Saw this on facebook. What are the chances of someone prying this locomotive loose from Steamtown? Asking for a friend! :-)

When in Bellow's Falls, she had been spruced up quite nicely. Jim Boyd had her posed on the turntable and steam lines bringing steam to her for a night photo session. I got some pretty good slides of that event.

Unless the park deaccessions it from the collection, the chances of getting this locomotive from the national park service is basically zero; it's US Government property.

I believe an initiative to get her back into Canadian hands was made, but red tape on both sides of the border has botched it up. One of two survivors, and Canadian locomotives at Steamtown "don't get no respect". This neglect is really criminal, considering what's at stake, and the cost to make her movable and safe to transport is a piddle in the snow.
Very sad.

If Superheater is still on this forum, perhaps he could add some insight, but if the Park is governed like most other similar entities, the sale of surplus equipment does not necessarily benefit the coffers at Steamtown. Many times, funds generated from surplus sales go back into the larger governing agency. Does anyone know if that's the case at Steamtown?

I hate to be cynical, but what impetus does the Supt at Steamtown have to take on an extra project and restore the 2929? The staff gets paid the same whether or not steam operates and if the 2929 sits on a forlorn siding or is the centerpiece of the roundhouse.

If the former is true, any serious organization that wants to take on the 2929 or another forlorn piece of equipment at Steamtown, should get creative. Submit a trade proposal that is lucrative to the Park. Why not offer a locomotive that is better suited to their regional focus (and fully cosmetically restored)? Or, offer in-kind services, such as rebuilding steam appliances or funding the restoration of XYZ car or locomotive. Meet with the Supt and find out what their needs are. If you have the staff and management at Steamtown excited about a potential trade opportunity, you've won part of the battle.

My two cents.

Judging by the attitude the historic site has towards the volunteers behind the 3713 project, which runs up to and including, for all intents and purposes, pulling the plug for the last nearly three years, I'm not going to hold my breath for them to take interest in anyone or anything that has "the right stuff" to do that.

If they can't "excited" about their own collection and the opportunity it presents them outside of a secure NPS paycheck, why would they get excited about anything else?

I hate to be so pessimistic, I loved the two trips I made there in 2018 and 2019, but the downright hostility with which I was met by staff on my last visit in 2021 has left me uninterested and unexcited for the place.

Hopefully the attitude around there changes with a new director soon, but I'm not going to wait around on it.

The answer is .............somewhere between slim and none ..............and slim has left town.

Don't waste your time.

IMHO-Ross Rowland

Hi All
I agree with all the above posts, it is not just CPR 2929 that is neglected it is the rest of the equipment in the park also.

The last time CPR 2929 saw paint, was when she was in Vermont, during the Don Ball era. The current Steamtown management only seems to care on the locomotives you see as you enter the park, that are on display, closest to the parking lot.

Steamtown when it opened in Scranton, was supposed to be the big attraction in the East, sad that, that never really happened. Pat.

This is nothing short of criminal. Clearly they don't care about 2929, and so much other equipment. Let them go to someone who will take proper car of these historicl items.

There was some talk a few years back of it heading to western Canada. Obviously just talk.
Steamtown gives the appearance of having an interest, as expressed in the following blurb:

https://www.nps.gov/parkhistory/online_ ... /shs3h.htm

No. 2928 is in Delson, QC. Not sure of the condition, although there was some talk it was under cover?

2928 is indoors and well maintained.

The article about 4-4-4's was then; Great Western's view of 2929 is now.

First, more on the 4-4-4's.

P&R built C-1-4-4-4's 110-113 in 1915 with a unique 4-point suspension. They rode very badly and were soon rebuilt to P-7 4-4-2's with conventional 3-point suspension. They ran until 1949.

B&O built two experimental steam engines in 1934, B&O 1, Lady Baltimore, a 4-4-4 and B&O 2, Lord Baltimore, a 4-6-4. Both engines had watertube fireboxes and BP of 350 lbs. They got 2 lightweight trains to pull, Her Ladyship the Abraham Lincoln on the Alton Route between Chicago and St. Louis and His Lordship the Royal Blue between Jersey City and Washington. B&O also bought B&O 50, a single B-B EMC boxcab diesel with two Winton 12-201A engines rated at 1800 HP total. The steam engines flowed back to B&O and were scrapped in 1949. B&O 50 flowed to GM&O with the Alton and is now preserved at the The National Museum of Transportation in Kirkwood MO as B&O 50.

Phil Mulligan

Phil, if you're going to that level of detail, why leave out the real Canadian 4-4-4s, the ones that were like coal-burning Milwaukee As? Why one of THOSE wasn't preserved is a great shame to preservation.

The Reading 4-4-4s were amusing as an example of a pin-buided Adams truck under 'both ends' of the locomotive, Obviously this did little to steer the chassis either in yaw or roll, and contributed the fun of having a pin and associated lateral rockers, etc. under the ashpan. Compare this either to a good composite trailing truck or to a correct Delta-style truck with the lateral steering as far to the rear and outboard as the chassis will allow -- even to the extent that gear-tooth rollers are needed for truck-swing accommodation...

... and then there's the American Arch articulated four-wheel truck that got foisted on Lima, the one that took buff and draft entirely through the trailing truck and not a higher drawbar, in the age of those peculiar perimeter frames as on the Canadian K5a Hudsons. The late-Twenties revision of Super-Power (once it became fairly obvious that the articulated trucks were the bee's knees until you had to back the thing up, or worry about augment yaw at the back of the abbreviated locomotive frame) had what was essentially a long Delta truck with the axles spaced for 'correct' weight bearing... but with only the rear axle with the booster engine as the geometric locating axle -- the front axle was nowhere near the correct Bissel geometric position. This was fixed by floating the first axle of the trailing truck laterally, with low resistance, using an arrangement of hardened rollers so it was weight-bearing but would not interfere with truck swing...

The one assigned to the Edmonton-Calgary run was an oil burner for most of its service life. The story I've heard is that CP intended to save one of the 3000s, but Angus and Ogden each thought the other shop was going to save one, so both scrapped all of theirs.

They hold the Canadian steam speed record, 112.5 mph during a braking test run.

Close, but not quite - I asked Omer Lavallee (THE person responsible for selecting which CPR locos were preserved) why no F2a 3000s were saved, he told me that they were so beaten up by the end that 'they didn't present well' and the 112.5 mph record holder had already been scrapped, so if any 3000s were to be preserved, the one with the best chance was the #3001 (The Chinook), but unfortunately the focus was on preserving (and displaying) a 2-10-4 'Selkirk' within Calgary so unfortunately it had been cut up as well. The CRHA selected the F1a #2928 for preservation to represent the 4-4-4 class.

The preservation movement in Canada really didn't gain traction until 1958, but unfortunately by that time some great classes were already extinct.

73 RWC

I can say more about the P&R/RDG and B&O engines.

The 4-4-4's were end-cab engines; when they were rebuilt to Atlantics, they were P&R's only end-cab 4-4-2's. The Motive Power chief was fired.

The B&O train also rode terribly. B&O 2 had a water-tube firebox allowing 350 psi BP. The train was lightweight and probably had tghtlock couplers which did not damp the piston thrusts. (this did not happen when box-cab Diesel 50 was pulling the train)

B&O boss "Uncle Dan" Willard was fed up with the train and had Mt. Clare Shops build a streamlined train from B&O's heavyweight cars. Otto Kuhler streamlined the train and P-7 Pacific 5304. The new train rode well and soon the lightweight train, Engine 2 and Engine 50 were banished to the Alton Route.

You should note when B&O and Pullman ugraded the Capitol Limited in 1938 and the National Limited in 1940, Willard allowed no lightweight cars.

When Uncle Dan retired, Roy White had to scramble to obtain 10 RMT-5 DB cars. He was able to find 4 cars and Pullman built 3 new ones, serving Chicago, Detroit and St. Louis daily from Wash. Sen. Truman could ride in a Bedroom.

Phil Mulligan