotted that right after I posted it, the image had a newer date on the main screen but when I expanded it, it showed July 2009.

Here's 2816 on display, surrounded by artifacts from the steam era, at CP's former Ogden shops (not currently open to the public). She is very well cared for - note that there is not a speck of dust on her boiler jacket. Photo was taken this month.

Anyone who thinks CP does not care about 2816 just because she isn't running right now is simply wrong. She is the pride and joy of the railroad's heritage collection.

I believe she is in the Royal Canadian Pacific building at the Ogden shops in Calgary.

Note in the above photo the ditch lights that were on it in recent years have been removed.

according to the wikipedia Steamtown let 2816 go because it wasnt an USA engine. I've wondered about the purpose of the inquiry, just informational or otherwise. CP's gone to the trouble to restore the engine to operation which I think is great.

"according to the wikipedia"

guffaw. snicker.

I have no inside knowledge on how much xenophobia influenced the #2816 deal, but it certainly was a drumbeat of the uninformed in the late 1980's and early 1990's. The knee jerk reaction to Canadian steam (especially once the gov't got involved) was awful. The railfanning community didn't help.

Several tactical errors were made, along with a couple of interpretive errors.

First, the G5s should never have been let go. They are gems and while two of the three fared well, the decision gutted the backbone of the roster.

On the interpretive front, CPR #1098 and CNR #5288 were hard pieces to watch leave. The D-10's were regulars on CPR's New England routes, especially through Vermont. Anyone with a lick of historical understanding of northeastern steam railroading knew that. Xenophobia struck.

#5288, which left after the great Canadian purge, was another I was sad to see leave. She spent a lot of time on the Central Vermont and was very much a locomotive of US service.

Prince of Leige left around the time of the first purge, I believe. Being Belgian it was even more of an outcast, but it is now in good hands. Repton (UK) left about the same time. I can understand those decisions, but to deny #1098 and #5288's interpretive value to US railroading always struck me a bit odd.



Rob

My inquiry was less about interpretation and more about asset management. As I said, this particular trade has been a clouded issue for many years. By his word, Jeff has actually interviewed parties on both sides and there were no conflicting statements, so that is good enough for me. Notice I did not say that it should be good enough for park management, who have a duty to conduct a reasonable search for documentation of the transfer.

On a broader note, I have no qualms with the park giving up even more of the "at risk" equipment. However, each transfer should include a clause that gives the park the right to repatriate said equipment at a later date if the terms of the agreement are violated. None of us can predict the future twenty years down the road - groups, museums and corporations are disbanded all the time.

2816 seems to be well cared for and undercover, something that admittedly may not have been possible had she stayed at SNHS (bone thrown for RR). Let's hope she stays that way.

As far the narrower focus of this thread, the terms and conditions of the transfer of CP 2816 by the Federal Government to CPR in 1998, I am uncertain as to the outcome. Superheater was on site during the transaction and helped prepare 2816 for transport. He has stated previously, in “B&M #3713 Restoration Thread Part 2”, “I don't have details on the transaction, but when we were prepping the 2816, it was with the implicit idea the repatriation of CP 2816 was an exchange transaction. CPR was supposed to provide something of value in return, perhaps favorable moves or diesel locomotives." He reiterated that position here but also stated that he does recall the consideration promised by CPR or if it was ever tendered. Mr. Terry states that, "According to my contact at the NPS (again, it was over eleven years ago at this point) CP fulfilled their end of the agreement shortly after 2816 departed Steamtown." What the NPS got from CPR in exchange for 2816 and if/when consideration was delivered still seems to be a bit up in the air. As long as there was a meeting of the minds on the consideration given by both sides, and both sides delivered, then we have a contract, even if one side made a really bad deal.

From Mr. Terry's photo, it is apparent that 2816 is in better condition now than if it had spent the last 19 years outside in Scranton, but the 2816 transfer by the Park Service to a for-profit entity could be viewed as troublesome because it greatly hindered public access to the artifact, especially here in the US. The public access aspect of collection management is an issue that comes up often, most recently with regards to the Berkshire Museum's announced plans to sell off some of its artworks.

http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/ ... ium=social

To see if public access was properly addressed, one would first have to go back to the terms of the transfer from Steamtown Foundation to the NPS a decade before. It would appear that the overall purpose of this original 1988 transaction was to ensure continued public access to the collection, and by that I mean all of the collection - non-DL&W, non-NEPA, and non-US. If that is indeed the case, and the NPS failed to include conditions to preserve public access to 2816 under CPR's ownership, it would be good to know and to think about what sort of language the NPS could have insisted upon in the contract to preserve public access.