Railroad Forums 

  • How would YOU save an Alco from scrapping?

  • Discussion of products from the American Locomotive Company. A web site with current Alco 251 information can be found here: Fairbanks-Morse/Alco 251.
Discussion of products from the American Locomotive Company. A web site with current Alco 251 information can be found here: Fairbanks-Morse/Alco 251.

Moderator: Alcoman

 #236237  by RS-3
 
Don't know. That would depend on a lot of factors. What was being saved, its historical importance, its relationship to the group and area, its condition, its need, its "want" factor, its cost to get it, the funds available to get it, the funds to maintain it, the goals of the group, the people available to take care of it, etc. All decisions to be made by the group doing the acquiring. Will some over reach? Sure. But I think its better to have too many reaching than too few. Frankly its not my place to say who should and should not try to acquire stuff.

GM

 #236243  by EDM5970
 
So, I have 360 plus tons of hypotheticals? I guess the damage and stolen parts are hypothetical as well.

And all three were runners (or very close) when purchased. One of them even paid my mortgage for a year. If it had been a two year lease it would have paid for itself.

 #238362  by MTFR 62
 
In June 2005 I had heard GE Railcar in Waterloo IA was going to scrap their 1990,an ALCO S1. I asked their General Manager if they would be interested in donating the unit to a local rail museum, he was willing to donate it. In October GE formally donated the locomotive to the Hub City Heritage Museum in Oelwein IA. After that time was spent addressing mechanical issues and the air brake system. It has friction bearings so a request for a waiver for movement was sent to the Federal Railroad Administration in December. By January the FRA had approved the move. We asked the Canadian National to come inspect it so it could be
moved across town to the Iowa Northern Railway. They could not inspect it until it was billed. This took a few more weeks with lots of phone calls and e mails. By mid March the CN Trainmaster said it could be pulled.
A week went by and it still hadn't shown up at the IANR interchange, and no yardmaster or the GE plant manager knew why. A few days later another yardmaster said it had safety appliance issues and could not be moved. So I had to straighten 2 bent handrails and the CN mechanical guy gave his ok but felt it should be moved by itself. It took a few weeks for the CN switch engine to find time to make this move but Tuesday they delivered it to the IANR. The IANR will move it to Oelwein next week.

 #238431  by nessman
 
How much did the move cost the museum?

 #238595  by MTFR 62
 
It did not cost the museum anything. Iowa Northern donated transportation over its portion. I could not talk the CN into free,
they agreed at their switching rate of moving a car from GE to the Iowa Northern. GE Railcar agreed to pay this.

 #238600  by nessman
 
That's great! That's a true success story. Free is a beautiful thing.

I've heard so many times that Museum X paid 5-figures to save an engine (cost of the engine itself, moving/switching, etc...) and the damn thing would just sit outside for years and years and deteriorate to the point where the best option would be to scrap it - or even worse, just let it continue to sit outside for even longer.