the Henry Ford said that they have sufficient space to house the engines on their property and that they have storage facilities on site to keep the engines during winter. The museum’s Curator of Transportation Matt Anderson said they would be in contact with the private owner, Mr. John P. Kunzie, Matt didn’t mention anything about money or anything though.
The general consensus on RyPN is that it’s best for someone like Mr. Anderson to conduct all the dealings and negotiations with an owner as strictly in private as possible. The only word to feed back to the railfan base is that ‘the engines will be safe’ and that ‘arrangements are proceeding in good faith’. There are at least two recent and painful examples where railfan meddling screwed up a carefully-arranged save plan, and there’s little reason to create more opportunity, especially when something as significant as a Shark is involved.
What you ought to be doing, in my opinion, is setting up general fundraising around the save effort, in appropriate ways that don’t repeat some of the strategic ‘mistakes’ of the past, and directing railfan interest into ways that will facilitate whatever arrangements the museum can arrive at. Ideally the locomotives will be donated (probably for tax advantage as well as goodwill) but there will still be a cost to move them and at least ‘cocoon’ them upon delivery; then another cost to renovate them even for static display. I’m not sure the museum has, or would have a priority to allocate, their own internal endowment or operating funds for those things. And they are critical to assure.
Why not set up a ‘friends of the Sharks’ organization (see the effective ones for a number of steam locomotives, plus the model for the Iron Horse Society at Steamtown, for things to note or watch for) and then make Matt Anderson one of the permanent board members? The single greatest thing that converted the T1 Trust from a bunch of railfans to what it is now was the bringing on board of a wide range of competent and