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<p>[quote user="Thomas 9011"]</p> <p> <blockquote> <div><img src="/TRCCS/Themes/trc/images/icon-quote.gif" /> <strong>Bucyrus:</strong></div> <div></div> <p> </p> <blockquote> <div><img src="/TRCCS/Themes/trc/images/icon-quote.gif" /> <strong>Tom Elmore:</strong></div> <div> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-family:verdana,geneva;"><span style="font-size:small;">Seems that I recall one of the old ATSF engine men telling me perhaps 15-or-so years back -- around the time the San Bernadino 4-8-4 was brought to Topeka for Railroad Days -- that the boilers on the Big Hudsons were not suitable for rebuild. Something about high Nickel content in the alloy making them brittle. <br /><br />Suffice it to say that the whole business strikes me as the inexplicable effort of a sadly unimaginative and manifestly uncommitted nonprofit and a typical city government to rid themselves of an irreplaceable treasure which "looks for all the world like an old rusty boat anchor to them."<br /><br />Hard to believe that a city that partly spawned a giant like the ATSF would be so devoid of faith and vision. However -- Topeka, for several decades now by my observation, has been unable to shake this affliction.</span></span></p> <div style="clear:both;"></div> <p> </p> </div> </blockquote> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-family:verdana,geneva;"><span style="font-size:small;">Very well said, Tom.  I believe the city and particularly the Great Overland Station has become so imbued with the green movement that they are ashamed of the big ATSF Hudson.  They see it as a powerful symbol of the coal-fired age, and they don't want to be reminded of that.  So they are sending the locomotive off to have its image cleaned up.  </span></span></p> <div style="clear:both;"></div> <p> </p> </blockquote> </p> <p> </p> <p>The easiest and fastest way to get a city to sell a locomotive to you is to tell them that it is full of asbestos that is oozing out of rust holes and joints. Let me tell you they will sign that locomotive to you faster then the ink can dry.</p> <div style="clear:both;"></div> <p>[/quote]</p> <p> </p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva;"><span style="font-size: small;">As I understand it, in about 1990, the city gave the locomotive to a group for the purpose of that group restoring the locomotive to operation.  So the city was not trying to get rid of an eysore or dangerous liability.  Instead, they were supporting a plan to fully restore the locomotive for at least proper cosmetic display, and possibly to operation. </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva;"><span style="font-size: small;">The group (later called The Great Overland Station) receiving the locomotive from the city had a secondary group who were restoring the locomotive.  GOS lost interest in restoring the locomotive when they acquired the Union Pacific depot.  Then they prevented the group doing the restoration on the locomotive from continuing work because of liability concerns.  Then the gave the locomotive to the Minneapolis group to be used as a test bed for a modern locomotive concept.  </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family: verdana,geneva;"><span style="font-size: small;">Great Overland Station had no stake in the locomotive, and apparenly no interest in it, so they gave it away.  It makes you wonder why they acquired it in the first place.   </span></span></p> <p>   </p>
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