Hey, just wondering what happened to the NY elevated railroad forney that was unearthed in North Carolina. Also what would the chances be of the Forneys in Alaska being at least brought off the Tundra, they are suprisingly solid looking.

The newspaper items I saw said that they just reburied it as the group didn't have the funds to pay for it to be carefully dug and lifted out. In addition the highway department wanted to get the road open again.

I helped the Alaska folks with information on these locos when I worked at the Museum of Transportation in St. Louis County, MO, where we had the only elevated Forney loco in a museum, from the Lake Street Elevated in Chicago. The info was used to create signage placed with the three locos on the tundra along with some walkways to improve access to them. There were no plans to do more than that at the time and I doubt this has changed.

Just a personal observation... when I visited Nome right at the turn of the century, the engines were a rather highly billed tourist attraction. It is possible to rent a car in Nome (well, a pickup truck) but driving destinations are rather limited; you drive most the day to the end of the road, then you drive back. The "Last Train to Nowhere", about twenty miles down the coast, is a good place to send the tourists.

And the town does seem to realize the importance of this. When I was there the road dept. had just replaced the bridge over the Solomon River, being careful not to disturb the area by the engines and rolling stock. I see now there is a wood walkway out for viewing, since the tundra is always covered with a couple inches of water. The engines have been there for the last 112 years; no reason they won't still be there, still identifiable as what they are, in 112 more.

Here's a link to an article with a current photo:

http://www.seattletimes.com/life/travel ... he-tundra/