.

NICE flippin' trailer!!!!!

And, the usual par-for-the-course from "the Class 1". Any thought of dealing with the car knocker's supervisor? Or simply, why bother?

One more question-- what was the cost difference between the proposed EPRY rail move, and the monster truck move?

Howard P.

.

Mr. Anderson: My compliments. Your patience is truly amazing.
But it's also amazing that the railroads apparently have no person, procedure, or process to deal with such requests in a reasonable and timely manner, even if the answer is an automatic 'We can't do that.', at least you'll know sooner rather than later.
I have a Dilbert mug from my big company days. On one side it says, "Company without a strategy" and Dilbert thinking, as the phone rings, "Uh-oh, What should I do?"
On the other side it says "Company with a Strategy".
Dilbert answers the phone and says "We don't do that!"

This is a reminder that the demise of railroads doesn't just come from outside sources, but from within.

There have been many shortlines survive simply because they were pieces of track that the class I management didn't want and were slated for scrap, but ended up in someone who cared's hands.

Class I management needs to learn that money can be made if effort is made.

Mark

This kind of thing is not confined to the movement of exotic rolling stock. About 10 years ago, a shortline for which I was working wanted to move a diesel locomotive dead-in-train from one division to another. Our mechanical folks set the locomotive up for tow and wired the handles for the automatic and independent brakes into the proper positions. The big road's mechanical guy came and looked things over, complimenting our guy for setting everything up properly, etc. Away the loco went. About 10 days later, it suddenly dropped out of sight. It took us several days to locate it, set out on an obscure siding, and eventually the big railroad reported that it had been set off with flat wheels since the brakes had been incorrectly set up. Inspection revealed 8-inch flat spots from dragging brakes.

The fact was that it had crossed two divisions of the big railroad, including the worst grades and curves on the entire system, and at its last overnight stop, someone had obviously fooled with the brakes. They wanted to blame it on us, however. We had to take our case to the very upper levels of management before anything happened. In the end, they wound up changing out the four combos in the field, while at the same time lending us a locomotive until ours finally made it to its destination without further mishap. Most amazing, no heads rolled due to this very expensive screwup on their part.

I know we're derailing this thread....sorry.

The whole class I thing infuriates me. Here's a picture of one of our cars when I worked for Queen Anne's RR in Delaware. We leased it to the Maryland & Delaware RR for an event, and it was interchanged back via Conrail. The CR guys told me to come "deal with" my car, as it was tying up their yard. The coupler was bent, the draft gear housing blown out, and the car derailed/pushed sidways and sideswiped a tank car on an adjacent track. They said they only coupled to it a 2mph with a conductor making the coupling, and the antique junk failed. I later found out from my Conrail employee buddies that they had made a blind shoving move at night putting two sections of a loaded unit coal train together. My buddies weren't involved. Only problem was the 3 vintage passenger cars between the two coal train sections that nobody knew about. Yes, three SD40's in run 7 and 56 loads pushing to a standing 78 loads until they "feel" it couple.......

Kelly,

You have my sympathies.

As engine size and weight increases arithmetically, the grief in trying to move them increases exponentially. Number 37 looks like a husky little horse.

I've had plenty of experiences both good and bad moving antique equipment by road and rail. The ones that look easy seem to evolve into major headaches, but I've also had my share of dreaded moves that went like a breeze.

Alan Maples
Everett Railroad

Yeah, we're gonna build a new steam locomotive and run it on a Class I.

Actually, they are handling it exactly according to plan. The request gets kicked around like a football until it reaches the "Vice-President-In-Charge-of-Making-Pests-Go-Away", and then he does.

If they really were going to charge what their extra administrative costs were for making sure these screw-ups didn't happen, or the correct value for assuming the risk if they do, we wouldn't want to pay the price anyway. Gone is the day when the can-do atitude would get someone noticed; now the bean counters don't care, and CYA is the order of the day.

The photos above show why the class-1s may not want to risk moving historic items. That and the corporate mentality that exists today (NO decisions are local anymore).

Freight equipment is pretty forgiving. And even if you do bash a modern car (like a hopper) up, it can be easily repaired at the shops, and the claim agents can cut a check if need be for any loss contents. But what happens when you bash up that rare coach or locomotive? Not like you can tow it to the shops and fix it up. Then you get into a legal battle between multiple agencies, all for one little lousy move.

It's a lousy situation, but it is what it is. It's not going to get any better as we are quickly losing the old heads in all departments on the railroad. There was that huge gap in the 70s-90s where very few were hired. So the old engineers that know how that GP-7 or S2 need to be set up to trail are gone, replaced by engineers used to hiting a few keys on the computer monitor. The old car knockers used to dealing with friction bearings are going, replaced by young guys scared to death of their own shadow (just how corporate wants them).

Kelly,
Another heavy hauling company that can move something that big is Supor Trucking here in Jersey. They moved SR 385 from Kearny to Whippany last year. They have a trailer that the can lower itself and has wheels all along the trailer. Just remember you are dealing with a bunch of guys from Jersey. ;) They moved the jet that landed in the Hudson a few weeks back.

Let me say Mike Venezia is truly one of the best professionals I have run across. He moved the Disneyland #5 from our shop in Carson, CA to Anaheim without a scratch, and his legacy moving big things is legendary.

All this begs another question, which may have been asked here before, and if it was forgive me. Why are the Eureka boys restoring an engine way out on the east coast when the PLCo. #29, a perfectly capable Baldwin 2-6-2 double-ender is sitting right there in their collection? It ran back in the '80s when they got it from the lumber company, I've even run it myself and it seemed like it had a lot of life in it. Just curious.

I'm sure when Kelly and Lynn are done with the 37 it will be factory fresh. I hope the funding can be raised.

Chris Allan

With regards to 37/Strasburg: Congratulations. And now y'all have some sense of why British mainline steamers are getting transported from excursion line to excursion line by highway on occasion.

Brother Jordan's post is Exhibit A (actually, more like #745) in why I've been hired to "escort" passenger equipment moving over Class Ones. Now imagine what has to be done to prevent this kind of stuff: Screaming matches with crew members at 5 AM in a snowstorm back in the part of the yard that time and the railroad forgot about...... Arguing pointedly with the senior official of the yard way back in his "ivory tower" while watching the screw-ups the yard crews are making on the CCTV monitors..... Having to drive to the interchange track in the middle of nowhere to be sure the danged local crew actually picks up your shipment after four days in a row of "accidentally" forgetting to pick it up...........

One final note: Show this to all those folks that want to "just roll" the "Lost Engines of Roanoke" to the Va. Museum of Transportation. Remind them that. for all practical intents and purposes, #37 was/is operable during all that ruckus. It needs basic boiler updating, but had that been attended to in Delaware, 37 could have basically made the whole run under its own power. The Roanoke locos are not in this condition.

Somebody remind me again: why the *^&$%$&$#%$$ are we doing this (*&^%%$!@?!?!?!?!? (I guess I'm way overdue for a long-haul train ride or a mainline steamer....)

Sad that the class 1 cost the short line a job. One would assume from reading the trades the class 1s sometimes thinks as the short lines as partners. Apparently that isn't the case here.