...of potential locomotives and cars for addition to a museum devoted to the history of railroads in Pennsylvania, past, present and future, which pieces would you place on the list?"

We are currently revising our collecting plan which will guide our collecting of full-size railroad vehicles well into the 21st century. I'd thought some Rypn readers might share what they would like to see in such a museum; it will help us generate some ideas for the collecting plan. I can't promise anything, but am looking to gather information from a knowledgeable audience.

Based on historical significance, rarity, commonality, relevance to PA history, etc., what pieces would you personally collect for such a museum? Specifically, the following vehicle "categories" are what I'm looking for:

STEAM LOCOMOTIVES
DIESEL-ELECTRIC LOCOMOTIVES (1st and 2nd generation units; why certain units and not others?)
ELECTRIC LOCOMOTIVES
ROLLING STOCK, FREIGHT AND PASSENGER
MOW EQUIPMENT
OTHER (SELF-PROPELLED, HI-RAIL, ETC.)

Again, these pieces need to have some relevance to railroad history in Pennsylvania (either through use on PA-based lines or built by a PA concern).

If you are unsure what vehicles are in the collection, refer to the collection roster at the web site link below for reference.

Looking forward to everyone's sharing of expertise! Thanking all of you in advance.

http://rrmuseumpa.org

A Brill Bullet from the P&W. A nice piece for traction crossover in a heavy rail museum.

National Capital Trolley Museum

First off your collection is WOW, pretty impressive to start with, and I just checked Motive power.

One thing that struck me odd was this listing:
New York, Chicago & St. Louis No. 757
Lima 2-8-4 1944. Nickel Plate Road class S-2 "Berkshire"-type. Gift 12/1966 of
Norfolk & Western Ry. First locomotive donated to RR Museum of PA.

What does this have to do with Pennsylvania???

Okay now that I have that off my chest a good state engine might be a Reading T1. There are a few around here and there, including the one in Canada 2100 that is for sale, in operating condition. Why not figure a way to buy it, and do some sort of state exhibit train showcasing your museum, and the loco. Then restore it as much as possible, and eventually return it to your static display area.

To make room for it why not send the 757 to someplace like Ft.Wayne where they are working on the 765!!! Two Berks are better than one! Just a wild idea, and the money you sell it for can be used for the T1 perhaps.

Hard to suggest other steam engines. You already have some nice Pennsy power, and there isn't a lot to choose from at the local scrap dealer these days, except the Reading T1 I mentioned.

On the diesel side, the Amtrak F40 comes to mind immediately as the main motive power on all the Broadway, and other trains that rumbled passengers through the state for many years, before the Genesis replaced most of them. If not them, how about an F-Unit...I see you have an E-Unit.

These are a few off the top of my head after looking at your site. Not wanting to stir up trouble with the NKP thing or the T1, but heck it seems both might get a better chance to roam some with new owners.

Greg Scholl



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How about the Koppel side dump car that you were interested in a few years ago? I helped make the contact between the museum and the railroad management, but what happened after that? Built in Koppel, PA, it is still languishing in Negly, OH on the CQPA. Its a rare car with obvious PA significance.

How about a Treadwell hot metal car or slag ladle? M.H. Treadwell Co. was located in Easton, PA and built several types of steel industry rolling stock. There are a few examples of these still around.

There is a caboose in Ohio that is a wooden B&LE cupola type, originally built in Greenville, PA by the Greenville Steel Car company for the B&LE. The car is owned by a rail preservation group, but at this time its not getting much "preservation".

The same group also has a single sheathed wood boxcar built by Pressed Steel Car Company, I think in PA in the mid 1920s. It too is slowly deteriorating waiting for preservation.

Greenville Steel Car also built many, many types of freight cars in its history, and an example of one might be appropriate.



http://www.todengine.org
jrowlands@neo.rr.com

Interurbans or Trolly cars from PA would be good additons. I forgot that above.
Greg Scholl

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Well for starters I think the NKP engine has a rightful place at the museum. The RRMPA is just that, not the Pennsylvania RR Museum and the Nickle Plate crossed through the Commonwealth on its way to and from Buffalo. What the museum needs IMHO is more diversity in its geographical representation of railroading in the Commonwealth.

The NYC was a prime factor in the Clearfield coal fields and the B&O was created with Pittsburgh as a prime goal. What a shame that a GE turbine is not on exhibit. Even though the UP comes nowhere near PA (yet), the technology was born and nutured at Erie. Surely the manufacture of motive power is a significant part of the state's railroad heritage.

Why not something from the Bessemer or the Union? Steel Railroads were the nervous system of the Pittsburgh region.

I would offer the following:

1. Bessemer F- unit

2. New York Central wooden caboose

3. Lackawanna Caboose

4. A turbine if one exists that could be obtained

5. The two 1938 PS Broadway Limited cars that are languishing at Altoona. One is an obs and one a mid train lounge. Two cars from the beginning of the streamlined era. A perfect match to the heavy weights now on display and the postwar cars in the yard.

6. A matchining Metroliner. If they have a coach get a parlor, if they have a parlor get a coach before AMTRAK cuts up what is let at Wilmington.

7. An early "hot box detector" fromthe 1960's.

8. An off-site building to house "stuff" in. what a shame that the HBG diesel shop was not saved with all that indoor trackage.

v-scarpitti@worldnet.att.net

> STEAM LOCOMOTIVES

You already have a wonderfully representative collection showcasing multiple eras and most of the important wheel arrangements and service types. Go easy here.

> DIESEL-ELECTRIC LOCOMOTIVES (1st and 2nd
> generation units; why certain units and not
> others?)

I would make a case for a FOURTH generation unit someday--to wit, a Dash 8, the Erie-built that finally dethroned GM. But since you specify first or second, an F-unit with PA heritage. Ubiquitous and stylistically deeply influential.

Also, a Baldwin switcher to show how the premier PA steam builder adapted or failed to adapt to the new era (highlight that heavy frame in the placard)...

> ELECTRIC LOCOMOTIVES

You're fine here.

> ROLLING STOCK, FREIGHT AND PASSENGER

Freight cars, freight cars, freight cars, the more typical the better. At the very least:

a wooden box from the late MCB 19C era; idealy a wooden flat, too--both to go with your Johnstown Flood consol.

a composite steel and wood transitional boxcar

a complete freight train from the late steam era, including but not limited to: steel 40' box, 2-bay hopper, simple flat, single-dome tank, 2-bay covered hopper. Pick from PRR, or anthracite roads.



eledbetter@rypn.org

Bennett, Not wishing an early end to your railroading, but how about your stuff when your done running it? It looks better than most of the stuff that stands still anyway. Just a thought.

Dave

emd710g3b@aol.com

> ...of potential locomotives and cars for
> addition to a museum devoted to the history
> of railroads in Pennsylvania, past, present
> and future, which pieces would you place on
> the list?"

> We are currently revising our collecting
> plan which will guide our collecting of
> full-size railroad vehicles well into the
> 21st century. I'd thought some Rypn readers
> might share what they would like to see in
> such a museum; it will help us generate some
> ideas for the collecting plan. I can't
> promise anything, but am looking to gather
> information from a knowledgeable audience.

> Based on historical significance, rarity,
> commonality, relevance to PA history, etc.,
> what pieces would you personally collect for
> such a museum? Specifically, the following
> vehicle "categories" are what I'm
> looking for:

> STEAM LOCOMOTIVES

PRR 2-10-0 No. 4483 (ASAP)
B&LE 2-10-4 No. 643 (When the time is ripe, hopefully many, many operating miles from now.)
Reading 4-8-4 Nos. 2100 & 2124 (Contingency only, hopefully in cooperation with the RCT&HS)



bruceman@stargate.net

Kurt:

Despite some excellent strides in recent years (MonCon C-415, P&LE caboose, Mry caboose), the museum could use still more attention to Western Pa. railroad heritage. The collection still has a strong bias to PRR (rightfully) and anything that was in George Hart's and Ben Kline's orbits of interests in the 1960s and 1970s. Given the availability of pieces at that time, that was a good thing, but the museum would greatly benefit from exactly the kind of broadening that you now appear to be doing.

Realizing the limitations of space and money, what follows is a wish list more than anything else. If even a very few of these items were acquired, I believe it would benefit the collection.

> STEAM LOCOMOTIVES

*B&LE 2-10-4 643. Obvious reasons.

*H&BTM (now K&K) 2-8-0 38. The museum's current steam engine collection comes from either the Class 1s (PRR, RDG, NKP) or from logging or industrial companies. At present, there's no steam engine from a bona fide common-carrier Pennsylvania short line.

> DIESEL-ELECTRIC LOCOMOTIVES

*Any U25B; this is the diesel that put GE Erie on the map when the company decided to jettison Alco and enter the road locomotive market on its own.

*D&H/Monongahela/NYC RF16 1205&1216; obvious reasons.

*Any F unit that operated in Pa. Reason: Here as elsewhere in the U.S., it was the FT and its F2-3-5-7-9 successors that dethroned steam road power. All the FTs are gone or claimed, and precious few other Fs are left that ran in Pa., so this might be a needle in a haystack (Possibly only B&O and B&LE/P&CD examples remain).

*Any small GE diesel (44-ton, 70-ton, etc.) with a Pennsylvania short-line heritage; by their economical operation, these units helped save many short lines.

> ELECTRIC LOCOMOTIVES
None especially needed, although I know some observers have said that some GE electrics built for use outside the state would be nice.

> ROLLING STOCK, FREIGHT AND PASSENGER
*A 100-ton hopper car; These are what made unit trains really happen, in a state that until recent years mined more coal than anywhere else -- some candidates, if they exist or are available, might be cars from PP&L, PRR/PC/CR, B&O/Chessie/CSX, P&LE, LEF&C.

*A "Northeastern" caboose -- this style was used by the hundreds by many of the "other" (non-PRR) railroads in Pennsylvania -- WM, RDG, LV, CNJ, LNE, P&WV, P&S, LEF&C, etc.

*If any exist, any original freight car from the P&WV. This was an important ("Alphabet Route" component) but often overlooked Class 1.

*B&LE triple-bay offset-side 70-ton hopper; these hauled coal north and ore south, an important part of the story of the steel industry and Andrew Carnegie.

*Either a B&LE ore car or a PRR/PC/CR G38/39 ore jenny; an example of a purpose-built car.

*A selection of cars of various types, freight or passenger, to tell more of the story of the major carbuilders in the state -- of which many existed:
-- Bethlehem, Johnstown (Johnstown America)
-- Pressed Steel Car, McKees Rocks (can be used to tell labor history with the 1911 riots there)
-- Pullman-Standard, Butler (blt lots of grain hoppers)
-- ACF, Milton and/or Berwick
-- Berwick Forge & Fabricating, Berwick
-- Greenville Steel Car, Greenville
-- B&O Dubois shops

Dan Cupper
Harrisburg, Pa.

http://www.steamsafari.com/ebt/EBTeditorial.jpg
cupper@att.net

Steam Locomotives:
The NYC 0-6-0 currently in Hagerstown, MD that needs a home badly.
Reading 2101. It needs restoring and is close. Perhaps a loan or trade could be worked with the B&O Museum
Freight equipment:
There is a PRR piggyback trailer rusting away but still in restorable condition complete with PRR signs on the sides along N.C. highway 109 near Denton, NC. It appears to be from the early 1960's.
The NS scrap line in the yard at Spencer, NC had at least one small PRR covered hopper and one similar car with PC lettering the last time I was there. I am not sure if they are identical cars but they are nice with friction bearing trucks. Both deserve to be preserved.
Diesel locomotives:
How about one of the B&O GP-7's or GP-9's currently working or stored on shortlines?

jhbohon@yahoo.com

Tall order Kurt. Pennsylvania has been blessed with an industrial heritage and the railroads to support it probably far more intensively per square mile than any other state in the union.

Any of the 90 ton Jones and Laughlin 23" gage 0-4-0T's left? Used to be a few at Bert William's place in Wyano. Definite PA power.

Many niches which might be exploited are being very well interpreted elsewhere - should RMPA try to acquire EBT mikes if EBT is still a working concern? The trolley museum in Worshington is doing better than is likely in a more broadly based museum, not to mention Shade Gap and Scranton. Is anybody preserving SEPTA stuff?

I suppose the most vivid interpretation of Pennsylvania railroading to me would be reenacting what I saw from my bedroom window on Baldwin Road in Hays every night - a B&O E or F lashup hauling freight trains on the Streets Run line to Library and Wheeling from Glenwood yard with the bay window caboose marker lights twinkling their way into the night past the F W Scott store and on up the valley. Any static display in bright light just wouldn't have the same impact.

Dave



irondave@bellsouth.net

> Suggest: freight cars and/or cabooses from under- represented railroads with substantial Pennsylvania presence, i.e B&O, CNJ, DL&W.

a stock car would be nice to help round out the freight car types, and few more hoppers given the importance of coal in Pennsylvania's rail history

an early Erie-built G.E. diesel, preferably a "mainline" 44 ton unit. I wonder if any of the ex-PRR units is still extant?

since you have decided to stick to "steam roads", how about one of the big Brill gas-electric "doodlebugs" to represent a major Pennsylvania railcar manufacturer. There are still a few around.

pjslks@ix.netcom.com

> an early Erie-built G.E. diesel, preferably
> a "mainline" 44 ton unit. I wonder
> if any of the ex-PRR units is still extant?

Across the street at the Strasburg RR. Still in use, although it could come close to retirement with no warning.

lner4472@bcpl.net

How about a Vulcan 0-4-0T or 0-6-0T. I realize that they are butt-ugly but they were built in PA and used extensively in the PA coal fields.

johncgra@locl.net