I started on exactly that, and someone, I can’t recall who, set up a wiki. Between our horrific internet access and COVID, I got nothing done. Everyone needs to agree on how to organize the information, which is no small task in itself.. Will there be a separate area for new groups contemplating a restoration? You’re right, it’s no small project, but it isn’t insurmountable.

As a moderator, I have concerns...

We cannot celebrate any failure of a preservation organization or company. There are lots of opinions of work done by many... not just this one.

For the most part this discussion has been proper, discussing issues of preservation.

Please be careful in your commentary... be carful with comments...

Thank You,
Randy Hees... your always friendly moderator...

This is not an small project by any stretch of the means. If this were to occur, it is essentially taking the collections of several large archives and placing them on the web for public consumption. The topics alone of locomotive operation can be very complicated and then add items such as component drawings and others and it becomes an incredible collection of data.

if such a program were to occur it would need dedicated over site and coordination of various individual efforts. I am working on a history and related material for SP 3420. One section of the document I am calling how I work. For this section I wrote over 12,000 words and used 50 pages once the illustrations were placed in it. And this only scratches the surface of the complexity of the one locomotive.

But it is important for one to try if this information is to be better understood.

Robby Peartree

As i have been mentioned i will respond, i had worked at WRRC on two seperate occasions and latterly for a number of years. I worked with great fellow employees on a number of very successful projects
none of us were employed on any of the so called controversial projects, certainly not on areas of boiler work or things like that. I would happily work with any of my colleagues with whom i worked over the last four years. The kind of posts from the haters of WRRC with axes to grind and whos poop doesnt stink have been hard for us to endure, when we have been justifiably proud of our individual achievements. Time will tell what happens from here, but i wish my forner shop floor colleagues well.
Mike Pannell
Vintage Rail Restorations

My relationship with Wasatch and John which ended maybe 14 years ago were nothing but positive. The company was doing some very interesting international work at the time..... I only wonder if perhaps their rate of growth overloaded their ability to actually produce nothing but good work that was well thought out and only done by quality craftsmen. I know nothing specific firsthand about any other of their other clients projects and am therefore disqualified to comment. So, I won't.......

In the interest of representing the truth best we can it must be said that the revelations as spelled out in gruesome detail in the K&T court mechanical report are VERY serious and if not caught before the locomotive entered service could have been catastrophic.

We are blessed as an industry that those numerous non compliant repairs didn't end the steam tourist railroad industry.

IMHO- Ross Rowland

This brings up another point: someone saw that happening and was either afraid to say something or didn’t know what to do. What should we, especially those of us not directly involved in safety-critical parts of restoration, do when we see something so obvious that we know it’s wrong?

For me, it isn’t speculative. We were on a road trip about fifteen years ago and stopped by a small Steam operation we’d heard of. (They went out of business and the locomotive in question is elsewhere, so no danger is imminent now.) Their safety practices were nonexistent. I couldn’t think of anything to do but bring the matter up with steam people who have a generally good reputation for both knowledge and diplomacy. They told me they had tried to engage the crew in conversation, but “nah, we know how to handle her.” What should we have done?

The people doing the actual physical repair may not know they’re doing something wrong. That’s when you bring it up to management, failing any action there, go to the regulating agency.

Regarding safety practices, if management is systemically and blatantly ignoring regulated safety requirements, report them. That’s about all you can do.

The corporate culture regarding safety practiced by the Class I that I worked for states: If you see somebody doing something unsafe, and you say nothing to that person, then you are also at fault if somebody gets hurt later because of it. On the other hand, if you tried to say something and the person refused to listen, then you're in the clear. (Yes, and if they smarted off to you when you tried to tell them, then it's OK to laugh if they get hurt later.)

The last part may sound harsh, but after going to several of my co-workers funerals, it started to make sense to me... Railroading is for keeps. You screw up for a split second, you might be paying for it for a long, long time, or somebody else might get to pay for your mistake.

Incorrect on both counts. Chapter 13 is for individuals, not companies. Under a 13, you set up a payment plan. 11 is typically not available to individuals.

Chapter 11 business bankruptcies may turn into a Chapter 7, which is a liquidation. Most Chapter 11s put the creditors in charge of the company. The one at issue here is a special type of Chapter 11 that still allows the owner to run the company, for now.

A lot of what will happen in the instant case will depend on 1) how much the creditors wish to deal; and 2) how much of a chance WRRC has as an ongoing enterprise.

Iowa Pacific is/was a receivership, a similar yet completely different animal. There, the secured creditors essentially got a court order to take over and sell the assets to wind down the business snd try to satisfy the many creditors.

Neither is a situation worth celebrating.

After Gettysburg, Russ Quimby put on a presentation at one of the TRAIN conventions about the entire investigation, including the videos which never made the rounds of the feedwater heater soaking down the front of the first car due to leaks.

That left a profound impression on me, as it did many people. About 23 years ago post-Gettysburg I was requested to do a 'drop in' inspection of a steam operation operating on a client property; it was essentially appalling for multiple steam and operating safety violations and was still running. I documented everything, called the client the next day, and he terminated their operating contract for cause. I heard from their lawyer about six hours later, and simply turned over all my evidence to him as I knew it would end up in discovery anyway. Never heard from them again. What really scared me was the falsified forward-dated blue card and the rusted-solid washout plugs.

That was the end of that railroad, and the locomotive never ran again and is now on static display. As much as I love steam, that one scared me to death and I hold no apology. It's not personal, I want my grandchildren to still be able to see a steam locomotive. It's hard when you really like the people involved when you simply have to take the safe path.

I had a lawyer once comment to me 'this isn't personal, but there's too much money at stake to ignore it'.... and that holds true. You have to separate personal feelings from responsibility to all of us.

How they react to a kind inquiry about what they’re doing is crucial, at least to me. A good person who doesn’t know what they don’t know will be glad to have a chance to learn.
I actually ran into a museum docent who was furious because someone had painted an engine on display (proper color, etc.) because she thought it “destroyed the antique value.” She was on the committee trying to restore the engine to service. It didn’t happen, fortunately.

I was being fed photos by concerned insiders that didn't want their photos published because they could be personally identified.

Doesn't look right?

So six years ago, I sent up flares, only to be chastised by Wasatch groupies and locked by groupie mods. Now, $3/4 Million Dollars worth of US Federal Court certified scrap metal later, "I tried to tell you" just doesn't seem to cut it...

AS FAR AS

Managements Response
Non-Member

With the WRRC Ch.11 filing a lot of the issues are now in full public view and I suspect as the bankruptcy process unfolds more will come to light.

It's a sad story for sure. Fortunately it didn't result in an industry ending event.

Ross Rowland

We all heard it loud and clear. And we all no doubt appreciated it. No offense meant but you’re preaching to the choir in this small discussion forum. What did you expect us collectively to do? To say “I heard from someone that heard from someone that heard from someone that ABC is doing XYZ and someone should look into it” without holding the direct evidence, and I mean also a chain of custody of said evidence, to others that don’t have a direct contractual obligation to the project has the potential to bring down a load of legal crap on one’s own head. When evidence comes to light that a dangerous problem is looming, take it up with an entity that has the authority to look into and do something about it. That could be a regulating agency or the customer. Neither RyPN nor Train Orders have that authority. That’s why you see the forum moderators act when they do. None of us wants to see a defamation suit whether or it has merit or not.

Again, I assume we all appreciate seeing substandard work brought to light as a learning tool, but there’s not a lot that RyPN can directly do about the performance of the work.