Jeffrey, you also came close to losing the Alco PA units as well. I saw one almost every day on SP Train five, the westbound mail train that had once been the name train called the Argonaut. In the early 1960s I did not know that those elegant units were running out their last miles on plug runs like No.5. I only took a couple of photographs of them, but that really didn't matter since I lost all my photographs in a fire 20 years ago.
Today the GP30's, the SD 40s, and their rebuilds are the existing historic engines, and I have to remind myself when I see one go by on a local every now and then that those things are 50 years old now, like the SP moguls were when I was a kid.
But about the preserved steam engines today. There was no orchestrated attempt to save a representative sample at all. In multiple cases, the railroad just pulled the last one off the scrap line that was easy to get to, or chose one that could be easily be gotten into a park, explaining why so many preserved steam engines are medium sized and smaller. And some railroads didn't save anything at all or only a couple. The Missouri Pacific and the KCS only have one preserved steam locomotive each. Historicity didn't mean anything, not one New York Central Hudson was saved despite many, many pleas while there were still some around. The MP In 1950 had been in receivership for years and every ounce of scrap metal from a locomotive got them towards profitability. They came out of it the year after the last steam engine was retired and that probably had something to do with it.
Historians are saying now that, despite there still being a good number of existing steam locomotives inparks, very few are being properly cared for, are deteriorating, and in the relatively foreseeable future most of them will be scrapped instead of saved.
Today the GP30's, the SD 40s, and their rebuilds are the existing historic engines, and I have to remind myself when I see one go by on a local every now and then that those things are 50 years old now, like the SP moguls were when I was a kid.
But about the preserved steam engines today. There was no orchestrated attempt to save a representative sample at all. In multiple cases, the railroad just pulled the last one off the scrap line that was easy to get to, or chose one that could be easily be gotten into a park, explaining why so many preserved steam engines are medium sized and smaller. And some railroads didn't save anything at all or only a couple. The Missouri Pacific and the KCS only have one preserved steam locomotive each. Historicity didn't mean anything, not one New York Central Hudson was saved despite many, many pleas while there were still some around. The MP In 1950 had been in receivership for years and every ounce of scrap metal from a locomotive got them towards profitability. They came out of it the year after the last steam engine was retired and that probably had something to do with it.
Historians are saying now that, despite there still being a good number of existing steam locomotives inparks, very few are being properly cared for, are deteriorating, and in the relatively foreseeable future most of them will be scrapped instead of saved.