There was talk for years that there were WM Potomacs in Mexico.
My favorite story is one told by a friend that has worked for the NS Steam Program and several other loco groups and tourist railroads. Years ago he asked one of the "highly educated" Park Rangers at Steamtown about the status of 3713. His reply was, "I don't know. It's pretty broke."

Man, I go across town to inspect a locomotive, and look what happens when I'm gone.

Among my faves:
*There's at least one GG1 where they left the transformers in; all you'd have to do is fill them up with modern coolant. Heck, the PRR lines still use 11Kv 25Hz...... Said of "Old Rivets" 4800, Harrisburg's 4859, the NJTransit survivors, and former Wilmington & Western 4917/4934........

*Someone offered to buy out the East Broad Top from the Kovalchicks for a suitcase full of cash years ago; they were rebuffed. Supposedly this happened shortly before Charles Bradshaw bought the Durango & Silverton in 1982.

*There's this bunch in Pennsylvania that plan to get a PRR K4s running again. Oh, wait........

There's another non-preservation legend category in my opinion--the constant tendency of many fans to attribute stellar performance, power, etc. to a class of loco that was not preserved or sees no hope of running again. Prime example of this would be the PRR T1; fans seem to glorify the performance and speeds of the T1 even as neutral observers called them "the greatest fiasco of modern American steam engineering".

LNER4472-NOSPAM-@bcpl.net

> After living in Kentucky all of my life,
> here are some of my favorites.....

> -There's a Big Emma (L&N 2-8-4) buried
> by the transfer table pit at South
> Louisville/Where the roundhouse used to
> be/at the DeCoursey yards near Cincinnati/In
> a coal mine/at the Ravenna yards. Actually,
> when the University of Louisville built
> their football statium where the shops were,
> the only thing they dug up were some rusty
> tools, that probably dated from the 1960s.
> And the scrapping of every single Big Emma
> was chronicled by a couple of photographers,
> although several tenders have survived.

> -L&N 152 was completely overhauled by
> South Louisville before donation. Yeah
> right, that's why it had nice little valleys
> worn in the wheels, and a worn out
> everything.

> -CSX is going to rebuilt ths rest of the
> Lebanon Branch/The missing middle of the old
> Monon in Indiana.

> -South Louisville shops was going to rebuilt
> our L&N E6 until the bean counters
> showed up.

> -Kentucky Railway Museum was offered, but
> turned down an IC Steam locomotive in
> operating condition/an L&N Big Emma/a
> Soutern steam locomotive/etc.

> -Amtrak is going to bring back the Floridian
> and the Auto Train out of Louisville.
About 10 years ago someone told me that when the Tennessee River was being dreged around the old Southern Railway bridge at Loudon,Tenn that peices of Civil War era trains were found.He didn't have any more details other than the Confederates must have wrecked trains off the bridge to keep them from falling into the hands of invading Union troops.Incidentaly this is the same bridge that N&W 611 was said to have litterly bounced accross when going to Birmingham for restoration in 1981,from then on it was restricted from crossing this bridge.As were other large engines like 2-8-4s 2716 and 765.

wink638@aol.com

Although my specialty leans tword internal combustion it seems reasonable to me that any piece of machinery you can get to pull 1200 tons at speeds in excess of 100 MPH is pretty damn legendary....I don't care if it came out of the beloved halls of Altoona...Eddystone..Lima or LaGrange. What I wouldn't give to stand at the diamond at VANDALE tower, MP 336, Columbia City, Indiana and watch a T1 roll through with the General....or better yet trying my hand at getting underway out of Englewood with the above mentioned 1200 tons....No IDAC or WS-10 card here...but the real thrill would be charging down the long hill near Winona Lake, speed above the century mark......NO DEFECTS!

Eric.Levin@Conrail.com

When building the Erie RR River Line in ca. 1908, a locomotive and several cars were left at the end of the line after a day's work. Upon returning the next day, workers found that the track had settled and the whole train rolled into a swamp, never to be found again.

Turns out that this one is true. Near Cuba NY the (former) River Line passed through a swamp and there are contemporary newspapers that document this event. However, it is not really an Erie engine, but a contractor's dinky (possibly narrow gauge?) The exact location is apparently no longer known. . .

> Although my specialty leans tword internal
> combustion it seems reasonable to me that
> any piece of machinery you can get to pull
> 1200 tons at speeds in excess of 100 MPH is
> pretty damn legendary....I don't care if it
> came out of the beloved halls of
> Altoona...Eddystone..Lima or LaGrange. What
> I wouldn't give to stand at the diamond at
> VANDALE tower, MP 336, Columbia City,
> Indiana and watch a T1 roll through with the
> General....or better yet trying my hand at
> getting underway out of Englewood with the
> above mentioned 1200 tons....No IDAC or
> WS-10 card here...but the real thrill would
> be charging down the long hill near Winona
> Lake, speed above the century mark......NO
> DEFECTS!

Amen, Brother

B_Duensing@msn.com

When UP #844 (or #8444) was on display at LaGrange for some event someone asked "What's under the long hood?" He was pointing to the boiler of the loco. And at MOT I've been asked if the passenger's luggage was carried under the hoods of our UP "Centennial."

rdgoldfede@aol.com

"The car body's in great shape, except for a doorway cut in the side. And it still has the headlight fixture and parts of the roll sign."

"If we get 100 people to give $100 we can easily get the money....."

"YOU (always with an emphasis on YOU) should just write to XYZ Foundation and ask for the money - they are always making donations." Hint: foil this one by asking the person offering this advice if s/he has a name and phone number for a contact.
-------
I'm sure I can think of a few more if I talk to the right people.

On the fun side, our lunch bunch at National Capital Trolley Museum has on occasion taken a vote to affirm or deny some myths just to put discussion to rest. Example: "Capital Transit tested a 1000-series pre-PCC car on the Chevy Chase Lake route." If true, this would have involved a complex backing maneuver on a route that was abandoned concurrent with the arrival of these cars. After years of discussion, we finally "voted" that this did not happen! Even then some stories just won't go away.

Wesley

If I can ever get my time machine to work we can do it... But didn't your father say on another list that there was alledged to be one under a tarp at (some place in Philadelphia), and didn't somebody else (like maybe me) suggest that it was really hidden under a hiway bridge?



ptrmgtsvc@juno.com

How about:

"The Lackawanna Cutoff will be restored and operating within three years and the travel time from Scranton to Hoboken will be ninety minutes."

ptrmgtsvc@juno.com

The parts to a Big Boy 4-8-8-4 hidden in the back storage yard of a Pacific Northwest railroad museum.

Last I heard that rumor was mostly going around in the late 60's very early 70's.

Dc

NP2626@RRmail.com

I'm not familar with the list or thread your refering to, but I was up at Fairhill today and didn't see anything new or that big under wraps...but I did talk to the Boss today and we discussed a very large 5 axis milling machine that was shown on The Learning Channel's program about scaling up a Hot Wheels toy to a full size car. It worked in styrofoam making full contour cores that were coated in fibreglass to make up the body of the car. A machine this size has some interesting posibilities in creating replicas in full scale of things that don't exist anymore. I can see it hogging out the driver centers now for the full scale 5550 or the 6201. I'll give it some more thought tomorrow when I'm working on another maligned legend of our time....the beloved SD-45-2.

EBL

Eric.Levin@Conrail.com

> seems there are certain myths that are eternal.
> Enjoy and add yours.
> jim

Myth 1: The Iran myth

USA 190-200 were the first locomotives of the narrow gauge wartime 2-8-2 MacArthur design that Baldwin built. This initial sales order for 60 meter gauge [39 3/8"] locomotives was for India's extensive meter gauge railway system. However, the first eleven were diverted to the WP&YR as 36". They were not converted by the Skagway shops but rather were shipped from Baldwin as 3 foot gauge. Another 20 went to Queensland Ry as 42", and the rest went to India as meter gauge where the order was destined before the Alaskan and Australian diversions.

None were ever destined for "Iran" as it's mistakenly stated in most history books and magazine articles about the WP&YR. Iran's government railway was all standard gauge. No narrow gauge USATC locomotives were ordered for or sent to Iran. Any author who visited Skagway came away with the Iran myth, including such notables as Omer Lavallee, Cy Martin, and Stan Cohen. This myth about Iran has been perpetuated since the 1950s by authors who copied someone else's mistake, instead of researching the facts.

Myth 2: North from Skagway - South from Whitehorse

The WP&YR extends 110 miles from Skagway Alaska to Whitehorse Yukon. It was started in May 1898 and completed in July of 1900. The last spike on the WP&YR was driven at MP 67.5 at Caribou Crossing Yukon. These same notable "historical" authors knew that the railroad was started in Skagway at the south end, but conveniently assumed that construction also started in Whitehorse at the north end and met at Caribou. In fact they built the first 40.6 miles up the White Pass and over the Coast Range from Skagway to Bennett Lake in British Columbia by July 1899. Then they used barges and steamboats to move equipment and materials down Lake Bennett to Caribou then built north from Caribou to Whitehorse. At the same time a second crew built north from Bennett along the lakeshore. The first locomotive reached Whitehorse in June 1900, and by the end of July the second crew had closed the gap at Caribou Crossing. Again a myth was spawned because lazy authors just copied each other's mistakes instead of researching the facts.

mike211@yknet.ca

William Moedinger had a possible urban legend in his souvenir booklet "The Road to Paradise", stating that in the first fall of operation of ex-CN 31, the first tourist-era steamer, the 31 had been drained and prepped for winter storage, with tourist trains handled by Plymouth gas loco #1. Some tourist was alleged to have remarked that they could sympathize with how expensive it would be to have to fill the boiler with antifreeze....

I still suspect, as stupid as tourists can be, that ol' Bill was pulling our collective legs.

LNER4472-NOSPAM-@bcpl.net

............ who never actually had to get said locomotive and train out of Chicago or Englewood (as one "expert" said, "they were great engines to run fast; it was getting them to stop slipping their way out of the station that was the b****"). Of COURSE you'd love to be trackside; sure beats having to deal with the monstrosity itself! <;-)



LNER4472-NOSPAM-@bcpl.net