I believe in demonstrated expertise. First board members, Messers Jason Sobcynski and Nick Hovey.

Two items:

1) Mr. Rowlands is quite correct -- the cars are irrelevant. No need to waste precious resources on those when we can potentially accommodate another 4 million dollar tea kettle rebuild now or in the future. Nero continues to fiddle...

2) Whoever suggested that you could organize the steam community to build a consensus as to which urgent need is greater than the other is laughable. Someone's ego will be injured and that just won't work...

Taking my soapbox and moving along....

ETA

If 503 were to be saved by a "board of trustees", it now probably would have been turned into a heap of scrap while the "trustees" were still in discussions about whose Ego should have a say, in a worst case scenario.

No "board of trustees", no money for them to decide about.

Instead, I can imagine an "emergency locomotive watch", may be like this:

x Establish an open accessible transparent group of unpaid volunteers (the opposite of a "board of trustees"), to which anybody can give input

x list up "all there is", steam locomotives/cars/cabooses/buildings, etc

x scan all these items by the group, e.g. all three months about their actual status on site, ideally stay in touch with the owners (in some cases find out the owners at all).

This alone will be a lot of work, but it may help reduce the costs of acquirement in case the owner changes his mind before any scrapper comes in play and raises the costs, and it may give a fair chance of intervening. The financing may then be done by gofundme or such.

If you want to have an "emergency locomotive fund", you might best have your money stay on your personal bank accounts and donate it directly, if and when the "locomotive watch" (currently aka "Interchange"..) calls out for help.


Mike

Best idea yet! I'll give money ONLY when I see where it's going to go.

You'd need an organization like the Narrow Gauge Preservation Foundation - a non-partisan , group with a board of well-established experts, with no axe to grind - pro or con. GFL.

Ask a group of modelers to name a "missing piece" currently in stock, and the replies are partisan to the extreme. Ask a group of fans what steam locomotive is most in danger, and you'd likely hear about their favorite road's locomotive sitting at a museum, rusting away (regardless of the realities of the situation).

Hell, we can't even agree on definitions that are, in fact, written down.

Let's look at the circus car recently noted as former UP nnnn. True enough, but how much of hte original fabric was retained? Not a whole lot. As a circus piece, it is fine, as a railroad piece, it is a heavily modified, unrecognizable passenger car turned into an RV. Saving it as is for what it is is great. How many people want it preserved as a UP car? more than you'd think.

There are millions of drawings that are in legitimate emergency danger - or can't be accessed and used. At some point you have to see what must be saved and what could go away. How many AT&SF Northerns do we need. In steam? The drawings related to them are, in many ways, far more important, far more endangered by environment. But "we" want to see another LARGE steam engine, without a place to run, be completely restored and running. Why? Because someone get's all the wrinkles in his nether region straightened out just thinking about it. Realistically, how many will run? They are goign to recreate a PRR T1 - while a K4s is disassembled (still, I think?) - which one would more likely run?

What is needed is a board, above the fray, who can provide funding based on *REAL* need, not perceived need, not parochial need, not "wants", not "desires". There is just far too much emotion in these decisions.

One of the best moves by a railroad museum is to pick a non-railroader as a general manager. Why? No emotional attachment, and will look at each item for the historical value, as opposed to someone who just "wants to play trains" with bigger toys. A panacea? No, definitely not, but it certainly demonstrates the problems inherant in such a fund.

There are still dozens of people out there who have "saved that locomotive from the scrap heap, why does the museum let it rot away?". Too many items, too little time, too little money, a smaller and smaller base. Better get used to it, unfortunately.

We are all missing the point. If an "emergency fund" were to be available, it would have to be administered in such a way that money could be dispersed in a matter of a day or two, not a week or two. Any committee responsible for a six figure pot of money will be pretty unwilling to make a wrong decision and that's exactly the problem. No committee would be willing to disburse any money unless the person or group applying had a program with every "t" crossed and every "i" dotted. This 503 thing has been operating on a wing and a prayer. Hardly a situation that would lead the trustees of a "Steam Rescue Fund" to have any reason to disburse any money.

Jason and Nick have spent many, many hours ON SITE, talking with the local entities involved with this. In addition, they have, through their contacts, found a potential home for this loco. Think about what this involved in terms of time. The only way these things happen is when one or two guys are involved to drive it. And the "t's" are not all crossed nor are the "i's" dotted YET. Would the "Steam Rescue Fund" be willing, yet, to make $65,000 available to these two guys? I doubt it.

The late Jerry Jacobson rescued some neglected, orphaned or endangered locomotives. He was a good soul. I don't expect anyone will fill his shoes.

The Illinois Railway Museum has made a lot of saves. So have other museums. Helping your Local Rail Museum (LRM) stay in business and funded is maybe the simplest way to ensure that emergency saves will be possible.

Insofar as hulks rotting at museums are concerned, one model which is working is Sammy's porter - I think it was Les that ran interference to get the museum to deaccession it to him, and he's working on it now at his own speed and on his own budget. No large amount of cash was involved, which makes for a cleaner situation given high cost for transport might eat up the available funding for us ordinary people who don't have JJ's resources to start with.

Tell me...what would you say if the committee or person thought that 503 was not worth consideration? The answer to that is indicative of the issues involved.

I think you have the issue backwards. The "Steam Rescue Committee" would probably find every endangered steamer worth consideration. The decision would be based on how "seriously endangered" the locomotive is and the specific proposal being made to save it. We all know that there are many half-baked proposals for rehabbing steamers. Determination of the viability of a rescue proposal would probably be the bigger part of the Committee's deliberations. The committee would certainly not want to fund a group who had no chance of long term success or whose only aim is to fend off the scrapper until the next crisis comes along.

I agree with that, as far as it goes. They'd then spend all the money on a series of junk 0-4-0T's having no historical significance, so when something of merit did come along, they'd be flat broke, with no hope of raising additional funds quickly... the little boy who cried WOLF and all that.

How could anybody possibly arrive at that conclusion?

Easy. X amount of money. Y number of projects. Z number of said projects that are unique. Is 503 unique? No, there is a sister locomotive. Are there more important locomotives that may bite the dust? More important cars? More important drawings and data? Yes, arguably. Again, the question is - what would you say - you answered that, and THAT in a nutshell is why it won't work.

Aside from those 0-4-0s that are "not historical", add the myriad AT&SF 4-8-4s that continue to be restored to "operating condition", the many Big Boys, the list goes on.

Now...do *I* subscribe to these theories. I do not - but you have to play Devil's Advocate, in such situations and ask the questions. Now...even if you were trolling, being sarcastic, joking, etc. - the truth is, in each case, there are VERY parochial leanings (not enough from the right people who would take charge or spend enough money, but still...). And..until and unless you can get above that, it ain't happening.

Heck, on this list, which is entitled Railway Preservation News - there are people who would discard cars, diesels and documents, if it meant saving a non-historical steam locomotive. Others who get all the wrinkles out thinking about traction. And would also toss any stinking puffer pot to the curb in favor of a badly rotted wooden trolley body. Or they would only care about a specific class of locomotive in a specific locale from a specific railroad. So? I mean, that's natural, right? Sure, but it isn't RAILWAY preservation, these are parochial pursuits to the detriment of RAILWAY preservation, though it no doubt might lead to some railway equipment being preserved, "historical" or no. But what was posited is a group that would have an emergency fund for...Locomotives. Fair enough, but a mite narrow minded, in many ways.

Easy, by answering these questions:

Is it ready to run?
Is it from a major railroad?
Is it big enough to pull a 22 car excursion train?
It's been through several floods - Are the bearings (driving boxes, cylinders, valves) ruined and beyond restoration?

Everybody on this list approaches these questions from a different point of view... some want it to run, as the foam sloshes over... some want it to run so they can run it on their tourist railroad, some very few ask if it has some historical significance. There is no reason to suppose the "Board of Experts" will have any different composition.

No charitable foundations funded this project because of the timeline. The foundations meet on an annual or quarterly basis, and weigh dozens of worthy proposals against each other to mete out a fixed amount of available funds. Obviously, the tight deadline of the 503 project was not going to benefit from one of these organizations.

Perhaps we are put off by the title "Emergency Locomotive Fund."

Sometimes preservation "emergencies" fall into our lap. Something that has been unavailable for years is suddenly up for grabs or it will be razor blades by Sunday. We've all mobilized for one such cause or another over the years. The deadline is sudden, your resources are put on high alert, and you scramble to scrape together enough cash to keep the scrapper at bay.

While not ideal, I think the 503 project demonstrated how an "emergency extraction" can be successful. The locomotive was inspected by credentialed professionals. It was identified as a viable candidate for preservation. Arrangements were made for a storage location. Extraction resources such as trucks and cranes were scheduled. An agreement was reached with the scrapper. A firm deadline was set, and the case was presented to the public, using GoFundMe as the collection mechanism. Despite some hand-wringing and teeth-gnashing, the fundraising goal was met, and it appears that the engine will be successfully moved sometime soon.

What I'm trying to say is that it appears that online crowd-sourced fundraising can be effective for short-term projects like 503, mostly because the case for preservation was presented carefully and with consideration for the important factors surrounding the piece: Why is it in danger? Who will truck it out? Where will it go? What is its future? The answers provided satisfied enough people that $65K was raised in just the span of an exciting/terrifying week.

-otto-