The locomotive is an "altbaukessel kriegslok" DB or DR class 52 with original boiler and a welded tender. I can't tell you how or why they hung that engine upside down, however...

The Bessemer and Lake Erie holding onto three steam locomotives in their Greenville Roundhouse for Thirty years is almost unheard of.

For reference they were the following:

B&LE Baldwin H1G 2-10-4 no. 643
B&LE Baldwin 2-8-0 no. 154

URR S7 0-10-2 no. 304

Here's the answer.... It was part of a Government funded 'art' display called "Mythos Berlin" in 1987 that was supposed to "thematize the history of perception of an industrial metropolis". Sounds like whole lotta fun, right? I mean who doesn't like art? Gather together a bunch of avant-garde artists and give them carte blanche access to Gov't funds without any oversight? What could possibly go wrong??

Well to give you an idea, the exhibit opened with an angry mob at the dedication ceremony and it all went downhill from there. Here's some highlights of the review -

"The exhibition itself turned out to be disappointing or irritating for many visitors."

"In terms of content, Mythos Berlin was met with incomprehension in various respects."

(Reporting on the exhibitors installing displays) "... on August 1 was Wolf Vostell by means of three cranes, a steam locomotive of the series 52 rotate on the back and so created the sculpture La Tortuga. There was, however, no classic explanatory exhibition on the subject of the history of perception in Berlin, which aroused disappointment and incomprehension among viewers and critics."

So without any signage or interpretation explaining WHY a Series 52 locomotive was upside down in a grassy park, was up to the public (and now you too dear RYPN reader) to figure out exactly what the Hell Mr. Vostell was trying to convey. The message the people of Berlin got were 1.) he was loony 2.) he had made off with a bunch of taxpayer's money and 3.) they were left with an upside down locomotive to deal with.

And you thought they were hard to work on when they were right side up..

Read all about the whole crazy exhibit here - https://second.wiki/wiki/mythos_berlin

And the fate of La Tortuga here - https://www-dampflokomotivarchiv-de.translate.goog/index.php?nav=1414113&id=70535&action=portrait&_x_tr_sl=de&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en&_x_tr_pto=sc

Film at 11 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8SzE2t_2Xxw

73
RwC

I'm going to be interested to read this group's take on the suspended ATSF 4-8-4 at the Highline Park.

My understanding was that it was going to be composed of lightweight panels molded from the original, so it would be "safe" to hang. This is a bit like architect Peter Eisenman's 'danger space' -- the idea you're at risk without the actual risk that produces the "frisson" from impending mayhem as the steam-powered sword of Damocles hangs over the parkgoers... of course, this has little if anything of interest to actual 'serious preservationists' but would still be fun for railfans of all ages.

Of course, they missed a sure bet by not including a fake tender, too. Better yet they could do the opposite of the Polish display and hang a whole head-down train on one of the adjacent buildings as a sort of railroad to hell...

I advocated at the time that the replicated locomotive copy be installed IN the park, on one of the still-extant panels of track, and be fitted with wheels that revolved similar to the arrangement on PRR 6100 at the World's Fair. Every hour on the hour, the headlight and markers would come on, there would be accurate sounds of the air compressors, pumps, and generator, fake steam would be blown from the cylinder cock area and the stack, and the wheels would start to revolve. Just think of the fun!

I was trying to think of anything that I've come across, but I think the upside-down german locomotive probably tops it.

Maybe the only thing any stranger on this side of the pond is the ongoing backstory, and the current paint schemes, on the Santa Fe Southern "Sky Railway" (Lamy-Santa Fe). "700 spray cans later...."

https://www.kob.com/archive/sky-railway ... -december/

I'm not sure if you call this 'preservation', aside from the fact that the alternative was probably looking like pricing it out by the ton.

Perhaps the weirdest "preservation" story I've ever heard (if you can call it that--more like a fantasy) was about twenty years ago when RDG T-1 No. 2100 was put up for sale by George Payne. The museum I worked for at the time inquired about acquisition of the engine. Payne told us that a Las Vegas businessman offered him a boatload of $ to acquire 2100 and hang it from the ceiling of their casino! And they were stone-cold serious about it!! Payne said he could not bring himself to sell them the engine. Thank goodness!

K.R. Bell

Thanks to the previous four gentlemen for their posts, which prove that I must be leading an inordinately sheltered life. Allow me to suggest that we need to preserve graffiti as important examples of railroad art & philosophy (I got this inspiration from the Sky Train).
Only two spray cans were required to create my two favorite masterpieces:

2) My second favorite was a stylishly painted request "SEND NUDES", followed by a cell number (no, I didn't send any nudes) painted on a container, sitting on a TTX flat.

1) The best was an old Great Northern gon, on which a perceptive individual posed the all time existential question "Who gives a shit??"

To continue the stray off topic, the most impressive graffiti I’ve seen was a perfect depiction of Krusty the Clown on the side of a box car in the W&LE Brittain Yard last year. It was good enough to stop and admire closely.

You're not off topic, Eric. That Krusty graffiti should be PRESERVED. It is weird that nobody has done this yet...

We did that. Penn Central and Conrail.

.

Back in 1988, I was part of a small group of volunteers who cleaned up and repainted an NJ Transit RDC, ex-CNJ 558, originally NYS&W M-1. We repainted the letterboard and re-lettered it. I went down to the former Budd office, by then Bombardier and got the original drawings for the color and the stencils. We had the car on display at the Hoboken Festival that year. It was missing one of its two Detroit Diesel 6-110 engines. In the end it had been used as a coach with just one engine to provide hotel power.

After the Festival we arranged to have it moved back to the NYS&W and eventually to the former Morris County Central enginehouse in Newfoundland, NJ.

Once work started to restore the car to operating condition, we opened up the cover for the first engine to see what needed to be done. Then we went to open the cover on the engine #2 compartment to see what condition the compartment was in before we began the search for a replacement 6-110 engine. We open the door and there is an engine in there! Years later, I found out that a key player at NJT who was excited about our project quietly had an engine taken out of another out of service RDC and had it installed in the M-1! He has since passed away and besides the statute of limit has long since passed!

While perhaps not strictly preservation, but certainly an odd afterlife, Western Elite, a Nevada landfill and dumpster operator, hosts a Christmas Express "train ride" which consists of a coach on rubber wheels pulled around by a truck. At one time they were using an ex-L&N heavyweight that had been part of the Clinchfield excursion fleet. It appears they are now using a lightweight car.

https://westernelite.com/christmas-express/

- Alan Maples

Here are two in France.

http://www.euro-t-guide.com/See_Photo/F ... eum_22.jpg

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ci ... 901%29.jpg