Various social media sources confirm Ross died on July 19, 2025.

Wesley

He had just posted he was diagnosed with cancer on July 4. I guess the treatment he spoke of that would give him another 9-18 months didn't have time to work.
RIP Ross, be proud of what you accomplished.

Hi
Very sad to read about Ross Rowland,, Ross accomplished a lot for love of Steam, he was on the board of directors at the old Steamtown,,
He managed to get NKP # 759, back in Steam,, and his work on the Freedom train,, putting that together..
I only met Ross once,, when he was doing the Erie Limited out of Hoboken, I was glad to shake his hand,, and thanked him for all he had done,, so we could enjoy our trip behind C&O # 614...
Ross will be missed,,Ross may you ride the external Steam in the sky,, and thank you for what you accomplished, to make us railfans, happy... may you rest in peace.. Pat.

A lengthy obit was published in the New York Times today.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/01/trav ... -dead.html

Have any of the obituaries or memorials mentioned this little gem?

Is that real, do you have a link to it? I am squinting to see the date, it looks like 2022. I don't remember it, but perhaps it was deleted, it is so unbelievably racist that it's almost a caricature of a racist belief.

Nobody has a link to it, because the thread was closed/deleted back then. However, I and many others on this forum remember the post and can vouch for it as legitimate.

Given the many other controversial things he said - this should not be a surprise to anyone who has frequented this forum.

So what you are saying is he/him is keeping internet scrapes of dead people?

Wow, that's creepy.

Creepy or not, it's "evidence."

When people ask "Why are you not venerating the memory of this great and noble man?", you need such evidence.

I guarantee you if such "internet scrapes," "screen captures," "wiretaps," or similar things incriminated a politician like Ronald Reagan, Richard Nixon, or Bill Clinton after their passings, they would be chiseled into the stones of historical records.

Some of us don't participate in moral vigilantism or hagiographies, so we require no evidence one way or the other. I subscribe to the inscription of Roman tombstones that said what you are, I was-what I am you will be.

Now of course, I realize others don't have the same internal locus of identity and feel compelled to be part of a self-appointed post-mortem jury.

However, people should be aware that sanctimony occasionally becomes a boomerang and that a putative balanced record becomes detraction.

I am glad I grew up with Rush in Witch Hunt. It's helped me recognize morality mobs with fashionable fatwas.


"The vigilantes gather on
The lonely torchlit hill

Features distorted in the flickering light
The faces are twisted and grotesque
Silent and stern in the sweltering night
The mob moves like demons possessed
Quiet in conscience, calm in their right
Confident their ways are best"


As for the incrimination of politicians or celebrities, we are rather selective in the ones we cancel. As a side note, Nixon was quite alive when forced to resign.

Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. still enjoys a position of honor, but he allowed the mandatory sterilization of a woman with the decree that "Three generations of imbeciles are enough."
. Buck v. Bell, 274 U.S. 200 (1927). (fortunately, God, nature or chance spared us his moral imbecility polluting the gene pool)

Woodrow Wilson, a virulent racist is still lauded in many quarters. Lyndon Baines Johnson apparently offered up some nasty racial denunciations. Margaret Sanger's overt racism is dismissed or minimized-and she wanted to engage in genocide.

Mr. Lybrand might someday have his own "little gems" offered up against his obituaries, in spite of his moral Dunning Kruger.

I remember that post as well as some others. Reminds me of some older family members who grew up in a different time, influenced by a generation even older than them and don't seem to have a faucet when speaking.

I only met Ross once, briefly and corresponded with him several times. Not enough to draw any conclusions on how I might feel about him as a person. Nevertheless, there is no denying his roll in steam locomotive preservation. There is hardly a steam operator out there, especially on the mainline that didn't draw inspiration from the endeavors and business models that Ross accomplished. For that reason alone, I am saddened by his passing and grateful for his positive impacts.

Let me know when y'all are done ignoring what an ass he was. I interacted with him several times, on this forum, in person, and on the phone, and every single one left a bad taste in my mouth. Yeah, he did some cool stuff, but sometimes your words DO speak louder than your actions. We really didn't lose that much, just another washed up businessman who had ideas bigger than what he was capable of bringing to fruition. If anything, after what Rowland was involved with on his last trip on the New Jersey Transit, he set the mainline steam community back quite a bit.

Some of y'all are weirded out by the fact that I had that screenshot handy and ready to go. I'm telling you right now it was not hard to find, even with the original thread being deleted many moons ago. It's not hard to get through life without alienating a significant portion of people who may want to do business with you, but if you manage to, the Internet never forgets.

Ah, there's that SJW's always double down stuff and the Gamma wall of text.

Look, Ross and I were at war decades ago and if your Linked-In profile has a current picture, likely when you were in grade school and leaving some personal development unfinished.

Like most others, I know he was brash and opinionated. Everybody has faults. Ultimately, he sent me a PM and asked to talk, so I agreed. We discussed our differences, and I think both found points of agreement-maybe because I shared some direct personal insights-but more likely because we both agreed to a ceasefire.

"We didn't lose much"? How long have you thought other people exist to serve you or that they are disposable? Despite your self-righteous moral preening, you exhibit a depraved indifference to other people, their illnesses, suffering and death.

Your post is far more objectionable than his, because it is a personal attack and he can no longer defend himself. I'll be sure to save it in case somebody needs the insights into your character such little gems provide.

Although nobody is going to confuse you with an intellectual, you do exhibit the tendency noted by Paul Johnson in Intellectuals among that group to claim concern for humanity as long as they are in remote groups-abstractions. Once you have to deal with them personally, you treat them as objects of contempt. Be careful. You might be on the receiving end of your contempt some day.

Now buy a mirror and quit projecting your asininity. Your braying is annoying.