This locomotive is, in effect, a double Prairie. I recall a quote by Ed Dickens of UP Steam saying something to the effect that restoring the Big Boy was going to be like doing two 800s at the same time.
Hopefully the 1309 operating costs, if they ever actually get this unit reassembled and operational, won’t tip the annual operating budget in to the red.
It is probably too late to lease or acquire a beefy Consolidation such as one of the other LSI units out there or a Mikado such as Frisco 1352 in Cleveland. One of those may not have been such a financial stretch for an organization with a limited revenue budget.