You EXPLICITLY SAID:



You appeared to not comprehend that that's NOT what Bank of America gave the money for.

In order to try and persuade for a return of operating steam to the B&O Railroad Museum, someone needs to make a good case to the Museum BOD that such a return: 1) is a fulfillment of the educational mission of the Museum and 2) would pass an all-inclusive cost-to-benefit analysis. That is the hallmark of a professionally run museum or historical tourist attraction. "Wouldn't it be nice....." is just not good enough, at least for that corner of Baltimore and/or in today's regulatory and economic environment.

Note that nobody is (yet!) promising or promoting the "Fair Of the Iron Horse Bicentennial" with steamers coming from afar like they were for a while before 2002..... and I am not alone in thinking that the roundhouse roof collapse of 2002 saved the Museum a fair deal of embarrassment when it forced the cancellation of the planned 2002 FOIH event.

I don’t have to convince anyone of anything, I’m not in a court of law haha.

I think it would be nice if they ran steam again - that’s all. I’m sure at some point they will.

If the B&O Museum wanted to run more steam, they'd run more steam. There are PLENTY of options available to them.

But the reality is that they're following best practices on the conservation of their collection AND doing the other important steps to run a cultural institution.

Now, what WOULD be cool, and something unique and very "on brand" for them would be a new build of a reproduction of one of the early engines in their collection. There are a number of operations in the UK that have done things like that: https://youtu.be/K40XrR67fas?si=mQ_TMJjE5lK-6yaW

If you want to see mid sized steam strutting its stuff you can go 90 minutes to Strasburg or any one of a number of other great options in the area. But doing something like that would be unique and stay far more "on mission" than pouring money into a locomotive that's only tenuously connected to their area of focus.

Yes Ed, all my visits to B&O have been on the way to and from Strasburg and other steam operations in the area so you are correct for railfans. But what about the community who won’t get to Strasburg? They don’t deserve to see a steam locomotive in operation?

I think showing a locomotive under steam is always part of the mission of any railroad museum, but you can feel free to see it other ways.

The B&O Museum already gets some flack for its $20 admission price (with some discounts available--seniors, Second Wednesday half-off, etc.), with extra for a short train ride.

I'm estimating that having a functional steam locomotive on hand most days of the week would drive that up to at least $25 or more. Remember, that would essentially be two or more full-time jobs you'd be adding to the labor force-I wouldn't count on volunteers. NOT counting the constant shop work to keep re-flueing, etc. the second locomotive in rotation.

Remember that Steamtown--a National Historic Site centered around steam railroading--can't even pull off having a loco under steam all the time.

How many lottery tickets do you normally buy to hope to fund this dream?

I'm not really sure what point you are trying to make at this point and I don't think you do either.

Just in case anyone missed it... earlier in the thread I said that the B&O is easily one of the best Railroad Museums in the country, tied with Strasburg and Sacramento. A great collection on display in historic and fascinating buildings.

Maybe I'll just change my tune to "I'm sorry I missed out on steam when they ran it but they can't anymore cause of reasons" haha.

That's a good idea.

Especially because the "Reasons" are based in reality and not wishful thinking.

I "wish" the T1 Trust's 5550 when it's finished smashing the steam powered speed record would be able to pull regularly scheduled service from NJT's Hoboken Terminal, over to Amtrak's NEC mainline, and down to at least Philadelphia, if not Washington DC. Sorta like the Reading Railroad "Crusader" service.

But there's lots of legitimate reasons that even special event excursion service like that will not happen.

Brian Helfrich

While nothing is impossible - I’m gonna bet the 12 will steam again in my lifetime and possible some other pieces from the collection.

Ever try to ski through a revolving door?

Maybe if you go real slow on really short skis?

Didn't Richard Pryor do that in Superman III?

My understanding from talking to some of both the operations staff and the small restoration staff is they don't have either the skills or tools to anything other than very basic steam restoration/repair work. This suggests any restoration to operation would have to be outsourced.

Their small restoration staff appears to have their hands full for many years to come, with AFT1/2101 and B&O 5300 being focuses for now.

I've walked around in the huge south car shop. That is going to be a great space, but wow is there still a bunch of interesting stuff in there that will need to find a home, including several railroad related vehicles from the 1960's and 70's, perhaps earlier.

This might sound odd, but an interesting bit of the human side of US industrial history will likely be lost in the work... a workman's restroom for a large staff, more or less untouched from when it was built who knows when, with open stalls, a trench type sink, fixtures from the 1940's (?), etc..

Bob

Bob, has there been a loss of talent at the museum regarding steam knowledge? Just curious on that.

For the larger projects - yes that’s certainly a good point. Those restoration projects take time to do right.

Didn’t think about the south car shop losing history - that is one of the tricky things when preserving a site like this - ideally the visitors areas would be mostly new builds and the historic buildings could be preserved and displayed as much as possible - but that’s not always possible of course.