In the month since FEBT announced our intent to find the funds needed to bid on one or both of these unique pieces of the EBT’s heritage, we have received over $10,500 provided by 67 donors to “bring 18 and 29 home.” (In the same period we have also received over $3,750 from 51 other donors to support our general restoration program.) If your contribution was among the 118 donations we received since early May or among the several hundred previous donations we received since we launched our fund-raising campaign last August, please accept our thanks for the important support you have provided to Friends of the East Broad Top.
However, the funds we now have on hand are not yet enough to support a realistic effort to acquire one or both of the EBT passenger cars in Colorado and to continue our progress on the other projects now incorporated in our restoration program. If you have not already contributed to our current fund-raising campaign, we need your financial support now to “bring 18 & 29 home.” We will also welcome additional contributions if you have already given a donation to our ongoing fund-raising campaign. Since the resources in our hands before July 20 will determine how seriously we will participate in the auction of EBT 18 & 29, we do not have much more time. And, unfortunately, we cannot now state a dollar amount that will assure our success. We simply cannot know until the actual sale what each former EBT passenger car will cost the winning bidder.
On the other hand, we do know that the additional expenditures required to transport and store one or both cars now in Colorado will not be cheap. The most recent estimate for transporting one of these cars from Fort Lupton to Rockhill Furnace, Pennsylvania, is $6,500. (The East Broad Top Railroad has agreed in principle to provide space on an outdoor yard track if we successfully acquire EBT 18 or 29-or both.) Since one end platform was removed from each car for the trip to its present location, we expect to incur immediate cos