Texas city tries to sell historic 108-foot steam locomotive
Published July 25, 2016
The City is offering the locomotive for sale, but no asking price is stated. Their Request for Proposal is asking respondents to make an offer to purchase the engine. The RFP also asks respondents to explain how they will re-locate, maintain, house, and care for the locomotive; and to also explain how they will educate the public about the locomotive. And with all of this questioning, the City’s RFP makes no mention of what the City expects in regard to these explanations they are asking for. So the RFP implies that the sale will come with lots of strings attached, and yet they do not say exactly what they will require.
For some amount of time, the RFP was being actively offered without any requset for an offer to purchase. So it seemed as if they were trying to hire an independent contractor to maintain the locomotive.
It would be hard enought to know what to bid on the locomotive if it was just being sold outright. I would think that whatever the market value is, it would be much lower if the purchase has all of the City’s conditions attached. And without those conditions being clearly specified by they City, I cannot see how anyone could respond the RFP.
So this is a very strange situation. I spoke to someone from the City who told me that the newpaper article misrepresented the City’s position. I contacted three City Council member by email and phone message asking for clarification. None of them replied.