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City orders Minnesota Zephyr F units to be removed
What is not considered a nuisance these days?
I live right here in town. They moved the cars 1st. Then loaded one locomotive, moved it 600 feet and a beam in the trailer broke. Contractor unloaded it on the spot and left town. Paradeau apparently didn’t have a performance bond with the contractor. After pushing Paradeau to move it the city finally hired another contractor to move it back to Zephyr property.
Never been to Stillwater, MN., but I did just look at it on Google. Real good close up of the pair on “Street View”. It’s all a sad situation, but they are pretty much fish out of water now. I don’t know if they are good for anything anymore, but they are certainly not doing the public any good. And the way it looks, I don’t think they are on private property. They appear to be sitting in a parking lot of some sort.
It does look like they are only 1.5 miles from an active rail line, wouldn’t be that hard to move them…
Never been to Stillwater, MN., but I did just look at it on Google. Real good close up of the pair on “Street View”. It’s all a sad situation, but they are pretty much fish out of water now. I don’t know if they are good for anything anymore, but they are certainly not doing the public any good. And the way it looks, I don’t think they are on private property. They appear to be sitting in a parking lot of some sort.
It does look like they are only 1.5 miles from an active rail line, wouldn’t be that hard to move them…
Two things:
- My understanding is that the two locos are vandalized severely to the point that scrapping is probably their future.
- Who is Paul Marynowych and why does he post nonsensical posts that have no relevance to the topic?
Moderators, this P. Marynowych fellow needs to be closely monitored and either not accept his posts or ban him from the forum if he continues to waste valuable electrons with irrelevant posts.
Hope they don’t end up under the scrap torch.
I’m looking for verification…but my leads tend to indicate Mr. Paul Marynowych is a politician residing in D.C., and making typical political statements!!
another town that thinks it.s heritage is not good for them any more. HOW ON EARTH CAN YOU THINK A PIECE OGF RAILROAD HISTORY IS A NUIANCE ?/!!! just sad. very sad. hope they find good homes and not a torch.
Oh have times changed and not for the better.
Let me get this straight? The honorable Larry Hansen has determined that because trespassers are climbing on private property locomotives and vandals cut open a battery compartment and stole batteries, the inanimate locomotive is a public nuisance and not the good citizens who performed such righteous actions? I hope he applies the same rules to the town statues and town property when someone climbs on them and steals town property that they have the statues removed and the building demolished because they too have become a “public nuisance.”
In a better time (sometimes referred to as the olden days), if someone was trespassing on someone’s property and got hurt from falling in a hole it was the trespasser who was at fault and not the owner for failing to anticipate an irresponsible moron would come on his land and therefore he needed to put up barricades and signs and still be open for a law suit when he fell in. Letting lawyers set a precedence that a person does not have to be responsible for their actions was a wrong move. I submit that suspending lawyers for 3 years in this area will allow Darwin’s law to eradicate said people as a result of their own actions and the world will immediately become a better place because said people will not be here to reproduce.
I nominate the people who wear dark clothing at night and step off the curb (without slowing their stride) into a crosswalk (with a don’t walk illuminated sign) wearing a headset and not looking away from their phone believing they have the right of way and it is up to the driver to spot them with headlight glaring into their eyes and slam on their brakes hoping the car behind them will also stop in time so they “will not be hit.” Any nominations???
My apologies for a rant that started from the possibility that railroad history will get destroyed because protecting the guilty is a virtue and railroad history is not.
Hoosier Valley Railroad Museum posts AmazonSmile.
Larry Gauthier; AMEN
He is probably just a bott.
Rather than send these locomotives to scrap, I wonder if the City of Stillwater and Mr. Paradeau could arrange to donate them to a non-profit such as the Minnesota Transportation Museum or the Friends of 261. Possibly between the two locomotives they could put one together that would run. Has anyone else suggested such a thing?
If I could just get ahold of the shell, it would make a great house.
Mr. Ronczy, the difference is that Mr. Paradeau has pretty much offered them to any taker and none has stepped forward. In the case of 5629, Illinois Railway Museum offered to move it and sort out ownership later, but both Jensen and Metra refused.
The tale of these locomotives has a bit of a parallel to the story of Dick Jensen and GTW 5629. Jensen had long stored the 4-6-2 at Burr Oak Yard (ex-RI). Metra had taken over that part of the yard for a maintenance and storage facility and asked Jensen to move the locomotive. All of the requests were ignored and the locomotive wound up being cut up on the spot. The owner of these two locomotives appears to be behaving in a similar fashion.
Who’s idea was it to leave the locomotives there while the tracks were being removed. The owner is at fault here. Then after the tracks were gone he tried to get them trucked off site. Now I see two locomotives and two pair of trucks separated from the locomotives. A job half done! Had I seen this a month ago I might have been inclined to help move them. As it is Railyard Productions assets are tied up in an upcoming excursion. The railfan community would have to move fast to save these locomotives. Kickstart or some other endeavor. In 1983 I saw an F7 in a scrapyard Denver Colorado. At the time I tried to get some local interest in saving her, alas she met the scrapers torch a year or so later. You only get one chance so if anyone has the money get the ball moving quick.
Its sad but these locomotives are done. Everyone has opinions on how to spend others people’s money rarely do they spend any of their own. Time to call the scrappers.
I’m sure these granola munchers think anything that railroad is an eyesore. They can’t just be content with obtaining the R.R. grade so they can peddle their bikes on.