The 'Argentina' Rescue Fund

[Anonymous]

Dear All,

The 'Argentina' Rescue Fund has been setup to raise the £10000 (approx $19000) required to move Ing.L.D.Porta's very first locomotive, 4-8-0 'Argentina' to safe storage in Buenos Aires. Currently the locomotive is prey to thieves in the north-west Argentine city of Tucumán.

The fund has a webpage in several languages:

English: http://www.martynbane.co.uk/argentina.htm
Spanish: http://www.martynbane.co.uk/argentinaesp.htm
German: http://www.martynbane.co.uk/argentinade.htm

The page contains more information on the fund, the locomotive and links to related articles etc.

French will be available soon.

USA residents might like to pay special attention to the news page as a generous dollar-matching pledge has been made by John Johnston. So to all readers in the USA PLEASE help to bring in an additional 1000USD for the Fund. Details of the pledge are here: http://www.martynbane.co.uk/fundnews.htm#jj

In addition it is of great significance that Shaun McMahon has started to work on the preliminary engineering work required to return the locomotive to service. This work is voluntary and a great sign of the importance and confidence those who worked directly with Ing. L.D. Porta have in future of ‘Argentina’.

Details are also provided on the news page of the press and online coverage the fund is receiving. More is to follow soon.

The rescue of the locomotive is the first stage of a plan to return 'Argentina' to service as a demonstrator of Porta's technology.

Please forward this mail to anyone you know who you think might be interested wherever in the world they may be. I will, of course, welcome suggestions on how to spread the word.

Many thanks,

Martyn Bane

[e-mail]
www.martynbane.co.uk/argentina.htm

[M636C]

Martyn,

I assume this proposal is being carried out in conjunction with the railway enthusiast groups in Argentina. They have well established museum wokshops in Buenos Aires, as I found on a visit there in 2003.

Since the locomotive is metre gauge and the majority of track around Buenos Aires is 1676mm gauge, exactly where is it proposed that the locomotive be stored and restored?

Peter

[Anonymous]

Yes Ferroclub Argentino are involved with this - the loco will be stored on one of their sites. The metre gauge does make it all the way into Buenos Aires. At Retiro there is the FC General Belgrano station between the Mitre and San Martin 5'6" stations. The Ferroclub have a depot on the metre gauge so this is where the loco will initially go.

Martyn