I have spoken to town leaders in several places out here in the West that fit that description. I've talked frankly about the problems of being "abandoned" by the railroad, the businesses, the residents that leave and never return, the county, and even the state in terms of potential and viability. They don't react well to such attitudes "copped" at them. And, hell, I lived in Baltimore for over a quarter century, and witnessed the constant clash--actually, warfare--between the city and the rest of the state over city mismanagement, its sense of entitlement, and its constant cycles of corruption and malfeasance, from the top down.

Which is the specific reason that I not only question the wisdom of certain people who should be politically astute repeatedly, carelessly, and openly insulting the City Council of Port Arthur, but I literally blame those that did so for the outcome.

I mean, it's not like the perpetrators of these insults are "spring chickens" that are too young to have learned to temper their language and opinions with diplomatic restraint.......

When people so easily criticize the City of Port Arthur, I think they ought to consider how the City looks at this matter.

The funding campaign to save 503 was energized and made successful only by the crisis of preventing the imminent loss of the locomotive by scrapping. Therefore, promoting the funding campaign required promoting the evil intentions of the City Council in their plan to destroy the historical locomotive. The City and their plan had to be defeated, and this was the public theme of the Gofundme effort.

The City did not see this coming. They had quietly decided to use the engine to partly fund the cleanup effort, and at the same time, get rid of the engine that had caused the need for the cleanup. The City thought it would happen fast and quietly, and nobody would object.

Suddenly they were surprised to learn that hundreds of people had contributed to a public campaign to save the locomotive from the City’s nefarious plan. Of course the City Council was embarrassed to say the least. It was obvious in their subsequent meetings. No City Council can accept being made to look bad.

So this revelation put the Council on the defensive. Their immediate reaction was to attack the effort to save 503 as being a secret plot to steal the City’s history. In particular, they attacked Jason for assuming that Inland was the new owner of 503, and his belief that he could strike purchase deal with them without involving the City. The City Council made it clear that they still owned 503, and that they have been the owner since the locomotive had been given to the City by KCS.

So, overall, the City promoted their own plan to save, preserve, and cherish the locomotive as a beloved artifact of their own history to combat what they portrayed to be the evil intentions of those who would steal the locomotive out from under them. It was the perfect counterpunch to what they felt had been done to them by the bad press about saving 503 from them. They sought to create an image of the City being the protector of 503 to offset the image that they were the destroyer of 503.

To people here, the City’s reaction seems obviously inconsistent because the City had originally intended to scrap the engine, not caring about saving it as their history. But the messages are also playing to the Council’s constituency, and they may have been largely unaware of the City’s original intentions. For practical purposes, all of this controversy went public when Jason presented the results of his funding campaign.

In my opinion, the effort to purchase and remove 503 was doomed because it painted the City in a bad light by making their intentions the focus of needing the emergency funding. I don’t see any way that it could have been handled differently to successfully remove the locomotive for restoration.

If Jason had gone directly to the City with his request to purchase the locomotive, and done this prior to the public fundraising, the City would have felt no threat to their image, and might have seen Jason’s plan as a better option than scrapping. However, at that point, without the threat to their image, the City may have felt that immediate scrapping was in their best interest because of the uncertainty and time required for Jason’s plan to play out. The City was also under time constraints of the cleanup deadline. So the City quite likely may have rejected any offer of purchase from Jason if they had been approached prior to the fundraising.

So given all of this, I see no alternative path that might have been successful. The only hope was that the City would change their mind about the path they had started down to save the locomotive in Port Arthur. But by that time, the issue had become highly polarized with opposing feelings on both sides, so changing directions became unlikely.

Jason was sent barking up the wrong tree from the get-go. The City’s own spokesperson gave him incorrect information regarding the locomotive and its ownership. Jason makes contact with the “owner”, starts surveying, and leads a successful effort to raise the funds to purchase it in record time. He even has cranes and transportation spoken for. Wow! Very impressive.

Well intentioned supporters take it upon themselves to contact the media. This doesn’t help and actually puts the City on the defensive. Out comes the rug. Nothing done or said from there on out seems to help the City change their minds on the matter.

Had the locomotive’s ownership been clear from the start, Jason’s approach been slightly different, and had the supporters coordinated with Jason prior to acting, I believe the desired outcome would have had a much higher chance of success.

If anyone who witnessed that first PA Council meeting replete with serial lieing, abject incompetence and total lack of leadership and came away thinking there was ANY CHANCE that this outfit would EVER deal with Jason in good faith..... they must exist in another universe.

I only wish Jason had taken my strong advice early on and moved on.

At least the scrappers torch was postponed for a few years.

Half a loaf is better than no loaf.

Ross Rowland

This was a noble and excellent effort to accomplish a change in what was going to conclude in a preservation disaster.

This was a noble and excellent effort to accomplish a change in what was going to conclude in a preservation disaster. Jason went above and beyond the call to duty. Jason did alright.

Jason had a plan that he was pursuing. When the City learned of it, they felt embarrassed because Jason’s plan made them look like they were about to scrap the locomotive without asking their constituents whether they wanted to give up this piece of their history.

And when the City learned of Jason’s plan, they saw that the plan had received massive publicity which included the part that made them look bad for intending to scrap the engine. So the City had a hostile reaction to all of this.

That is EXACTLY what the City was in the process of doing. Having the locomotive scrapped with no input from virtually anybody. They didn't care one whit about the 503.



Indeed, they did (and do) look bad. This was all of the politicians' own misfeasance and outright dishonesty. They got caught, and looked foolish, which they were.