Some of you may be familiar with this situation. Apparently the owner sold the six mile long line to the municipality for conversion to a bike train, but left the train on it. The owner was trying to sell the still operational F-units for scrap since he claimed that he could not afford to move them.
I certainly hope that at least the locomotives will be saved. It’s seems so ironic, especially considering that there is a railroad museum not to far from the site. Those locomotives could potentially be a welcome addition to tourist/museum lines, like the one at Stone Mountain Georgia or the Florida Railroad Museum.
No responses? I was hoping someone here was familiar with the situation or perhaps does not live too far from where these units are. I know it’s been a few years since I’ve posted regularly on this particular forum, but I do remember that just a few years ago, EMD cab units seemed to be popular for topics here.
The F units are for sale to anyone with cash. Not sure where you got the story that he was selling for scrap. Go Google the Ozark Mountain Rail website. I would not worry about them someone will buy at least one of them. Niether F unit has much historical significance though as they are both listed as ex-C&NW units on that website, I believe…
Let me tell you that all nearby train museums are well aware of the situation with these F units in Stillwater, Minnesota. And the museums would love to acquire these if we could afford it. We run a very tight budget and have no wiggle room for the $100,000 or so that it would cost just to move the locomotives. If someone wants to donate the moving costs and deliver them to our door, that would be great.
Not a week goes by that someone doesn’t stop by the museum and tell us about the Minnesota Zephyr F units and that we should buy them. Museums don’t buy things these days. They accept donations and make do with what they can afford. The cost of doing business as a railroad has gotten so expensive that we must work with what we get.
Ironically, we at the Minnesota Transportation Museum have the shell of an NP F unit that used to sit next to the old NP shops in Energy Park. We have started to restore that shell as a display and hope that will be a nice representation of streamlined locomotives.
And speaking as an engineer, F units are not designed for switching use–which is how most scenic railroads operate. It’s visibility is poor and I don’t really like hanging out the window to see my brakeman.
The scrapping idea was put forth by the owner. One of the F units was on city property without any agreement, and the city wanted it moved. The owner has property in the city, but he did not want to spend $8-10,000 to move the unit to his property when his plans were to sell the unit anyway. So if the owner could not leave the unit on city propery until it sold, he announced that he would scrap it. Although, he said he did not want to scrap it.
In response, the city moved the locomotive to the owner’s property, and billed him for it by placing a special assessment on his property taxes. I suspect that the city could see that if the owner went ahead with scrapping, some amount of public resentment for the historic loss would be directed at the city for “forcing the owner to scrap the engine.”
Can’t the museum write a grant and apply for Federal Funds? I have always wondered how Harry Ried’s Virginia and Truckee can get tens of millions to re-install right of way while other museums can’t even scrape together a few tens of thousands of dollars. Does MN Museum of Transport apply for grants from the Feds? Other museums do. I just have not seen railroad museums do it though.
The museum in Dallas or I should say Frisco now has plans to build a $50-75 million facility, not sure how it will pull in that money given it’s fundraising record. We’ll see though.
Museums like the Minnesota Transportation Museum are writing grants all the time. We have received over $3M in ISTEA and TEA21 grants to restore our roundhouse. These grants typically require a match and that is money we have to spend very carefully. And yes we could write another grant application and redirect or attention toward obtaining a grant, with no guarantee that it will pay off. Organizations must direct their efforts toward things they really need.
Anyone who wants to join us grant writing is welcome to contact our Executive Director and help out.
When you see something like at $50M expenditure for a museum it is always an earmark from a Federal expenditure. These kinds of money are impossible to obtain with normal grants.