I am impressed and pleasantly surprised with the efforts to save #503. I think I can speak for most residents of the Port Arthur area when I say I never would have imagined #503’s luck would change. These guys have done a great job.

Chill out, everyone. These guys have been working their butts off. Maybe they need a little sleep. Or food. Or a couple of hours to themselves.

When they're ready to update everyone, they will. And let's keep in mind that it takes a little time to finalize and actually produce a purchase agreement. This can't be a single sheet of notebook paper "Bill of Sale", written in ballpoint pen, on the hood of a pickup truck.

The funding goal has been accomplished. The unheard of has occurred. Now give them time to dot the tees and cross their eyes.

Howard P.

Overall I think this effort has been tremendous and certainly surprised me by the support it generated. I hope that the organizers can now complete the task and use the 65k raised to do as they outlined on the GFM page.

I remain concerned about the whole moving target on the purchase price which has been blamed on the seller changing the number mid stream. I have been told by a long time friend who hails from PA that's not the real story but who knows.

What I do know is if the purchase agreement got executed yesterday ( 2/21) as posted by Jason on the GFM page then scanning and posting it is a simple task. If it did not get done then a timely update is certainly in order.

IMHO-Ross Rowland

If you go through all the updates and comms from Jason and Nick over the past week, you’ll find a transparent timeline of what transpired. I still can’t believe that just a week ago this was a dream and now it is funded.

Donations are still welcome. As Jason explains in the video, all money above and beyond the acquisition and transport costs will stay with the locomotive.

I encourage you to watch the video, as Jason and Nick explain what to expect for the next few days. There probably won’t be news every five minutes because it will take awhile to get everything sorted out. Let’s hope that time isn’t filled with unconstructive social media worrying. The financial hurdle has been cleared.

Heck, why I am saying that? It’s all here from
the horses’ mouths. Give them a little breathing room. 1,200+ folks in our community stood tall for this. It’s incredible.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8T4PhLVwThk&sns=em


Rob

Please explain how professing a desire to see Mr. Sobczynski succeed is compatible with posting a rumor like this without all the facts. Mr. Sobczynski never stated that the seller changed the number. He stated that the understanding was that Inland would convey him the title to the locomotive for "scrap value". Unfortunately, Mr. Sobczynski and the representative from Inland that he is dealing with did not have a meeting of the minds as to exactly what this term meant until some time after the weekend.



An experienced and successful businessman such as yourself must appreciate that there are many other material terms in a deal such as this that have to be ironed out after the basic dollar amounts are agreed to. Maybe he does not have the time right now to attend to your "simple task". In addition to trying finalize a very complicated deal, it appears that Mr. Sobczynski is also busy smoothing out these sorts of public relations challenges:

http://www.panews.com/2018/02/22/valero-being-a-good-corporate-neighbor-2/

"Cameron Wolk, of the National Railroad Historical Society" - Really?!?

Wow. Just, wow.

This is another good example of why we, as a collective, have to be careful making unsubstantiated claims about situations and misrepresentations about who we are on a forum such as RYPN - the news media can and will run with it, if given a chance...

We have made a routine of mocking the relative ignorance of journalists to the geeky specifics of exactly what we're dealing with.

The honorable Messrs. David P. Morgan and Jim Wrinn, both of whom came to Trains from daily newspaper backgrounds, and I, who was raised in part in the office of a country weekly, would be happy to expand at length about how difficult it can be for even a seasoned journalist under deadline pressure in the Age of Instant Information to manage to keep straight exactly who represents whom and to what degree in preparing a story like this.

I still deal with this today in writing about craft breweries, where the founders of these companies have to be carefully figured out for what they are now--the CEO, the president, the "general partner" in one case, etc. And we still call them "brewers" even as many of them have not physically handled a hop or malt grain in years. And we run into this all the time in railroading--the passenger excursion runs over the tracks of a freight company, on trackage actually owned by the local or state government agency..........

And this is journalism in 2018. In an economically depressed area of the country. It's not too far-fetched to say "just be glad they can spell."

In theory, if Cameron Wolk is a paid member of the NRHS, that citation is technically accurate. However, I would like to know how his words got the attention of the reporter, and yes, it probably rates a correction to say that Wolk is simply a member of, and not speaking as an official representative of, the NRHS.

In closing, let me leave you with this infamous boo-boo by "the paper of record," "The Gray Lady," the New York Times, reporting on the 1977 last run of an RPO in the U.S. Note specifically the caption for the photo.

I think Mr Wolk missed a great opportunity to keep his personal opinions private and let a great and unanticipated victory stand proudly on it's own. If he's a spokesman of official standing for NRHS, they may wish to reconsider.......

My guess is from this...

When the dust settles and the locomotive has been moved, MAYBE Jason MIGHT be willing to entertain making some of the agreements public but I doubt it. The price of the locomotive is what it is. Whether the scrapper used the very small window of time to inflate the price is anyone's guess. But we shouldn't throw stones at a couple of guys who are trying to accomplish something good in an impossibly short amount of time. So, regardless of how the negotiations were concluded, we (as armchair quarterbacks) have no right to complain. Right now Jason is operating as a private individual and has no reason and no obligation to make any of his dealings public. There are no stipulations in the Go Fund Me effort that require ANY reporting about how the money is spent. That is the risk with Go Fund Me; the donors have to trust that the recipient of the donations will do what he says he will.
When the locomotive trust is established, and Jason transfers the title of HIS locomotive to it, the trustees will still be under no obligation to make anything public.

So who's being the "nattering nabob of negativity" here? Hmmmmmmmmmmmmm?

One might consider the possibility of non-disclosure clauses.

Look at the youtube link posted earlier. Jason explains exactly what is happening regarding the title.

I have carefully watched the YouTube video. Again, let me state that I am VERY pleased by this effort and especially impressed by the publics response.

I remain concerned about the organizers getting a binding purchase agreement as they have gone from saying that " a signed purchase agreement will be executed on Feb.21" ( as stated on the GFM page), to now on the YouTube video saying it will be " sometime mid to late next week". Let's hope that proves true.

I am by nature an optimist and I sure hope this story has a happy ending as it has certainly generated lots of positive energy for this thing we all care about called steam preservation, and has the potential to be one of the leading events of our year.

Time will tell.

Ross Rowland