An ad on page 82 of the January Trains magazine says that a pressure gauge was stolen from the preserved Big Boy at the LA Fairgrounds in Pomona CA.
The ad has a photo of the gauge and contact info for anyone who sees this at a train show or on ebay etc. UPBB4014@yahoo.com
AMENDED POST in 2015: I am bumping up my own old posting because a Big Boy gauge recently became available on Ebay. I have no information that it is one of the stolen items, but those with an interest in the topic may want to take a look:
Make sure this information is made available to e.g. used-brass and railroadiana dealers, since they (legitimately) sell items like this and would be the most likely place to “fence” such material.
People who steal historical artifacts from preserved equipment don’t deserve the title of railfan.
However, reading the above threads, if people dream of having parts, why hasn’t anybody got a group of people together willing to fun a re-casting of replica parts from the real preserved locomotives? It might be expensive, but if people are willing to stoop down to stealing, then mayby they woul be willing to pay. The only obvious drawback I can see is that the replicas would need to be marked so no one could try and sell them as the real thing.
If a preservation group started the effort, who knows. Maybe selling replica parts could turn into a profitable venture.
I think railfans are their own worst enemy. When you go to swap meets anything from builders plates to number boards to control stands can be bought or sold. Are these all purchased legitimately from loco wreckers? While most of us are responsible there are the few that ruin it for the rest, and take their passion to the extreme. Isn’t that why two rare Baldwins ( or are they FM’s? I remember the article in Trains but not sure of the details now ) I think that are privately owned are kept in locked sheds so souvenir hunters don’t strip them? Now nobody can see them because of a reckless few. OK take a bell, but where does it stop?
There used to be several makers of replica builders plates and steam locomotive numbers. They were cast plaster but painted and weathered very realistically. Sometimes you had to pick them up to know they were not fake. These days I supposed resins would be used for greater durability (the plaster replicas shattered if dropped, and they tended to chip). Since there seems to be no decrease in the interest in steam locomotive collectibles, I am surprised these aren’t still available.
I am a bit too “young” (!!!) to have a real memory of working steam but I am not too young to have lived through the era when the nation’s scrap yards were still dealing with trying to scrap a half century’s worth of steam locomotives. Back in the 1960s there were plenty of legit steam artifacts for sale – bells, headlights, whistles, and so on. Have you ever seen a steam locomotive headlight on a table? They are huge. Everything about steam is huge – there are not many collectibles that can be readily picked up and walked away with.
I have seen steam pressure gauges for sale at swap meets. Because to my untrained eye they look exactly like a pressure gauge you might see on an old junior high school heating boiler I had no interest in them.
One pity is that things like that gauge might eventually be needed by the UP to keep its steam locomotives in operation.
Dave Nelson
Not only are train items stolen, but depots are stripped any time a railroad gives up a building. I’ve been restoring a depot and items are missing out of it including some items which were taken after I had received the deed to the building.
Most likely some one took some thing easily removed and of no real value to them. It makes the randomness of the “attack” even more criminal in my mind. My guess is that the artifact will never show up on a re-sale table, but will remain in some sick SOB’s closet where it will provide cheap thrills of the theft.
There’s also another alternative for very realistic-looking replicas. High-density foam can be routed on a computer-controlled router, then have liquid finishes applied to mimic the look of almost any metal. I’ve seen some of the products, and I wouldn’t know the difference without picking them up. They should be more durable and more forgiving of abuse than plaster.
I visited that Big Boy (www.trainweb.org/rlhs) a few weeks ago here in the LA area. The steam pressure gauge is still there, I believe it was the steam heat pressure gauge that was stolen. None-the-less, still an irreplaceable item [:(] and really sucks that someone would stoop that low. From what I understand, this happens all too often. (steam gauge up in Oregon earlier this year ?)
When the 3751 (www.sbrhs.org) crew puts that beauty to bed here in LA, they remove all the JEWELRY as they call it - the cab gauges, running lights, builder plates, probably anything that isn’t welded or securely mounted down, including the whistle. Unfortunately, the 3751 sits outside with a tarp over it, though it’s a bit more secure behind Amtrak’s fenced in area.
The museum I help out near San Diego - the Pacific Southwest Railway Museum (www.psrm.org) had 5 (?) diesel locomotive horns stolen one nite early this year. Believe that’s becoming more rampant - truckers are installing those horns on the trucks.
The Orange Empire Railway Museum (www.oerm.org) made a plastic replica of the builders plate from their VC2 2-6-2 and sold them as souvenirs to raise $ for the rebuild. Great idea !! Now I have a replica plate sitting on my desk knowing that I helped to preserve live steam !!
Maybe the *** had a big air compressor and put it on that, just leave stuff alone, whoever you are!!![:(!][V][:(][:O][][banghead][censored][|(][soapbox][tdn]
It’s this kind of theft which drives display owners and museums to close cabs from the general public.
A shame. I’ve never seen the inside of a Big Boy cab, except for pictures, and it would be nice to sit on the engineer’s seat just to get a feel for the view.
A couple of museums I have talked to have had the kinds of thefts spoken of above. They tiredly replace builder’s plates with replicas… which get stolen.
][banghead][censored][|(][soapbox][tdn]