Private equipment collection at Colonie and Glenmont

I find this thread very disturbing. These old locos and cars having been sitting here for years by neglet of the owners who ever they are . Now all of a sudden everybody cries save the equipment ! What are you thinking these have been stripped and vandelised for years. It would and act of god and lots of money to save these. I have seen the pictures and they look not too promising for restoration. Maybe a better fate for this old fleet is the scrapper and not the organizations entitled to ownership. I am all for preservation and restoration of railroad past but not like this.

The time to save this junk, and thats what it is..was 15 years ago. There have been enough chances, M&H involvement or not. The time, effort, and resources would be better spent on the NYC Electrics in Glenmont, or some other rotted piece of crap the east coast already has "preserved".

Ðauntless wrote:The time to save this junk, and thats what it is..was 15 years ago. There have been enough chances, M&H involvement or not. The time, effort, and resources would be better spent on the NYC Electrics in Glenmont, or some other rotted piece of crap the east coast already has "preserved".

Make that 22 years ago when the M&H still had the people and $$$$$ to do something.
I was down there this morning and saw alot of brush cleared in the one side of the locomotives. If you look at the photo I posted, you will see that trees and brush are still there as of last Thurs.
It just a matter of days now.......

Of course, you have this problem of equipment that could not be moved because it had no connection to live rail for many years, which allowed it to deteriorate to this condition... blame can go all around. I suppose CP can just come in and cut it up and let the owners sue, though, they have money to defend a lawsuit like that for our entire lifetimes. One thing I've noted is if you make them mad, they're a lot less likely to work with you, so...

Even if the owners of the equipment did sue, CP is a multi-national corporation. It's kind-of obvious who would win that court case. Only company that would have had a chance in saving any more of those alcos would probably be D&L down in Scranton, but obviously they expressed no interest, so maybe it's just better that these units get cut up. Least save the builders plates -- if they are still there..

It looks like the tracks are almost done. Some ballast is down. Brush cleared on West side of equipment. No sign of scrapping yet.

Any news?

No changes since the last time I went down. I will go down today (tue) and see whats going up.

On Sunday, Sept 23, I observed that CP has laid a gravel path along the tracks between the existing tracks and the D&H property. I don't know what the purpose is for this, but I would hazard a guess that it is a road to get scrapping equipment in for the cutting of the junk that sits there.

If you happen to have a friend who's a member of the Train Collectors Association, ask to borrow his/her copy of the new issue of the Train Collecors Quarterly which all members should have received by now. There's an article written by a TCA member who hiked in to see and photograph the S and T Class motors in Glenmont earlier this year. The pictures aren't pretty.

Bob

I googled and found recent picture of the glenmont electrics there still in better shape than the colony yard ones . The engines and cars at colony may not even be worth anything except scrap.

FWIW, this is my first post on this forum. Its hard to believe that any NYC equipment would warrant scrap at this point. Its all at least 50 years old and most items are less than five of a kind. Same with the other items at Colonie. I think you would find that most items are not as bad off as they look, and are within the realm of restoration. To what point would be the question. This whole situation saddens me.

After reading the previous posts about there being progress on the items being saved, and now recently not, what seems to be the final verdict? Is there hope?

Welcome to our forums!

I suppose there is hope, as long as someone has a lot of extra money handy to undertake such a project. You have to remember
there is cost to move these things off the Colonie property and that is very significant. Trucking them to their new destination would
undoubtedly be the easier way to go, and figuring out where to store them. There is the cost of scrap that Canadian Pacific would want
to collect for said items, as I doubt they would give them away for free. Of course there is the cost of restoration.

You would need lots of money! I agree that it is sad to see this equipment rot away and then be cut up, but most folks don't
have the necessary resources to save them. If you want to see what it took to save a great piece of equipment and the cost
and hard work it took, check out the thread: "Save LV 95100."

That is a great story on the Rochester & Genesee Valley Railroad Museum's quest to save this former Lehigh Valley caboose!

Charlie

charlie6017 wrote:That is a great story on the Rochester & Genesee Valley Railroad Museum's quest to save this former Lehigh Valley caboose!

And in no small part, many members of this very web site ponied up their good money to save that caboose from the torch. It has since been moved to our museum, placed in the shop, and volunteers are actively working on repairs and restoration. We're always looking for new helpers, too...

The situation as I understand it with the historic NYC engines at Glenmont is that the property owners have made any attempts at rescue quite difficult due to many factors, one of which being the location of sensitive utilities in the area. I don't really know much more about it than that. If that hurdle can be overcome, and the funding is still in place, then it is possible the NYC electrics could be saved. I can't speak at all for the equipment at Colonie.

-otto-

Otto Vondrak wrote:

charlie6017 wrote: The situation as I understand it with the historic NYC engines at Glenmont is that the property owners have made any attempts at rescue quite difficult due to many factors, one of which being the location of sensitive utilities in the area. I don't really know much more about it than that. If that hurdle can be overcome, and the funding is still in place, then it is possible the NYC electrics could be saved. I can't speak at all for the equipment at Colonie.

-otto-

You are correct Otto. It all started with one person who screwed everything up by getting the power Company people mad and its been downhill since. Its going to take a lot of patience and negotiating to smooth things over in Glenmont.
Alcoman