Apparently photos on Facebook have been circulating showing the NYC S-1's frame has been damaged, and the rummer mill says they have been dropped. From the photos I have seen it does indeed look like the has frame suffered damage. Anyone know anything?

Nothing that can't be fixed. Just some bent steel shapes. I don't see any casting damage.

Now I see the fractured poling pocket corners. Looks like a little welding is in order. Those are steel castings, right?

From the posted images it looks like there was some damage to the end sill and footboard supports. Compared to the task of reuniting the frame and carbody, this is minor.

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Did this happen in the initial movement when they were relocated last December to the staging area for final shipment out?

I ask since the moving company warned that using sidewinders to move them were likely to cause some damage to the locomotives.

Looking at this with NO awareness of how they were moved, it appears that they were being picked up with slings on both ends, and either the slings slipped out of place and put pressure where they weren't supposed to and cracked the corners, or the movers put slings where they shouldn't have....... but that is 100% my idle, asinine speculation based on my experiences with people who screwed up here and there.....

I likely know even less than you do, but I'm going to say it was some sort of lift damage due to either slippage or improper slinging. What stands out is how the damage seems to be the same at both ends, suggesting similar forces at both ends, and the forces were upwards.

At least we don't seem to be looking at something really serious, like breaking the frame in two somewhere.

The main thing is to hope someone picked up all the pieces. It looks like some things might be missing, judging from the photographs.

One thing Mr. Mitchell mentions is how some people don't really know what they're doing. That's something we should be especially aware of with moving rail equipment. It's not something the riggers do that regularly, and rail equipment can be awkward to handle, especially outside the environment of a back shop with equipment meant to lift at certain points on a locomotive. I recall how when Reading 2101 was overhauled in the Reading shops in the road's home city, that they had not only the high capacity bridge crane for lifting the 4-8-4, but wonder of wonders, the special lifting bar that went under the rear of the frame was still there. I recall someone said it fit perfectly. I'm certain it made lifting the engine from its wheels (and rewheeling it later) far easier than it would have been without it.

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The S-1 and T-3 were damaged last winter when Hulcher Service moved the locomotives with 4 side mount boom style dozers, and it appears they were not informed that locomotives could not be lifted by the end sills. If using one of the derailment railroad contactors knowledgeable personnel must be on site to direct them.
I personally worked with the crane/rigging and trucking company last month to disassemble the locomotives and place the various pieces on semi-trucks with no further damage.
The S-Motor carbody was especially difficult to remove on account of the number of connections and hidden connections attaching the carbody to the Chassie. The rigging company constructed special lifting beams to place under carbody to facilitate careful lifting and were very mindful of not creating any more damage and listened to my suggestion for property nondamaging rigging.
The S-Motor as shown it these posts was move off the site using a multi-axle line trailer.
2 large H-beams were placed crosswise on the trailer which two driver wheel sets were place onto the flanges of the H-Beams. Once the trailer moved to the contractor's yard on account of the trailer Hydraulic suspension the locomotive was unloaded onto steel stools placed under the H-Beams releasing the trailer which eliminated the use of costly cranes for the locomotive temporary storage placement.


Dennis Daugherty

Thank you Dennis for your information about the movements.

I’ll second what Kelly and Dennis said. Have someone on site that knows what they’re doing. When our cars were in a derailment, the side boom guys were just gonna ditch them in the dirt as fast as possible off to the side. That was a big NOPE. We had them properly lifted back onto the rails and then stashed onto a private siding. On a side note, Type H couplers really do work.