Since Mr. Sobczynski intends to purchase the locomotive as an individual, he will not have any protection of an entity and so he will be taking on all of the risk. So it is entirely up to him as to how much consideration he wants to give to the law and his legal situation. I'd imagine a company like Inland has attorneys either in-house, on retainer, or both and, who are, no slight to Mr. Sobczynski, more experienced in these types of transactions. Mr. Sobczynski may want to consider seeking local council to have them review the contract of sale prior to signing anything. Given the political situation with the locality, at a minimum he may want to get an express warranty of title such that, if Inland's title comes into dispute or is otherwise defective, Inland pays all of Mr. Sobczynski's legal fees and any and all costs associated with moving the locomotive out of Port Arthur and back to Port Arthur, if the need arises. Also, since Inland abated the waste oil and asbestos, Mr. Sobczynski may want to seek a warranty on all abatement work performed by Inland and an agreement by Inland to cover any and all costs should the abatement performed by them be incomplete or otherwise defective. No doubt local council would spot other issues to bring to Mr. Sobczynski's attention.

Stop and think for a second.... If I recall correctly, scrap is dealt in long tons. That being the case, the scrap value is something like $29,600 prepared for #1 heavy melt. Prepared being no pieces larger than 2'x4' and ready to charge into a furnace. You have the cost of labor and materials to cut it up. You have the fixed costs of doing business. You have transportation costs. Equipment costs. On the site remediation, you have to legally haul away and dispose of contaminated soil, the extent of which is unknown. All that being said, without actually sitting down and doing an estimate, it doesn't sound to me like the contractor is going to retire off the net profit on this job. And he is carrying all the risks on disposal.

My opinion, which is all it is, is based on 25 years of heavy construction estimating and project management.

194,000 lbs. is the engine weight. They are purchasing the engine and tender, which brings the total weight up to 253,000 lbs.

The entity that would be scrapping the locomotive sells directly to end users, so he gets a much higher price than what you and I would get if we brought in a trailer load of scrap steel. When this project started last week the scrapper agreed to sell the loco for "scrap value". We assumed that meant approx. $150 a ton. Then a three day weekend intervened and by the time Tuesday rolled around we found out that to this scrapper, "scrap value" is a much higher number due to his ability to deal directly with end users. It is not that he raised the price, we assumed the wrong value.

It can be claimed that he should not be able to demand prepared price when he saves the cost of preparing it. Yes he does save that cost, but the added uncertainty of dealing with a third party, the shortening of the window to finish his work if this effort fails and the added complications of dealing with preservationists all has value. There is also a piece of rented equipment on site that has to be paid for whether it is used or not.

These are the realities. Enough money has been raised to purchase the loco and they are getting close to having enough to get it moved out of the city park. The response by all of you to this effort has been amazing. We can't drop the ball this close to the goal line!

"And this is why we can't have nice things."

This is amazing fund drive, to save a locomotive (that actually has a real future) just hours away from it being reduced to #1 HMS. And it's a drive that is successful. Two guys dropped everything, went to PA on their own dime, and have been making this happen. This could be, and will be, one of the best things to happen in our "movement" in a long time.

Now comes all the second-guessing--- you shoulda done this, you shoulda done that....

Some valid points here: Jason does need to get a good, solid, proper Bill of Sale which includes warranting clear title, no more A, etc. Now, there's a little breathing room to do so. On Friday, there wasn't. And today is just the FIRST business day since last Friday.

Stop sniping. Some of you should know better. And anyone who's ever dealt with a scrap man knows they're all about the money, and unless you walk up with the money in hand, and make a deal during the first encounter, the price easily becomes a moving target. No surprise, guys.

I didn't see anyone else besides Jason and Nick going out and putting themselves on the line for 503.

And I sure hope everyone who's critical made a contribution. I know some have.

In this case, it was "fire, aim, ready". Was it perfect all the way around? No. But it was (and is) pretty freakin' GOOD.

Howard P.

Howard,

Well said. Thank you.

Amen, brother Howard. Amen.

I honestly think that if 503 is saved, Jason and Nick's names should be put on the locomotive for all their effort.

I think JayZee deserves a lot of credit as well. In his podcast, Jason mentioned that he first learned about the 503 through an RYPN posting. JayZee was the one who posted the original message.

I agree with Howard.

We often hear stories about could'a, would'a and should'a. In this case, we have two gents who are just trying to get it done. Armchair quarterbacking the effort of guys on the ground in Texas won't get us anywhere.

No matter what happens, they have already pulled off something that has never been done before. The lessons learned will be many. To underscore the point, no one has ever done anything like this before in our field. They are blazing new ground.

I am not betting on perfection. I am betting on a couple of guys trying to do the right thing.

Rob

PS: And yes, I made another donation after the scrapper's price was finalized. They've gotten it this far, why stop?

Just one point of contention here, and clarification. I notice that a lot of posters are saying that these two have gone to PA to do all of this. The engine isn’t in Pennsylvania, but is in Port Arthur, Texas. Just to clarify, they’re not in Pennsylvania, but Texas. Carry on...

Amen.

There are times you need a good answer NOW, not a perfect answer three weeks from now (after the acetylene was already lit). Don't pee in somebody else's cheerios!

Minus these two, we're all playing keyboard mourner, lamenting yet another priceless relic lost and asking why didn't SOMEBODY do something?

Saving and restoring a derelict steam locomotive is the hardest work some of us have ever, or will ever do. The preservation community stepped up and knocked this one out of the park. But understand...

...there is another thread on this board concerning locomotives in similar danger or in no danger but total disrepair. How will the preservation community respond to them? We won't be able save each and everyone unless outright donations come from the owners or owning communities. One which has grabbed my heart is the CPR 2-8-2 #5361, in Depew, NY. Difficult move if she ever gets moved, and difficult owner, already in place. Then there's a certain 2-10-4.

Food for thought; perhaps difficult to digest.

You forget the real complicating factor. I bet if you would of walked up to Port Arthur a week before their problems begin, you would of been stonewalled. Donate? Nah. What's scrap value? I see steam engines on Ozark Mountain Railcar for 500k? Environmental review! Been a part of PA since Texas was a part of Mexico! Blah blah... Not picking on PA i bet you would get the same response to 99% of the unloved engines out there, even the ones that were later suddenly under a move-it-or-loose-it order. It's just that this one slid under the radar till the last seconds.

Rick - Thank you for the clear and patient explanation of how the scrap value is being calculated. With all the numbers online and being used, it was hard for someone like myself to figure out what was what. As for Inland still getting full value when he is not prepping the metal, I had chalked that up to the fact that it is Inland's jobsite, Inland is legally resposible for what occurs on their jobsite, and so Inland most likely has to have personnel onsite in Port Arthur while the locomotive is being disassembled and loaded anyway. It does not matter if Inland's people are cutting and loading or not, someone from Inland has to be there and Inland has to pay them.

Howard P. - Looking back at the RYPN posts, the only "shoulda" I see is in Ross Rowland's post. A couple of people on the fundraising comments page as well. Besides my confusion as to how the scrap value is being calculated, most of what I posted goes to how, moving forward, Mr. Sobczynski may be able to go about getting a clean title. If the local politics cause the transaction between Port Arthur and Inland to be called into question, clearing a title questioning express down the mainline, it is Mr. Sobczynski's caboose that will be fouling the switch. It appears that he has no corporate veil to protect him. I'd hate to see a situation where he does all this great and hard work and gets burned.

The nicest thing one can have is good people, and in Mr. Sobczynski and Mr. Hovey, it appears rail preservation has some very good people.

And successful, too--in spite of what some would argue is a "bait and switch" setback, these two are up to $60,055.

I would never have been able to pull that off, but these guys are.