a rich interest like this terminology goes along with the rest of it and talking about it goes right along with it so slides by fine.

I suppose it's a matter of perspective; this is after all Railway PRESERVATION News. Consequently, we tend towards the language used by preservationists. If you don't know that language, you are on the wrong forum.

Having worked for both tourist railroads and museums, there is more common ground between tourist operators and traditional railroads (especially commuter lines) than between museums and railroads, so the non-preservation oriented language about overhauls and repairs is appropriate in that context.

If you are in the preservation business, you don't turn a wrench or scape a bit of paint without knowing why you are doing it and how it relates to the mechanical artifact's use as an interpretive tool. On a tourist railroad, you do it to get it out there and earn its keep making people happy by giving them experiences they will enjoy and remember....hopefully for the right reasons.

dave

"Class repairs" apply to locomotives on working railroads, being refitted for further service. It's a pointless use of jargon to apply that to repairing or refitting a locomotive for independent service -- let alone one sitting in what's now a vacant lot in Pittsburgh decades after its last mechanical work, decades after any railroad it served quit having any classes of steam repairs.

"Overhaul" is a perfectly appropriate term for the kind of repair and refit involved in restoring a locomotive -- it comes from a nautical term for taking the rigging apart analytically and then (presumably in the original; definitely in the practical) renewing and adjusting to put the rigging back in service. However, Its sense is functional, not "preservative" - the object is to get the machine to run again, not to get every little detail the way it previously was.

The more correct word for what needs to be done to 643, however, is "restoration" - in precisely the sense that the word is applied to antique or vintage automobiles. If we are to have an argument on terminology, my advice is to adopt that term, as it encompasses all the mechanical actions necessary to put the locomotive back in its original condition.. just as it does in proper automobile restoration.

The whole subject of this thread, and the start of the discussion, involved keeping 643 from deteriorating or being scrapped. That, very properly, is "preservation." Even if the thread drifted into a discussion of what was or wasn't done in the 1980s work, it's in the context of keeping the locomotive from being cut up or suffering further deterioration.

I do worry that it remains to be seen whether the owner or the locomotive's supporters will produce the necessary efforts, financing, and logistics to work on her, repair her ... preserve her ... (use whatever words apply) as they say they are starting to do. I hope they succeed.

But the thread is about what might occur if they can't or don't. And that is, in fact, preservation. Not to raise unhappy comparison again, but was 5632's condition better or worse than 643's at the end?

As of 2 years ago the 643's owner was completely out of touch with reality and refused to seriously engage in an effort then to get the locomotive included in the Age of Steam enterprise in Ohio.

As previously discussed the situation has now deteriorated further and sadly the odds now favor it eventually being scrapped in place as the expense and difficulty of getting her moved from her current location is formidable and over rides her value to any potential display entity.

Sad but true.

Ross Rowland

IC382wrote
“Do you guys ever get tired of using the words: restore, restoration, etc?”

No what upsets me are the people who have to promote things like the following as preservation.

Overmod stated “It shouldn't be difficult to find a source for a pair of Boxpok main drivers and a cost for making up a set of "proper" lightweight rods -- perhaps using the ones on 610 as partial patterns.”

The time I worked at GCR it did not do preservation, it was and still is a for profit company. Too many people want to take a piece of history and change everything but the whistle and then still claim it is the same thing their grandparents saw. At what point do all of the people trying to improve things destroy enough examples of archaic technology that there are no examples left for us to understand what they did and how we evolved?


Robby Peartree

In a sense, you are taking a piece of equipment, overhauling it, and using it to make money, aka GCRR. Even GCRR has taken the homely, coal burning 4960 ( sorry guys, just my opinion) and made her into what she needed to be to suit the purposes of the Grand Canyon. Museum wish to take a piece of equipment a "freeze" it in time. The 643, while currently ill suited for excursion service ( unless Norfolk Southern runs regularly up Blue Ridge or Saluda ) she would make a good museum piece representative of an offshoot of Super Power steam technology. The immediate concern would be to find a way to make sure the locomotive is not scrapped in place, even if it means finding a way to take adverse possession of it to prevent that from happening.

I agree with ross on the eventual outcome on this I try to find threads of information and data for this engine. Its seems at one point there used to be the Union 0-10-2
there, that was moved and on display.

The other point is what I've read is Mr' Campbells desire to keep the engine in the "B&LE" territory where it is now, moving it would not be his option, which can be a decision not to move it out to AOS.

http://www.trainorders.com/discussion/r ... 10,1119364

heh someone comments Ross should get this engine...

Apparrently the engine moved around on Compressed air.

Well the games still afoot, Watson.

What is the current status as of today of B&LE 643?

Try hitting that "previous" button on the lower right of your screen.

Dudes, not only have the switch points long been removed to the spur that 643 is on (despite DO NOT REMOVE on the rails), but the lead to the spur and industry sidings is/are gone too, which means you'd have to cut directly into the main after relaying the switch/track/and points that have all atrophied. The removal is as recent as a few weeks ago.

All the kings conjecture and all the kings men couldn't put the Bessemer back together again.

KL

A one time cutting of the main to roll 643 out could still take place with the willing cooperation of CSX.

Of course the other option is for Campbell to simply purchase the parcel the locomotive is sitting on, build an enginehouse and leave her there. There are no rail museums in Pittsburgh so the area is ripe for one, and the site in McKees Rocks has very good road access to nearby interstates. I certainly think that enough support could be raised to get such a project off the ground.

"DOES.... NOT.... COMPUTE!!"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ieuBkWHfCuc

The satellite image of 643 is telling. Even from satellite you can see the rust on the tank top.

The gps coordinates of this location are 40.471,-80.057108 if you wish to map it yourself.

As to the idea of purchasing the land, any idea what it is worth? Zillow has free residential estimates, but I did not find a commercial equivalent. Address is

101 Munson Ave
McKees Rocks, PA 15136

"Captain, that is not logical."

Thus sayeth Mr. Spock.

Yeah, and a few short years ago we all were still referring to Norfolk Southern as the "dark side". Things change.