There is a good summary of the Traction items available on the Preserved Traction (formerly PNAERC) Blog.

I posted a link to the Classifieds posting about LEV 2 on the UK "National Preservation" website on Monday morning, and, other than having the post "liked" by someone with the same username who made the original post in this thread back in 2010, there has been no reaction to it at all. Unless someone is flushed with money, I can't see it coming back here, given the various appeals for serious amounts of money that are being sought for numerous UK schemes at the moment.
The production 2 and 3 car vehicles are coming up for withdrawal soon, so attention (such as it is..) is likely to be focused on preserving one or more of those, rather than a fairly obscure prototype - particularly when some of the other prototype vehicles have survived anyway, including one in the National Collection.

Seen it posted elsewhere this morning that the Railbus has recently been scrapped by the Connecticut Trolley Museum.......
I don't think there was ever a realistic chance of repatriating the thing, particularly as every line here seems to be going for the free/cheap production versions that have been withdrawn from main line use in the past 2 years.

There was a very good scheme in place to move the car to a safer location prior to any repatriation if that ever happened, however the museum were appalling at communication and despite many many repeated emails the car was scrapped with no communication with any of us whatsoever, the deaccesion process is covered in another thread and was just as badly handled, the museum are responsible for the cars demise and its a very sad loss for those of us who tried hard to save it.
Its a paltry lesson in museum communication and organization and care of donated equipment.

Mike

Completely unnecessary, it wasn't open to the elements or falling apart. I really wonder about the Connecticut Trolley "museum", this isn't the first such incident with them...

You wouldn't believe the number of stages you have to go through here in the UK if you are a Registered Museum and wish to de-accession and dispose of any item in your collection - something I'm well aware of from my involvement in our local Transportation Museum.
You will be descended upon like a ton of bricks by the relevant authority if you don't follow the correct procedures as well !

As much as I may be an Anglophile and BR buff...........

IF this was scrapped, this was a mercy euthanasia.

The bitter reality is that even by British standards, given that other examples of BR B-L railbuses survive in the UK, attempting to rescue this would be like saving a Triumph TR8 in an "American automotive museum."

This thing:
1) wasn't that successful even in the UK;
2) Came over here to sell in North America--and didn't;
3) was an abomination of a rail vehicle in almost every sense of the word.
4) at BEST could only serve as some low-volume passenger shuttle or replacement for train service, and there are American vehicles for this, from RDCs to Edwards motorcars to the Strasburg's LO&S 10. And that's only if you replace the engines and transmissions with something you could get parts for.

The British didn't "need" to save this, with other examples of B-L railbuses elsewhere.
The Americans ESPECIALLY had no "need" to preserve this--there are REASONS why no one bought one. (We didn't save the Faur Quarter Horse demonstrator from Romania, either.)
The energy and effort to save this could have been better spent on a historic doodlebug, RDC, or BR DMU.

ADM IV:

Your post is probably what is wrong with social media today – everyone has an opinion, usually with a “I’m right, you are wrong” tone. Granted it is ugly as sin, but then it represents an interesting time in history, there is a story here that could be told if it was been preserved. Worse case, if the parts are that rare, then at a minimum, those parts should be harvested for other vehicles that may have a need.

What I have found over the years with a couple of interesting saves, the only thing that was needed was someone to show an interest in the item, what ever it may have been. I’m not sure the LEV2 need for a savior was made overly obvious.

As a British car owner, who has also spent some years gluing together an 1887 Stephenson 4-4-0T product, it does spark some interest in my mind. Wish I knew about it sooner.

J.R. May

Typical sweeping statement from ADM, just because you didn't like it the rest of us shouldn't have bothered trying to save it and be justifiably annoyed at the manner of its execution, frankly this is what is wrong with so much of the museum culture in the US, the 'oh who cares plenty more around to save' i dont like doodlebugs or any of that stuff so may as well scrap all those then ok ?

Mike

I did not rationalize this from any perspective of "whether I like it or not." That, historically, has been a fairly poor way to curate any museum that must survive its sponsor/founder (see The Barnes Foundation art museum in Philly).

The issue is not whether it should have been saved. The issue is that nobody DID. There were reasons for that, all of which have NOTHING whatsoever to do with my opinions.

Over the years I was keenly interested in trying to get a ride in this thing--at Steamtown and at Belington--simply because it was British and I already liked RDCs. I also managed to ride one of its brethren in the UK in 1991, and had to concur with why they was pretty much unloved among their regular users. I spoke with people that tried to get/keep the demonstrator running in the US--one trying to pick my brain for parts sources pre-widely-used Internet.

There are four rational reasons one would potentially save that demonstrator (not counting stupidity like wanting to base a movie around a train crash with it or whatever):
1) you need something to give rides to passengers when you don't want to run a whole trainset;
2) you want to showcase the thing's "place in U.S. rail history" (which was virtually nonexistent);
3) You want to save the thing in its place of origin, as an artifact (of lack of success) or for parts (thus the "repatriation" effort that started this thread);
4) Someone with lots of cash to play with wants a "unique man-cave" in your backyard, some "British-themed bar" with this attached, etc.

NONE of those came to pass, and it was not for want of trying--three places tried to run it with no success; it definitely wasn't "we have thirty days to find a buyer or it gets cut up!", etc.

The unsuccessful anomalies of technological history--Tesla's transmission towers, the Holman "Speeding Truck Locomotive," video laserdiscs, the "Spruce Goose," the several steam turbine electric locomotives, etc.--have a VERY hard time succeeding in historic preservation. We have a couple UP gas-turbines that others managed to save only because UP kept them around long enough to secure a return on their investment.

People, please stop the Mudslinging Should-a, Would-a, Could-a arguments. Key question is, did anyone approach the museum with a plan and ask, `What would it take to get you to release the rotting railbus, so I can fix it and/or bring it back to the UK?', do the negotiating and then work on raising the extra money to acquire, pack, and ship it somewhere in a timely manner...

Every time this type of discussion comes up, people get on their soap boxes and shout about how something should have been saved, but wont get their hands dirty on helping to acquire the item themselves or fix it at its current home. If you have the desire to save something, then find others that also do to help you, develop a plan, raise the money and do it.

Exactly.
The only valid counter-argument to all of this would be what HAS occasionally happened in this field:
"I tried REPEATEDLY to schedule a visit to the museum/RR to examine this car along with two of our mechanical staff to apprise whether to make a bid for this car; they NEVER returned any of my 56 calls, 22 letters, and 126 e-mails!"
(NOTE: I AM NOT saying it happened here--and if it did, for all we know it could have been a delusional dreaming 12-year-old, not an actual museum/RR representative.)

Further, there are PLENTY of rail preservation efforts/groups that don't know about this forum or choose not to participate.
There always comes the argument of "Oh, if we had only heard of this......" but trust me when I say that there's NO way to cover every possible outlet of publicity towards "finding this a new home." In years of doing publicity for everything from open houses to festivals to concerts to train meets to beer festivals, my associates and I have repeatedly found that there's no "magic bullet"--not flyers or brochures, not paid adverts, not social media, not media press releases or radio interviews, not internet newsgroups, not direct e-mails, nothing. EVERY "how did you hear about us?" survey I've eyeballed has an almost perfect distribution of all of the outlets in question plus a few others (word of mouth, etc.), much to the chagrin of the publicity folks desperately seeking to eliminate one or more efforts.

I'm currently in a campaign to rescue two pieces of rail equipment that are not properly "preserved," but still not in danger of scrapping--yet. I stop by the owner's place every few months to reiterate that a specific museum has a legitimate and serious interest in them, and have now discussed options with the sons of the true owner--just in case.

Did anyone do that with this museum regarding the LEV-2?

> Did anyone do that with this museum regarding the LEV-2?

Based on what I have been told, the answer is yes.

And based on my personal experience over the past several days the CERA is non-responsive.

J.R. May

Perhaps you didn't read my post, after the initial deacession list was announced in 2019 numerous groups enquired of a 'Galen' someone who was supposedly fielding enquiries. No one got responses it was weeks before anybody responded to anything, and then we were told to submit proposals, in order to do that we needed weights, measurements condition photos etc etc in order to get trucking quotes out of the nightmare that is CT. It became apparent that the body would have to be separated from the frame for transportation. more questions were sent and no answers received.
A proposal was submitted to the CT museum by Jonathan Flood in the UK and at that time fundraising was started. It became clear after a while that the UK wasnt going to be viable so Jonathan approached me again to ask if we knew of anywhere it could be moved to temporarily, i offered the facility i have in Wyoming and as a British bus restorer and restorer of UK trains for 30 years it was a good fit. The museum was approached with this proposal and still zero response for several months even after
follow up emails.
It was only last week that a email was sent from Mr Brogle the museum president to Mr Flood and myself saying 'i thought i had sent this but obviously didnt, and 'there is no one here anymore that you dealt with previously' I then sent a reply expressing our displeasure at the handling of the whole issue.......guess what, no response from three different board members. No response to Mr Mays emails either.
The place is a joke. I wonder who donated LEV 2 and what the terms were ?

Mike

Having looked at the thread on the subject of what they were putting up for disposal 3 years ago....

viewtopic.php?f=2&t=42810

...the warning signs about lack of return contact appeared to be there then.

Did anything at all on that list get taken on by another Museum or has it all met, or going to meet, the same fate as LEV 2 ???

EDIT - I note a similar question has been asked on the PNAERC Blog as well...

Incidentally, if it looked like the body had to be seperated from the chassis to move the vehicle out of the site, it does beg the question as to how it was moved in to the Trolley Museum in the first place....? (same applies to that CN boxcab which must be a lot heavier)
Have the rules for road movements changed since then in CT?

My understanding is that it was traded there by D&GV/WVC for Moore-Keppel Climax 3, which was even more of an oddball for their collection. D&GV/WVC used it very briefly on their Cheat Mountain Salamander service before acquiring the Edwards car.

Photos: https://sinfin.net/railways/world/usa/t ... ilbus.html