The Flying Yankee

3rdrail wrote:I have seen that as well mx, but I have to admit that I have never seen the likes of the FYRG on any rail group that I have encountered, be it hobby, historic, artistic, amusement, restoration, or rebuilders. Is anyone on here familiar with the rebuilding of the Electroliner set at the Illinois Railway Museum ? I was just wondering what their experience and turnaround time was.

Their diner featured "electroburgers". I don't think it was ever allowed to deteriorate to the extent of the FY.

NRGeep wrote:

3rdrail wrote:I have seen that as well mx, but I have to admit that I have never seen the likes of the FYRG on any rail group that I have encountered, be it hobby, historic, artistic, amusement, restoration, or rebuilders. Is anyone on here familiar with the rebuilding of the Electroliner set at the Illinois Railway Museum ? I was just wondering what their experience and turnaround time was.

Their diner featured "electroburgers". I don't think it was ever allowed to deteriorate to the extent of the FY.

...which sounds a heck of a lot more appropriate than the FYRG's listed menu choices of four course dinner with Roast Prime Rib, Seasoned and Slow Roasted, topped with Au Jus , or Chicken Saltimbocca, Sauteed Chicken Breasts topped with Sage, Shaved Prosciutto and Gruyere Cheese and topped with a Golden Sherry and Sweet Mustard Sauce served as entree' selections. Now, up there in plain New Hampshire, is it just me or does that sound like instead of a group of mechanics scheduling a hoedown that a "professional function coordinator" instead has carefully planned a dinner to die for in the granite state under orders to "do it up in grand style" (possibly her dream come true !) ?

Here's a disgusting peek into the auction into what amounts to chop shopping the Yankee IMHO for profit definitely not benefitting the Yankee; http://www.flyingyankee.com/march08news.html (note the 4th paragraph down, especially). A brief quote, "..there will be a live auction featuring longtime NH Auctioneer George Foster from Epsom, NH manning the gavel. This year’s live auction will not only offer original components from the Flying Yankee such as one of the train’s original eight pistons, but will include other historic and rare Flying Yankee artifacts as well..." Restoration Group ?

Paul, that link to the "Gala" announcement you posted, which shows the speaker as "to be announced" several years after the event, makes me inclined to agree even more with your views about how this group was being run. When the identity of the keynote speaker and the program at your annual major event isn't important enough to the organization to bother with announcing it, that is a great big red flag. It demonstrates that the group lost sight of the objectives, the social functions and partying became more important than the actual artifact being preserved. If a "preservation" or historical group isn't going to announce the featured speaker for their annual meeting, why bother to invite a speaker at all? It is insulting to the speaker to not announce, and demonstrates to the volunteers that the group places little value on participation. It gives the appearance (whether right or wrong) that it got to be about themselves and having a good time, more than about the train.

I run websites for a couple of groups, and inserting the speakers name in a meeting announcement is a one minute edit. There is no excuse for not doing it, failing to do it is just plain rude. But once again, I am sorry to have to observe that a lot of other groups are also run this way.

More lessons to learn from, if anyone is interested.

MX

The Flying Yankee 48 years ago. Thanks to George Hamlin for the photo

http://www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.p ... 06&nseq=17

If I win the powerball tonight ($320M), I will get the restoration moving again.

I have read thru the recent posts ... Feb & March ... and thank Steamer69 & Think Narrow for their input.
3rd Rail you seem to like to talk about this subject a lot, but it's just hot air

Reality check ... the restoration project is dead ... nothing going to happen at Hobo Lincoln.
Not going to raise any funds either with a negitive balance sheet.
I'm interested is seeing the FY come back from the dead, but ain''t going to throw my money away,
and I'm too far from NH to consider putting my hands on her ... in a stabalization effort.

The State of CT gave some serious money to two trolley museums recently ... at one there are over 1,000 members, many of whom dug deep into their pockets to help finance the building of a couple of structures to get the 100 odd trolleys out of harms way.

No worries. Wish the scenario was different. Would be great to see her finished up.

I know this is a bit improper, but I tried reading through the 52 pages and my mind is no longer talking to me...

Can someone give me a a quick (objective) summary of where the Flying Yankee restoration project now sits and what, if anything, is going ot happen in the nearish future?

Thanks!

Except for an open house event once in a while, little else appears to be happening now. The contributions have declined, making further progress is very questionable, the host railroad contributed some of the labor to complete the most recent work that was done on the train. In this economy it appears that nothing is going to change any time soon unless a very wealthy contributor steps forward with the financial means to significantly alter the situation.

MX

mxdata wrote:...it appears that nothing is going to change any time soon unless a very wealthy contributor steps forward with the financial means to significantly alter the situation.

MX

...and then let the Galas resume !!!

Maybe instead of a chocolate trilogy they'll do a chocolate tetralogy... or a chocolate pentalogy!

Hahaha!!! (I had to look those up !) Yes, but they would have to be Greek Tragedies ! Do they have a suggestion box at the Gala ? I'll give you a possible few more for the menu. Might these be appropriate ?===Chicken, Then-run-for-La Boca, Cuba===, ===Roast Prime Rob===, and let's not forget the ===Chocolate Felony=== !

Good ones! I have to admit I laughed and snorted at "Roast Prime Rob"

There is an ongoing discussion (" History of the EMD 567 Diesel Engine") underway on another website that reproduces original EMD documents discussing the development of the EMD 567 and going into great detail about the many weaknesses of the Winton 201A so fondly remembered by some. As a poster to the referenced discussion ("pCook") said, "Anyone contemplating spending a large amount of their supporters donations to reverse engineer or duplicate a product the principal designer considered to be less than satisfactory should read page 55 of this superb technical paper very carefully." After doing a Google search for that discussion and reading the EMD papers thoroughly, I would urge Winton fans to conclude that while the Flying Yankee Restoration Group may have made mistakes, discontinuing restoration of the 201A was plainly not one of them.

-John

Correct, but doing the 201A restoration in the first place WAS one of them. It wasted an enormous amount of time and money.

MEC407 wrote:A 567 might be too big and too heavy, unless you used the V6 version. Those aren't as common as the 8/12/16 cylinder 567s, but they're a lot easier to find than an operable Winton.

The straight-8 Winton 201A was only 600 HP, I believe, so a V6 567C (also 600 HP) might be a good replacement. Certainly a helluva lot easier to service it and find parts for it.

I'd like to revisit this part of the discussion for a moment.

Let's say, just for kicks and giggles, that some generous soul came forward with an operable V6 567C that they wanted to donate to the FY restoration project. How difficult would it be to do this type of conversion? This page implies that a straight-8 201A weighs about 12,000 pounds. Does anyone know how much a V6 567 weighs? (I haven't been able to find the weight on the web.) What about size considerations? The V6 is probably wider than the straight-8. Surely it's not so wide that it couldn't fit inside the Yankee, but I've never seen the inside of the Yankee so I don't know if they used any of the extra space afford by the narrow straight-8 engine for other things or if it was just empty walkway space...?

The 567 would also need to be mated to an appropriate main generator, such as a D15C (as used in many of the EMD SW series locos)... I have no idea how big a D15C is or how much it weighs, but would it be drastically bigger or heavier than the FY's original main generator?