When I restored the J&L 58 I figured the total cost to be about $60,000 including the purchase price of the locomotive. However my case is unique and cannot be readily used for price comparisons to other projects for the following reasons:

1) The locomotive is tiny! 20 feet long and six feet wide. It will fit in its entirety inside the firebox of a Big Boy. Yet it makes all the right noises, sights and smells when it runs which is enough for 99% of our visitors.

2) We are not under FRA regulations. We are governed by the State of Ohio Historical Boiler regulations meaning that to the state it is a traction engine on flanged wheels.

3) The J&L Porters were seriously overbuilt. Boiler shell thickness of 9/16", almost an 1/8" more than needed as per the NBIC tables. Running gear also heavily oversized for our service requirements.

4) The existence of spare parts from the J&L 59 including driver sets with good tires.

5) I already had a shop full of tools, materials and equipment that I had been saving up for years for a project such as this.

6) I was financially able to not have to hold a job during this period and could devote all of my time to the restoration for the four years that it took.

7) There were no competing opinions. I had full control of the project from start to finish. No clients to please, no other board members to accommodate. I just did what had to be done in the most efficient manner possible.

8) I selected to do an overhaul and not a full rebuild. For the most part existing components were reconditioned and reused instead of replaced. Pins, bushing and bearings that had failed were replaced, otherwise I reused the original components to squeeze the last bit of life out of them. My philosophy is that instead of making the locomotive "better than new" from the outset, I would do what it took to get it to run then go back every year and make steady improvements. The consequences of failure here are also quite low. In the worse case scenario we are 1,000 feet away from the shop and not out blocking a mainline.

9) Our location in northeast Ohio where the cost of living has not skyrocketed like the rest of the country also played a part as that helped keep costs low. (For example, I can get a 50 ton crane for a day for $2,500 whereas in some other areas due to the amount of construction activity, that cost may be twice that or more)

We plan to restore J&L 59 next and it will be interesting to see what that cost will end up being, given that 59 needs less work than 58 did.

It appears we should have separated mainline locomotives from non-mainline locomotives as there's a substantial difference not only in size but in complexity.

To " rebuild" a mainline machine to a standard that will produce a reliable runner ( at track speeds up to 79mph) and be fully capable of reliably hauling its rated tonnage requires not only the extensive boiler work ( ultra sound, Form 4 etc.) required off all engines ( regardless of size), but also extensive ( and expensive) in depth work on the entire running gear ( including tires), work not needed in such depth on a non-mainline machine.

The real life demands on a locomotive running with full tonnage at a steady 80 mph are much greater than 8 times those on a locomotive running on a branch line at 10 mph. More like 30 times more at least.

" Stuff" happens in the blink of an eye at 80 per and any locomotive not properly prepared for such service will surely fail, sooner than later.

IMHO-Ross Rowland

Yes they are two very separate things, which is why collecting any meaningful statistics is going to be pretty much impossible. Each restoration is unique and ranges from my example of a low cost restoration on up to probably the most expensive restoration, that of the Big Boy.

However, since the future of steam in the US will look more like the 58 and less like the 614 as time goes on, my account is relevant.

I agree Rick. No question that the non-mainline steam locomotives have been doing the Lions share of the task of keeping the steam flame burning brightly. Also no question that will be the case going forward.

Unless you're an entity with VERY deep pockets and do not care about receiving any return on your investment there will be precious few mainline steam restorations going forward. There's just no way to earn back the huge sunk costs.

My WAG is that the UP spent at least $ 15-20 MM restoring the Big Boy and so far its been a good investment based upon the huge favorable media coverage it has generated.

Here's wishing the regionals and short lines every success keeping the magic of steam alive.

Ross Rowland

Since we're heading slightly off track, I think the FEC light pacifics are a great model for passenger power - smaller and much more affordable than the Big Mainline eight coupled, capable of hauling a string of lightweight cars (since all day survival trips appeal only to railfans) at a very decent rate of speed on relatively level track, and some of the most nicely proportioned left. Don't know if any are left, but Mitsubishi built clones of them for China in the 1950s. Unless you are the UP, I think small to medium sized is the way to go.......

From a friend of mine in the UP Steam shop itself. To rebuild 844 to the state they did cost the UP around 9,000,000 when all was said and done. The 4014 was over 20,000,000 but that included new parts for both being made plus all the machine tools that were installed at the shop to make it capable of maintaining both engines to the standards that are now setup. As he was told there will be no more band aid repairs allowed for any heritage locomotive on the UP roster the era of doing things as he was told HALFASSED is over and done with. It is either as good as new or not at all. Some of the stuff they found on 844 and 3985 was enough to give Ed and my friend nightmares that nothing ever happened to the Steam Crew or to someone that came out to see those 2 engines. We all have seen the video of the boiler tube that let loose on 844 in 1999. That same tube was part of a batch that was in 3985 when she was starting to get torn apart. When they tested those tubes and found the entire batch was noncertified materials let's just say Ed blew his stack and demanded and got a full redo of all Steam operations at the shop.

Something I've not seen mentioned is that some groups have made the error of assuming that a previously restored locomotive will be in better condition. That's often not the case. It really depends on how thorough the last rebuild was, how well it was maintained and the service life it saw. A lot of restorations pre-Part 230 were more along the lines of an overhaul and the locomotives were basically restored to run out the last miles of their last regular service rebuild. In those cases the locomotive may be in worse condition now than when retired from regular service. Another issue with second restorations is the quality of materials and methods used the last time around which can be suspect. When starting with a long dormant park engine you at least know that the previous rebuilds and repairs were performed to the the railroad's standards which were pretty solid. Assuming that starting with a locomotive that has run in the preservation era will somehow be a better starting point than a ground up restoration just might get you in trouble.

A couple tips I've accumulated in 30 years of this.....

1) Don't even commit to a restoration and budget until you've done a boiler survey. The biggest 'OUCH' comes from thin components on firebox, door sheets, bottom of boiler, etc. that simply have to be cut out and replaced. Can be done, but that's where it crosses into the mid six-figure zone.

2) The other big 'game and budget ender' may be a frame. Look for old repair welds, and if there are any, do a full NDT testing of the frame looking for weld voids, cracks, etc. It's not that expensive to get it done when the engine is totally torn down. A new boiler on an severely compromised frame is not a happy situation.

3) Pay particular attention to the cylinder castings for cracks, same with cast iron driver centers that can't be welded. Both those tend to be budget blowers.

4) Your labor approach matters; volunteer, on-site, contractor - there's just so much work to do, and the skill requirements to do it right can be fatally flawed by either not enough skill or expensive contractors doing low-skill tasks.

Randy's points are valid and valuable and raise a major issue. Time.

Time is money in many respects. If your intent is to get this locomotive back in service asap, will do the complete job with full time paid professionals using " volunteer" labor only on the lowest skill jobs that's one budget. To take the "average" 4-8-4 through an all professional rebuild in a properly equipped shop ( figuring a dedicated full time crew of 14 men) will take 15-24 months and cost not less than $ 1.1 MM ( if you get real lucky) and the tear down phase uncovers zero major problems, to $ 5.0 MM if the tear down phase dictates the need for a new firebox, new cylinders, extensive frame repairs etc. Most likely outcome is somewhere in the middle.

Now if time is not an issue and you're prepared to see the job take 3-9 years using a combination of paid pros and unpaid volunteers then you can take 30-40% off the numbers above.

Then there's the one great outlier and that's our NHS Steamtown. They took 15 plus years to rebuild a little 0-6-0, yes years and that's with one of the best equipped steam back shops in the nation and a full time crew. They've been working on the Pacific there since I think 1988 ( ?? ) and it's still in pieces . That one will undoubtedly set the world record ( if they ever finish it ) for longest restoration. Only your federal gummit could get away with this.

Thanks, Ross Rowland

Rick - My recollection is that you plan on having four of these Porters (57, 58, 60, and 62(?)) at your museum with sights on restoring at least two more, and maybe the third, to running condition (depending I guess on how much steam generation you need to operate the Tod Engine). Based on your work with 58, in both restoring and operating, would you anticipate any cost savings in restoring two or three of the Porters in parallel vs sequentially?

Ross, I am sad to admit that I have endured a longer restoration effort with SP 4-6-2 #2479 which started in the early 1980s. Certainly if you told me in 1982 that she would be unfinished AND still landlocked in 2022, I would have reconsidered my involvement . Over these (gulp) 40 years, we learned lessons in attempting an open air restoration on a 150 ton mainline locomotive using primarily volunteers and inadequate funding - time has a price with enthusiasm dwindling and opportunities passing by. Sadly, many fellow volunteers, and good friends, have passed without ever seeing her in steam. Yet here we are.

As others have noted....until you have examined every surface, hammer tested or NDT every component, you have NO idea what you are working with. Making that evaluation requires disassembling the locomotive. THIS is the reason why so many locomotive carcasses are found as well meaning restorations are often started only to find a large $$$$ obstacle(s) to overcome. And the disassembled state of these artifacts will remain, most likely indefinitely.

The lesson is to go into any restoration with eyes wide open.

For 2479, we had turned the corner and started her long reassembly. Last year, we were given an opportunity (by her current owner, Santa Clara County) to relocate to Niles Canyon. Ironically, we are once again removing items to facilitate trucking the 30 or so miles to Brightside in the canyon. While Niles is the most logical local location for the locomotive, the completion of her restoration remains in someone’s lifetime.

Every locomotive restoration effort differs in the amount of consumed resources, be it money, people, tooling, material and time.

We hope to eventually have the four extant Porters on site. We have already committed to restoring 57 but the other two remains to be seen. Restoring 57 will be a bit easier because we will not have to replace the missing steel plates that we had with 58, and this time around I know what I am getting into and what to expect. The one bad thing is that the entire railroad is much larger with other projects and operations taking away resources, whereas when I was working on 58 that was really the only thing thing that I was doing.