Private equipment collection at Colonie and Glenmont

nessman wrote: ↑Sun Dec 11, 2022 10:28 am Nah. Scrappers are disposing of artifacts set aside for 'preservation' but sat rotting in the elements for 30 years.

The cost to remove those things for actual preservation / restoration would have been staggering - in the millions.

100 percent. The scrap metal will serve an actual use. We've been discussing these things on this board for fifteen years. If real action was taken at that time then maybe they would have been saved. From a preservation perspective, it's unfortunate but I think these were far too gone.

Put monies toward things more feasible, there are a bunch out there!

Charlie

https://railfan.com/rare-new-york-centr ... hayp0HNV5g

The electrics have been moved via side booms to a safe area out of the developers way so that they can be disassembled and prepared for transport to DRM.

That's some decent news, although I still won't hold my breath until they're in Danbury. I'm going to the train show at the Big E and plan on stopping by the DRM booth. Hopefully they'll have some more info by then.

Littlefoot14 wrote: ↑Fri Dec 30, 2022 6:46 am https://railfan.com/rare-new-york-centr ... hayp0HNV5g

The electrics have been moved via side booms to a safe area out of the developers way so that they can be disassembled and prepared for transport to DRM.

That's good news... but the question now is - are they simply buying time, or just delaying the inevitable if funds cannot be raised?

I have a contact working on the site that provides me lots of video/photo from the work being done there and often catch the locomotives in the background of the multimedia that I receive. I don’t think people realize how close the working equipment was to these locomotives. It wasn’t just that the locomotives were on the property where the work was being done, I mean that heavy equipment and haul trucks were actively maneuvering around them because they were that much in the way.

If they couldn’t be moved to a location where they were safe and out of the way, I imagine that they would be already shredded and in the scrap yard right now. My understanding now, and I’ll do what I can to confirm it, is that they were moved to an area where they are both out of the way of the project and where they can be disassembled and prepped for transport.

They're out of the way, for now, yes - and that took a bite out of the money needed to move them to Danbury. But there will come a time where the property owners will give an ultimatum to remove them from the property - either in one piece, or many small pieces. The project will not wait for some hobbyists trying to find the money to remove their toys.

Separating these things into "major components" will require heavy lift cranes and heavy haul equipment that will be able to make it to Danbury. This won't be a cheap job or easy job.

https://www.trains.com/trn/news-reviews ... Zk-TvLw2bc

Danbury Rail Museum provided an update on this locomotives and their move, as well as shared the above article that Trains magazine wrote.

Both the Facebook post and the Trains article show photos of what I mentioned about how in the way they were. In addition, both sources mention the next step is waiting on an access road that is expected to take several months to complete.

So far the museum has sunk $110,000 into this project to move these things 200 feet. They're looking at another $125,000 for the crane to disassemble what they can (*if* they can) and place onto heavy transport equipment. Then the costs to hire a heavy hauler with specialized over the road equipment, along with the cost to secure permits, escort vehicles, etc... transport it to Danbury. Then another crane to lift everything off the transport equipment and back onto the rails in Danbury.

Realistically, all told, this project is going is going to cost *at least* $500,000 assuming everything goes according to plan. Picking up and moving big heavy things isn't cheap. Every day a piece of heavy transport equipment and/or driver sits idle waiting for the OK to move costs money. No one is volunteering their time or equipment for this endeavor. Until recently, I worked for a nuclear power plant that had four new 24,000 to 345,000 volt transformers replaced - and the cost to transport these things 7 miles from a deep water port to the plant to their final installation was into the millions. The transformers themselves weighed about 375,000 lbs dry without appurtenances or oil - and there were no issues of geography or soft soil. Everything was best case scenario.

The Danbury Railway Museum, according to it's last filed IRS 990 form from 2019 (their tax return to to speak) has ~$660,000 in cash and savings... likely more by now - so let's ballpark $700,000'ish. The museum president did say in another article that using their cash/savings to fund this would deplete most of it - leaving little left to fund projects at the museum and draining their rainy day fund. So do they NEED donations to do this? No. They have the money. The donations would replenish their savings account.

If things go wrong during this project - the costs to remediate anything will skyrocket. I'm not exactly sure why the museum is ready to bankrupt itself to save these things.

The clock is ticking. These things need to be removed from the property ASAP. At some point the Port of Albany and the project contractors will run out of patience and scrap these things themselves. They still need a transport company and a plan to get these things down to Danbury. This all takes time and a LOT of money.

That’s a rather interesting outlook after the first positive movement towards safety these locomotives have made in decades.

DRM mentions a financial backer by name in the article. If I remember right from previous posts, he pledged $500k towards the move himself but I could be wrong in remembering that.

If the museum didn’t think they could be saved, why bother paying to move them just a few hundred feet? Why wouldn’t they scrap them where they lie and get money from them that way? Or better yet, why move them to a location where they weren’t safe just to have to pay to move them again or scrap them at that point?

I work in trucking and I understand the intricacies of specialized oversized transport. Each and every contractor that touches this or any other transport is going to be heavily insured, I think the risks to DRM are pretty well mitigated as they aren’t the one’s physically doing anything here. Even for traditional, non-specialized, not heavy-haul trucking companies the FMCSA minimum insurance requirement is $750k In coverage and the vast majority of shippers/brokers are going to require at least $1mil minimum coverage. I assure you that specialized transport companies have much higher coverage.

Your comparison of these locomotives to your transformers is a bit of a stretch too. Tell me Nessman, how many pieces were those transformers cut into? I’ve seen those type of moves and they usually require a sizable fleet of utility company trucks to raise wires for the load to pass by which adds to the transport cost, they’re also significantly wider than a locomotive which is why they move on modular hydraulic platform trailers versus more traditional lowboy style trailers. These locomotives should not be over height once disassembled. Over weight and width yes, but still easily doable with just pilot cars. I see new passenger cars being transported down I87 weekly with nothing more than a rear pilot car and those are significantly longer than even the T motor. There’s heavy equipment on site now that came in via truck that is taller, wider, and likely heavier than what the pieces of these locomotives should weigh leaving.

These locomotives are in an ideal situation to be moved. The soft soil and access problems are gone, they’re bringing in thousands of loads of stone onto that island and they’re building a road specifically for moving these locomotives, how much better conditions could a transporter ask for?

Will these be cheap to move? Of course not. Will it be a pointless effort that will only bankrupt DRM? Not even close.

I have no horse in the fight, but I'll just say this - when I see these things get moved, I'll actually believe it.

Honestly, I hope it works out and these motors get saved. I'm rooting for DRM to get them on their property. But the skeptic in me makes me have doubts. I've just seen so many things happen over the years w/ railroad preservation to only see them fall through.

Hope I'm wrong.

Charlie

Littlefoot14 wrote: ↑Thu Jan 05, 2023 6:40 pm DRM mentions a financial backer by name in the article. If I remember right from previous posts, he pledged $500k towards the move himself but I could be wrong in remembering that.

He offered a loan (unspecified amount) that needs to be paid back.

If the museum didn’t think they could be saved, why bother paying to move them just a few hundred feet? Why wouldn’t they scrap them where they lie and get money from them that way? Or better yet, why move them to a location where they weren’t safe just to have to pay to move them again or scrap them at that point?

It was a last ditch desperate attempt to move them out of the way before they were scrapped.

I work in trucking and I understand the intricacies of specialized oversized transport. Each and every contractor that touches this or any other transport is going to be heavily insured, I think the risks to DRM are pretty well mitigated as they aren’t the one’s physically doing anything here. Even for traditional, non-specialized, not heavy-haul trucking companies the FMCSA minimum insurance requirement is $750k In coverage and the vast majority of shippers/brokers are going to require at least $1mil minimum coverage. I assure you that specialized transport companies have much higher coverage.

True. But they ain't touching nothing until they know they're getting paid by the museum.

Your comparison of these locomotives to your transformers is a bit of a stretch too. Tell me Nessman, how many pieces were those transformers cut into? I’ve seen those type of moves and they usually require a sizable fleet of utility company trucks to raise wires for the load to pass by which adds to the transport cost, they’re also significantly wider than a locomotive which is why they move on modular hydraulic platform trailers versus more traditional lowboy style trailers. These locomotives should not be over height once disassembled. Over weight and width yes, but still easily doable with just pilot cars. I see new passenger cars being transported down I87 weekly with nothing more than a rear pilot car and those are significantly longer than even the T motor. There’s heavy equipment on site now that came in via truck that is taller, wider, and likely heavier than what the pieces of these locomotives should weigh leaving.

Transformers were moved on the hydraulic platforms, but on their sides... then once they were on site, they were up-righted prior to being moved to the transformer pads. But these were also designed for that with lifting lugs installed specifically for these moves.

These are 100+ yr old locomotives and who knows how they're going to behave once they start moving them around with a crane after sitting out in the elements for the last 40 years. Do they even have lifting points?

These locomotives are in an ideal situation to be moved. The soft soil and access problems are gone, they’re bringing in thousands of loads of stone onto that island and they’re building a road specifically for moving these locomotives, how much better conditions could a transporter ask for?

The road isn't being built to move the locomotives. It's being built as part of the overall site plan.

The Nevada Northern moved an Alco diesel 900 miles over the highway system in 2021, I have no idea what it cost. Plenty of articles, pictures and videos out there. Start with Trains or just google Nevada Northern Railway diesel highway trip. Yes, there are better roads out west with higher clearances than in the east but seems very feasible to make this move.

I'd imagine that Alco was on live rails and easy to move to a transload area for OTR transport. Once these things are on heavy haul equipment - the move should be fairly straightforward.

The OTR move for 2 locomotives (including the Alco) cost $350,000.

https://www.trains.com/trn/news-reviews ... s-journey/
https://www.trains.com/trn/news-reviews ... y-diesels/

Any updates?

Last I heard from my contact on the site was that the access road still wasn’t completed. That was only a few weeks ago.