Does anyone know what externally is done to locomotives before they go into short or Long term storage? Deadlines as well. I’m also considering parts lying around my yard and even locomotives Mid-Rehaul within the shops.
At a minimum, the cooling water will be drained if stored in a location where temperatures may go below freezing. Beyond that, some theft prone appliances (horns, radios, etc.) might get removed depending on how secure the storage location is. If destined for scrap, they will also need to drain oil and fuel.
I think that (maybe) batteries are removed if they’re going to be stored for a period of time. I do seem to remember that BNSF tried literally shrink-wrapping locomotives for a period of time…
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I’m going to do a combination of engines being stored, and a deadline for parts. I might also have cabs welded shut/boarded up. I also might put shrink wrap or covers on the top of an electric Engine I’m gonna store.
exhausts are covered
I usually store them back in their boxes… 
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I was surprised by the word “Mothball”. I learned about “LUGO units” in the October 2016 issue of The BN Expediter. LUGO stands for “Laid Up Good Order”. I found the following photo on the Q-Station website. I wonder if LUGO is a dialect word.
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LUGO is jargon, and I only remember hearing it used within the past few years. Before that, I think it was covered by the term ‘stored serviceable’.
I believe there is a corresponding LUBO corresponding to what used to be called a scrap line, but I doubt anyone uses it seriously.
Does that pic make anyone else kind of sad?
Yes!
Depends on the railroad. LUGO is BNSF. UP uses DS for dead, stored serviceable or DU for dead, stored unserviceable. They sometimes put a good engine in DS status when being moved in a train so that intermediate terminals don’t steal it. Doesn’t always work.
Jeff
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40+ years ago. MR ran a photo of shrink-wrapped locos on the SP. I’ll try to dig it up up; I can’t believe the SP at the time would have had any spare power to shrink-wrap. I think the modeling suggestion involved the use of garbage bags to model the wrap.
Well, here’s a Trains article on storing locos–including shrink-wrapped ones!
I couldn’t find anything on the SP doing it, but using a garbage bag would be a good way to model it. This would actually be the sort of thing to do on my railroad, except I don’t have any spare power either! In case the article doesn’t want to open, here’s the picture:
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