From Steam Up 39 FB page:

The Railroad Museum of Long Island and the Strasburg Rail Road Company are pleased to announce a three year extension to the “Steam Up LIRR 39” Fundraising Agreement. The Museum will continue to raise funds for its portion of the restoration cost for another five years, March 13, 2025 through March 13, 2030.

We have five years to git‘er done and get our Historic G5s Commuter Steam Locomotive to Strasburg! Our goal is to have Engine 39 operational in time for the 200th Anniversary of the Strasburg Rail Road – 2032.

We are celebrating this coming Sunday - March 9th as - “$39 on 3/9 for #39 Day!" A day for donating $39.39 to the "Steam Up LIRR 39" restoration fund. Go now to our website and HIT the "Donate #39 Here" button to make your contribution today!

Haven’t heard about our journey to restore LIRR Steam Locomotive #39? Read all about it here: https://www.rmli.org/steam-up-engine-39/

I saw on another page that in the past ten years they’ve only fundraised $250,000/

Is the fundraising goal still the same $900,000 as it was in 2013, or have they increased that amount?

Looks like I've answered my own question (at least partially, I think)...

https://test.rmli.org/wp-content/upload ... eement.pdf

For those interested, check out the last page which covers cost to SRC for the restoration to start listed by year. Looks like they indexed ahead of what the yearly inflation was realized at.

And before anyone asks - the president of the RMLI posted on Facebook a few weeks ago that since the agreement started in 2013, they've raised nearly $300K:

"Gentle Followers and Friends, the project never died and we have continued to grow the restoration fund to $289,011 today. By the numbers: $136,954 has come from bequests; $51,730 has come from the sale of #39 related merch; $23,936 has come from conservative investments protected from loss; and $77,282 has come from 262 donors just like you. Every donation is accounted for."

They now have five years (instead of two years) to raise the remaining amount.

Assuming Strasburg extends the 5% annual increase for inflation, RMLI will have to pay over $2,000,000 in 2030. RMLI has raised under $300,000 in 12 years, leaving over $1,700,000 to raise in 5 more. Keep in mind over $100,000 of what they have raised so far was one bequest.

While seeing 39 operate at Strasburg would be a dream come true for many, myself included, that's a steep hill to climb. At the same time, 39 being restored and running at Strasburg is likely the only chance of ever seeing a PRR G-5 in steam. I wish them the best but I can't say I'm overly optimistic.

Roger

Beside the generous donations people have made for the reconstructed T1 and the K4s 1361, I hope Long Island 39 gets the financial support being requested.
This is an amazing opportunity to restore one of the three surviving G5s 4-6-0's, the largest ten-wheelers ever built, to regular service on the most beloved railroad in the east. G5's were built for rapid start/stop commuter service, a job they performed admirably on the LIRR and PRR. Here is a chance to see one in service almost daily, and rebuilt by "the gold standard" of steam restoration shops.
People have money for what they want and I sincerely hope readers want this as much as do I.

Long Island 39 leaves LIRR tracks, Stony Brook, Long Island, July, 1956.
Harry Glueck photo.

A big thing is they really need to market more aggressively. Before the recent, somewhat disingenuous video claiming "The most powerful ten wheeler is coming back" and "The Long Island 39 is being restored", which made it sounds like funding was secured and the restoration was greenlit, the last post that the official Steam Up LIRR #39 page on Facebook had made regarding fundraising for the engine was all the way back in July of '21, almost 4 years ago now, when they were selling commemorative coins. You can't go totally radio silent for 4 years and expect to raise money.

This!
Also there was a period of time that they took down the fundraising pages for the locomotive. It had me thinking that they had given up on the idea.
I wish them luck; however I also firmly believe SS United States has a better chance of a restoration to operation than the 39.

Gentlemen,

I'll cover some topics of this. First, SRC's portion of the announcement has been delayed because our person responsible for such an announcement (me) has been out for the past month dealing with some medical issues.

This restoration is a personal project of mine. What we have done is lay out a new marketing and fundraising plan that is aggressive. When executed we hope to raise the money faster than the 5 years on the contract, which yes, three of those years are part of an extension.

Foremost, SRC approached the RMLI about the extension and reinvigorating this restoration and fundraising project. To potentially have two Juniata steam gems running in the great commonwealth would be great. Additionally, 39 fits the size of engine in our business model. Most of you have probably noticed we have gotten away from shorter two train operations during our busy seasons, except Christmas, and moved to longer single train ops. Naturally this requires larger engines and 39 fits the bill almost perfectly.

Within our company there is a lot of excitement to go along with this project. With the RMLI we hope to see this through. SRC will be putting forth efforts in fundraising also in different methods.

The only year the RMLI's total was $900k was the first year of the restoration contract. It has increments built in for each year to account for inflation and labor increases to the tune of 5%. In the name of complete transparency for the year 2026 the RMLI would be responsible for just a hair over $1.7 million with SRC's portion of the restoration at just over $2.1 million. It's an aggressive fundraising plan, no doubt, but we all believe we can do it and that's a great start.

If you haven't supported this project yet, this is certainly the time to do so. We hope we can count on all of you!

-Tim

Any fundraising plan laid out by Strasburg - if we donate the money, does it go towards the money owed by RMLI, or by Strasburg?

As it is planned now to be set up, all money raised for the restoration will go directly to the RMLI. Our portion of the restoration comes in the form of the remaining materials and labor to complete the work.

-Tim

I spent many happy days running sister loco 35 down the Babylon branch when it was plinthed in Eisenhower Park, so I have a great interest in seeing a G-5s in steam. While I understand the business reasons for structuring this restoration attempt as it is structured, I believe this current arrangement also introduces obstacles to success which may hinder the outcome. A pay-as-you-go-on-a-subassembly-basis approach as is being largely utilized by the T1 new build avoids these obstacles and also is much more marketable from the standpoint of being able to maintain a constant presence in the donor marketplace. The downside of pay-as-you-go is that if the effort collapses for lack of funds, the promoters are left with a pile of parts. My understanding is that 39 is at least partially disassembled so the net negative impact in the case of 39 would be less than it would be for a fully intact static display locomotive.

Besides the marketing advantage of being able to stay visible as progress is made in each subassembly and providing more short-term donor feel good feedback, the T1 approach is also provides an easier accounting for both the donor and the promoter of the restoration. My understanding is that monies donated to RMLI for the restoration of 39 are restricted funds that would have to be returned to the donors in the event the restoration fails to launch. This entails trying to contact donors who donated up to a decade ago, and even longer if this fundraising effort is extended again without a wrench ever being turned. As a potential donor, I am disinclined at this point to donate to an effort that might not ever come to fruition because I do not want my executor to have to deal with any monies that may come back ten or more years down the road.

So maybe a modification of the agreement to allow a subassembly pay-as-you-go approach may have a greater likelihood of success. A lot of restorations start with the tender. Maybe that would be a good place to start with 39. Restore the tender and then see if the folks in Altoona would be amenable to a fundraising event for 39 in which the tender runs behind the K4 as a way to push into the next phase/subassembly rebuild.

The shops at SRC have a very high visibility, so excitement and interest would build as each subassembly rebuild progresses. Having SRC partnered in this certainly helps with donor interest but the fundraise-all-the-money-before-you-start approach does not get the full eyeballs/clicks fundraising value that constant progress in the SRC shops would give.

Putting the tender behind the k4 will draw as much attention as putting the whistle on a burg engine did. They should probably talk to Kelly at fort wayne, or Jason with the T1 group on how to raise money. Kicking the can down the road isn’t going to work. I wonder how much money has been raised since they announced the extension?

We had a brief discussion regarding this, the short answer is no. Because of the nature of the agreement the money does need to be raised before any work proceeds. Keep in mind, even if a large donor pen whipped a check for the remainder of the donation for RMLI, Strasburg Rail Road is still the largest donor in the restoration with our portion of it.

While I do not know numbers I do know that the RMLI was excited about the initial response to the announcement the marketing that was geared towards donating on 3/9 for 39.

Since 1983 this restoration hasn't had the best "odor" to it. The current group inherited that and unfortunately it has stayed around. We are exploring other ways of fundraising and planning on reaching out to many folks for assistance and advice. There are many successful restoration projects that exist that we may be able to learn from. So the best way to get a fresh start is by using an "eyes forward" approach, hit it wish fresh ideas, effort and enthusiasm. This is what we are doing, we hope it is recognized and rewarded with donations of any size. We aren't asking anyone for their life savings, just a little bit.

Thank you to everyone has has supported the project thus far!
-Tim

Yes, this is what I was speaking of in the first paragraph of my post when I stated, "While I understand the business reasons for structuring this restoration attempt as it is structured, I believe this current arrangement also introduces obstacles to success which may hinder the outcome."

SRC's involvement is not fully a donation but rather an investment and prepayment on a long-term locomotive lease as it does get the benefit of the possession and use of the locomotive for the term of the lease. My point is that the structure of this deal is borne of the necessity that the return on SRC's investment in this project be 100% covered up front by donors to RMLI's restricted fund for the restoration of the locomotive. I am not disparaging that. SRC is a business that has to be very careful about how it allocates it's resources. My point is that the resulting structure presents greater marketing challenges and does not avail itself of the fund-raising benefit of the visibility that ongoing restoration in SRC's world-class shop would provide when compared to a pay-as-you-go-on-a-subassembly-basis approach.

I only suggested this as a possible alternate approach, or "fresh idea" as you call it, because I noted that RMLI's reported fundraising to date does not appear to have even covered half of the inflation-adjusted increase in payment from the signing of the agreement to date as outlined in Schedule A of said agreement.