traingeek8223 wrote:Lets all remember that nothing in this world is impossible. If I had the money and wanted a NYC Hudson, I could have one. We aren't talking anything that grand here. $20,000 is not that large of a sum of money to come up with. If proper fund raisers are put together or grants applied for it's not out of the question that most of this stuff can be saved. Let's not scrap the stuff because it's going to be difficut. If thats your attitude than while your at it cut up the 1361 and 3713 too. Remember the historical significance of this colection. there are at least four pieces there that are the last of their kind, the two electrics being the most important. Remember once it's gone it can't come back. I don't see any billionars building replicas of any NYC electrics any time soon.
$20,000 is roughly half the salary of the average working man... and probably a good percentage of a decent RR museum's annual operating budget.
As a taxpayer, I don't want to see my money go to waste so some railfans can "rescue" a rusting hulk from the woods, slap a coat of paint on it and park it in front of a crumbling old train station that's open for only 4 hours a week between Memorial Day and Labor Day in the name of preservation.
Junk is junk. The stuff in Colonie is junk. The stuff at the power plant is junk. It will never run. It will never travel on live rail to a new home. No one will raise the funds to move the stuff. No one will raise the funds to restore the stuff. My guess even is Ed Bowers has taken a pass at this stuff because it isn't worth saving.
Bring on the scrapper - the stuff is worth $200/ton. Put the money towards what's worth saving - perhaps that'll save and actually preserve the electrics.
Down the road - are we going to save every last SD-40? Every last GP-38? Every last Dash-9? All in the name of historical preservation? Of course not - engines, like everything else, sooner or later will get past the point where it's no longer economical to keep running and repairing. So off they go - to be melted down to make new engines.