Looking at the list, it appears that the W&LE 1888 car and the D&H pay car MIGHT be prime candidates for preservation, DEPENDING ON CONDITION. Can someone please post condition info or current pictures?

If the privately owned equipment isn't off the property by July 12 will it also be handed over to the sheriff?

Thomas

Well, we are apparently no longer allowed to discuss legal issues here, so just keep smiling, everything will be alright.

At risk of getting myself removed from the forum, two pages up Eric Strothmeyer posted this excerpt from the court order:

"After July 12, 2018, to all extents necessary, the Sheriff of Hamilton County
County is hereby empowered, ordered, and directed to dispossess and remove
ITM, and all other occupants and/or property from the Premises ... "

I'm not a lawyer, but the language seems pretty plain to me; if it is still on the county property on July 13, it is deemed abandoned, and is no longer yours.

Unless, of course, you can call in a flight of unicorns to make it all better...

Both the city, the mayor, and the city's attorneys have assured myself and other organizations that they will work with the owners of privately owned equipment after July 12th. The Parks Department will be primarily charged with handling the clean up of the site as the Sheriff performs their duties to evict ITM and handle ITM property.

The mayor specifically said they'd like to see everything gone by the end of the summer and that owners of private equipment will need to be prepared to show a bill-of-sale, affidavit of ownership, etc.

This information is based on my personal conversations, both on the phone and in person, with all of these individuals in addition to legal representatives for other owners of equipment and based on my personal visit to ITM this week.

To quote the city's lawyer "we are not putting machine gun nests up at the gate."

Expect more official language and documentation after this holiday week - as many parties are on vacation.

Sounds like what they should do at a place like Ft. Eustis and their museum... :P

Or maybe some, "...green alligators and long-necked geese. Some humpty backed camels and some chimpanzees. Some cats and rats and elephants ..."*

No unicorns necessary, just people. Earlier in this thread I posted some views and suggestions on how the eviction and clean up may play out. The point that appears to have been lost by some posters is that these Orders are carried out by people. If you approach people professionally and positively they will return your treatment of them with much the same. The Court Order gives the County Sheriff's Office the power and authority to do as outlined in the Order, and this gives those tasked the much-needed leverage to motivate the other players, but the means and methods and the use of this leverage is often a matter of discretion.

Mr. Lynch has people skills and is a professional. He identified the officials involved, sought them out, and spoke to them. Not surprisingly, those involved include representatives of City government (the Mayor and the City Attorney) and the dirty work will be done by employees of the City of Noblesville Parks and Recreation Board. Many thanks to Mr. Lynch for seeking out the officials involved and relaying the knowledge he gained by his efforts to the rest of us on this board.

*with all due respect to the Irish Rovers

The logistics of ANY of this relocation are extraordinarily daunting. I'm willing to stake a lot of money that the Sheriff, the deputies, and any appointed agents are 1) extremely aware of the daunting differences between evicting a tenant from an apartment/house and relocating dozens of pieces of metal weighing thousands of tons total, and 2) willing as heck to let someone else "do it" on their behalf.

Any legal official trapped between the orders of the court and the gigantic logistics is certainly going to listen to any competent, sensible, obviously intelligent person that obviously knows more about the methodology of fulfilling this writ than he does. Come up and say "I'll do what I can to get this out of here as soon as possible so you don't look like you're torching a museum full of history to the ground..... and, look, we have to move THESE thing aside to get to OUR things first, and THAT will take a day or several each even if you scrap them, so how about you let us do that in a manner you find legally acceptable first?.........." and be ready to answer any logical, reasoned question the Sheriff may have, and you will most likely win the day.

All of this presumes, of course, that 1) some legal beagle or politician doesn't have a vindictive agenda to literally bulldoze the place ASAP, and 2) that whatever Powers That Be at the ITM are sane enough to execute sales for $1, $100, outright donations, or whatever of various pieces just to save them, or even agreements to "get it out of here now and pay us more later once you can raise funds based on your success." (It's #2 that people have worried about. The allegation of a "if we can't have it no one can" or "scorched earth" policy seem more to be reaction to the scrapping of lost causes, but on the other hand if ITM were reasonably competent in the first place they wouldn't be IN this current "holy-moley-how-badly-can-you-[BLEEP]-up?" fiasco in the first place.)

I would be interested in hearing--perhaps after the dust has settled--the legal machinations that are going on, or being demanded or whatever, to satisfy the authorities. As we all (should) know, railroad rolling stock doesn't come with legal title certificates, and in the railroad industry, it appears possession and reporting marks are 99/100th of the law. In this situation, it might be all they can do just to have a notarized bill of sale or document transferring ownership to another party. On the other hand, have the deputies had to have it explained to them that these things don't have title documents?

My intriguing question--and I wish we still had a certain legal guy here to ask, maybe I'll impose upon the other one--is that, say I have an auto that is being repossessed or evicted, or a house being foreclosed upon or business that was being seized for taxes. I certainly don't think I would stop such an action for even a minute just by saying "I gave/sold it to my friend here; talk to him...." Is the transfer of ownership at literally the last hours really going to satisfy the authorities? I acknowledge that there's a difference between an apartment eviction or car repossession (where a bank still holds a note) and this situation. Thus far it SEEMS like the authorities entrusted with carrying out the orders are being pragmatic and common-sense about this, but if someone higher up decides otherwise and overrules them...........

Les McConnell, ITM Vice Chairman, posted this message to the Nickel Plate yahoogroup at 6:19 AM today:

Self-explanatory relative to many posts earlier in this thread.

Wow, just wow....

That explained alot. Denial is not da river in da Egypt... Apparently it's a river in central Indiana.

Sorry to hear that the preservation elite voted Mr. Wilkins off the island.

Looking through most online databases I find it difficult myself to find any information about these artifacts, is ITM sure these are the correct numbers? On the other hand I can say that GN steam generator car they have re-built from an F3B needs to go somewhere where it's wanted. This single museum has too many valuables to lose all at once, it's a shame what has transpired. That proposed preservation lobby I spoke about earlier we desperately need one for situations like this.

The problem is if ITM didn't see the pieces scrapped, the sheriff or city will dispose of the pieces at ITM expense. Given the animus, I expect that to include all sorts of trumped-up moral panic about hazmat, expensive advertising, and just any way they can imagine to make the disposal bill higher... since ITM pays every dime. It's the one zinger they can throw at ITM after they've gone.

ITM is extremely wise to leave them nothing to clean up.

As for leaving obviously serviceable ready-to-use revenue equipment for the next operator, ITM needs them and appears able to move them.

As far as leaving behind equipment of museum value, if the town/new operator doesn't agree, they'll get treated as haz-scrap as above.

Ideologically, remember we have exemplars of the right way to do this type of complex large-museum move -- look at how their landlords fairly dealt with Golden Gate Railway Museum and the Texas GG-1 Museum. This way is so wrong that it's evident that it's a "take their stuff by unfair lease tricks" strategy, but even if it wasn't, it's so ham-handed as to be a regulatory taking. While it's important to preserve historic equipment, it's even more important to preserve 5th Amendment property rights. This despicable gambit must fail, and must fail so spectacularly that no one ever tries it again. This is railway preservation's "City of New London". That is my opinion. It should be your opinion too.

Be sure to include a sign saying "I leave it as I found it, Andrew Wyatt".

If you want to sell something you have to let people know that it is for sale first. I sure didn't see them make any real effort to find homes, cash rich or otherwise, for any of the scrapped/to be scrapped equipment.

I also find the numerous grammatical errors from a Vice Chairman a bit disturbing on some level.

[quote="robertmacdowell"]The problem is if ITM didn't see the pieces scrapped, the sheriff or city will dispose of the pieces at ITM expense. Given the animus, I expect that to include all sorts of trumped-up moral panic about hazmat, expensive advertising, and just any way they can imagine to make the disposal bill higher... since ITM pays every dime. It's the one zinger they can throw at ITM after they've gone.

"ITM is extremely wise to leave them nothing to clean up." Quote

By what you are saying Robert, it is best for the ITM just to destry what they can not move.

If you rent a storage unit/warehouse here in Indiana and do not pay your rent, after a certain amount of time, the owner/landlord can sell your property. Indiana law does not allow them to just take, they have to serve the owner, place an ad for an auction, then sell regardless of what it brings.

I personally see no way that ITM gets their equipment out that they want to retain by the 12th and the other question will be how the court feels about turning other equipment over to new owners as an attempt to keep it from being taken by the court.

Lets looked at yesterday and today; Yesterday, while they were delayed some by a heavy storm that went through here, they loaded 587's boiler and the incomplete frame. Most of the time, these high dollar cranes and their helpers were just standing around. Later in the evening I had a talk with one of the trucker. He told me that one of the museum people complained about the crane cost and them just sitting. The crane people told them that, that is the way it works, when we come to a site and you are not prepared for our services.

Today, I went through the park around 12:30, the cranes and crews were standing around, a semi with a lowboy was sitting out on the street and a crew was working on getting the 587 tender ready for it's loadout. About 1 1/2 hours later, same thing. Later this evening, one crane was moved to the location of the tender and prepared for a lift. Nothing there to load it on.

With all these high dollar cranes { two 150 ton }, help and support equipment, why was other equipment not lined up to be moved, if the primary equipment was not ready?

Better yet, why was the tender not ready?

Space is a problem on that site for loading equipment, whether you are bringing it in or taking it out. Years ago, I hauled equipment in to that site. Part of the loadout area is consumed by the scrapping operation. What is more important, getting the equipment you want to save and use off the property or scrapping equipment just to keep someone else from getting it? The area where they are scrapping could be an alternate loadout site.

They want to move atleast 3 locomotives and 14 passenger cars out to Logansport or Kokomo. In 4 days?

So, now you would rather see ITM destroy the equipment, then the equipment have a chance at a sheriff's sale.

If the court/sheriff follows through on the 13th, there is going to be a lot left on that property, not only equipment, but railroad rail as well.

I wouldn't rather scrap stuff. But I recognise that for them it may be wiser than hurling themselves at the mercy of the sheriff. You scrap equipment; would you willingly do that by handing a green party busybody your Amex and say "spend anything you like"?

I wouldn't necessarily go so far as to say "scrap it before letting the other guy have it" but the 5th Amendment property rights are rather important.

As the lawyers and wannas have discussed, that "length of time" the storage unit place must give you, might not exist here. I think it does, and even if I'm wrong the city has stated they were realistically expecting a ~90 day moveout. That's about right even for not a railway museum; evictions rarely go according to plan or judge's order. Yes yes the judgment, but in civil law everything is negotiable e.g. The "don't kick out the drywall bonus" often seen in foreclosures and evictions.

I agree with you that Indiana statute does not permit owners to just grab abandoned property, they must efficiently reduce it to cash and give excess proceeds back to the tenant. Some point out that is for citizens not businesses, but for the life of me I could not find a separate commercial code, nor any illumination in case law. Shrug. But of course I'm ANAL. Wait, that came out wrong.

As far as the logistics of working in that site, I agree, it's a Rubik's Cube but that will be relieved as stuff moves out. I thought the crane guys and truck guys were the same guys. The railroad rail may be a problem since private owner equipment not gone by the 12th still needs to sit on it.