I read this thread and have so many questions...where to begin?

Where did Kentucky Steam Heritage Corporation come up with the resources to buy this property? How will they fund the restoration of these choo choo trains? Is this a sustainable operation? I love a good choo choo but even I know that it costs lots of cash to make them pretty again. Somebody has to pay for it. Who? How? Why? Basic stuff.

Well...I have plenty of other questions...but lets just leave it there for now.

T7

It's easy, just start a GoFundMe for the SP 4460 (or your loco of choice) and use the money for the 2716.

Charlie, we get it.

You are horribly offended that the money you donated to "save" 503 couldn't get put to that purpose, because the city fathers of Port Arthur decided against Jason & Nick's proposal and "saved" the loco themselves instead.

So demand a refund of your donation and let it drop.

I think most of us can afford to just let our donations go towards the revised purpose of getting 587's auxiliary parts to Kentucky. Anyone that can't, they can also demand a refund.

Myself, I wish there were a GoFundMe pool we could donate to to "rescue" certain bits of the ITM fiasco.

Charlie, I saw this coming. You have to be real careful when you ask people for their hard-earned cash. The concern is really for the future...how will people react in the future when donations are sought for a different project?
I hope things are sorted out soon.
T7

As fully expected Jason has finally decided to call a spade a spade and has notified the Port Arthur council that he is moving on to other projects using the Go Fund Me monies and that he's sorry that the Council is condemning the poor old 503 to a life of " rotting away" in the City Park. The truth hurts. Google the Port Arthur news for the article.

The article also gives some break down on how many Go Fund Me refunds were given vs. funds use for the other rescues.

It's been very apparent to me since that first totally dysfunctional council meeting way back when that this would be the final outcome.

At least the engine was saved from the scrappers torch.

It's really hard to fix stupid.

IMHO-Ross Rowland

I presume this is the article:

https://www.panews.com/2018/07/12/prese ... t-at-park/

Has anyone received a refund yet?

Now it seems that the environmental remediation in connection with 503 has suddenly been deemed to be insufficient, and more work is needed.

https://www.panews.com/2018/07/13/tceq- ... -503-site/

I wonder if this new and unanticipated environmental cleanup in Bryan Park, Port Arthur, TX will force a change in the City’s plans for locomotive #503 which is displayed there.

For some reason, it seems that the environmental cleanup just completed fell short of what is needed. Apparently, the oil that leaked from #503 over the years penetrated the soil deeper than what was originally determined as the condition for the first cleanup.

In my opinion, the discovery that the oil penetrated deeper than originally thought might also include the discovery that it spread out further than originally thought.

All of this is kind of “water over the dam” so to speak with regard to Jason’s plans to rescue the locomotive. But the fate of the locomotive is nevertheless a significant part of his rescue effort, since that effort at least saved the engine from being scrapped.

At this point, it is not clear how much more cleanup is needed, but the fact that the oil extends deeper and maybe covers more area implies that a lot more excavation will be needed than was done the first time. This raises the question of whether the engine needs to be moved again, and if it does, that adds more cost for the City. Perhaps all of this may force the City to reconsider their plans for #503.

In the first phase, the City was blindsided by the outpouring of sentiment to save the locomotive from destruction, so they reacted in a way to diminish the bad publicity of them intending to scrap the engine. That reaction was to embrace the locomotive and vow to keep it in the City as a cherished historical treasure. They tried to shift the focus onto what they characterized as outsiders coming in and trying to tell the City what to do with their historical locomotive. And then they stood up as protectors of the locomotive from that outside interference.

But now, it appears that the City may be blindsided by the news of their failure to properly perform the environmental cleanup, and the need to spend a lot more of the public’s money, and it all is because of #503. All of a sudden, their last decision to stand up for their locomotive may not look like the right choice in hindsight.

Probably the last say in the matter:

https://www.panews.com/2018/07/19/kcs-5 ... ve-become/

Well written article and sadly spot on. Since that very first council meeting which was a shameful public display of dishonesty and total incompetence this outcome was to always going to be the sad ending.

Oh well, at least the poor old engine got a few years extended to its life.

Be very glad you don't own any Port Arthur Texas bonds.

Ross Rowland

Sigh.

It's bad enough when young, unknowing people insist in engaging in personal insults, name-calling, and other unprofessional behavior that makes our entire field look immature and petty, just because things didn't go as they wanted.

You would think that someone who had been in the field semi-professionally for decades, and is even regarded as a "hero" for some of his past actions, would know better than to continually stoop to that level as well.

No wonder we as rail preservationists don't get taken seriously any more.

I'm very glad that at least one of my most ardent supporters has not yet been banned from this forum. It's getting a little lonely around here.

Thanks, Ross Rowland

You have been correct all along on this sad endeavor, Ross.

When people so easily criticize the City of Port Arthur, I think they ought to consider how the City looks at this matter.

The funding campaign to save 503 was energized and made successful only by the crisis of preventing the imminent loss of the locomotive by scrapping. Therefore, promoting the funding campaign required promoting the evil intentions of the City Council in their plan to destroy the historical locomotive. The City and their plan had to be defeated, and this was the public theme of the Gofundme effort.

The City did not see this coming. They had quietly decided to use the engine to partly fund the cleanup effort, and at the same time, get rid of the engine that had caused the need for the cleanup. The City thought it would happen fast and quietly, and nobody would object.

Suddenly they were surprised to learn that hundreds of people had contributed to a public campaign to save the locomotive from the City’s nefarious plan. Of course the City Council was embarrassed to say the least. It was obvious in their subsequent meetings. No City Council can accept being made to look bad.

So this revelation put the Council on the defensive. Their immediate reaction was to attack the effort to save 503 as being a secret plot to steal the City’s history. In particular, they attacked Jason for assuming that Inland was the new owner of 503, and his belief that he could strike purchase deal with them without involving the City. The City Council made it clear that they still owned 503, and that they have been the owner since the locomotive had been given to the City by KCS.

So, overall, the City promoted their own plan to save, preserve, and cherish the locomotive as a beloved artifact of their own history to combat what they portrayed to be the evil intentions of those who would steal the locomotive out from under them. It was the perfect counterpunch to what they felt had been done to them by the bad press about saving 503 from them. They sought to create an image of the City being the protector of 503 to offset the image that they were the destroyer of 503.

To people here, the City’s reaction seems obviously inconsistent because the City had originally intended to scrap the engine, not caring about saving it as their history. But the messages are also playing to the Council’s constituency, and they may have been largely unaware of the City’s original intentions. For practical purposes, all of this controversy went public when Jason presented the results of his funding campaign.

In my opinion, the effort to purchase and remove 503 was doomed because it painted the City in a bad light by making their intentions the focus of needing the emergency funding. I don’t see any way that it could have been handled differently to successfully remove the locomotive for restoration.

If Jason had gone directly to the City with his request to purchase the locomotive, and done this prior to the public fundraising, the City would have felt no threat to their image, and might have seen Jason’s plan as a better option than scrapping. However, at that point, without the threat to their image, the City may have felt that immediate scrapping was in their best interest because of the uncertainty and time required for Jason’s plan to play out. The City was also under time constraints of the cleanup deadline. So the City quite likely may have rejected any offer of purchase from Jason if they had been approached prior to the fundraising.

So given all of this, I see no alternative path that might have been successful. The only hope was that the City would change their mind about the path they had started down to save the locomotive in Port Arthur. But by that time, the issue had become highly polarized with opposing feelings on both sides, so changing directions became unlikely.

Further to Mr. Travis' analysis... If you go back to the beginning of the story (and I am not digging for the initial reports here) but as I recall the deal with Inland was done by the city manager under his statutory authority to enter into contracts under a certain dollar amount without Council approval. He may have polled some of the council members informally, or he may not have. At any rate, the council was blindsided; remember one of the council members initial public statements was "we never voted on this." So when this whole issue blew up, the council had no idea what they were being blamed for, but of course had to take the position that they were protecting their citizens history, etc. So, they did what elective bodies the world over do... they stonewalled. The result is not unexpected.