Economics of restoring a locomotive

The one thing that stops a lot of restoration of old locomotives is the perceived cost of doing so. The talk about the 169 is a prime example. It does cost money and lots of it. However, some of the figures I have seen thrown about are downright huge and from my experience unreasonable.

In restoring Eureka, I took it one component at a time and paid for the material as I went along. The biggest expense is labor. But I did most of that myself. Everything else is comparatively reasonable. If skilled volunteer labor is available that is the main thing. If donations of equipment and material can be had, then that takes care of another relatively big item. But, none of it is impossible. Gads! if a backyard hon yock like me can do it so can others. And they have.

Now if you are lucky to get the project done,(and you must really be dedicated to do it) what are you going to do with it? Lots of folks think a fortune can be made from restoring a historic piece. Not so. You have to do the project for the love of it. It is like having a boat or an airplane. They too are not rational economic items. What can be done is to hopefully make expenses such as cost of transportation and insurance. These historic artifacts are run on a very limited basis and therefore are not continual revenue makers. However, with videos, and other stuff, that can provide some modest revenue.

So if anyone is inclined to restore an historic locomotive of modest size, then have at it. It is an adventure of a lifetime, a lot of hard work, but it can be done. But ya gotta start and not be frightened by some of the wild prices thrown around. Unless you have cubic bucks, hiring someone to do the job will usually kill the project before it gets started.

My 2 cents.

Dan Markoff