Mason, you said
"Malignant neglect, as you phrase it, is contradictory in itself, since 'malignant' means passionately and relentlessly malevolent, and aggressively malicious, which adjectives are rather directly opposed to the concept of neglect. And the "last" Mason-bogie (it wasn't) at Ames, like the engines at Pocatello, weren't scrapped in 1942 so much out of neglect as wartime paranoia; were it not for the 1942 scrap-drive hysteria, numerous old narrow gauge beasties might yet be lying about the countryside. "
You, by your bring up my apparent contradiction, have just justified my statement. The City of Dallas begged for a T&P 2-10-4 for many years. The T&P presented this locomotive to the city. Later, within a couple of years, the T&P had to cut the locomotive up, the T&P 638 because of the heavy vandalization. Malignant Neglect.
Many cities, because of the Asbestos Hysteria are actively avioding doing anything having to do with preservation because of fear of lawsuits. There are actual instances where cities have tried to give locomotives BACK to the railroads that donated them 40+ years ago.
I restate, if one can have "Benign neglect" then one can also have "Malignant neglect" by consciously avoiding any repair or preservation.
As said by definition, an active ignoring of the preservation problems associated with steam locomotives.
Second, perhaps I should have said "the last example of the most beautiful of all of Mr. Mason's locomotives, the 2-6-6T's, and not a locomotive where the gauge was changed from 42" to 56"." There were other locomotives, which were better preserved, which avoided the fate of C&S no. 1 and are with us to this day. I can point to the C&S 71,60 and 9 as examples which were all taken from active service well before World War II and survived the scrap drives jus fine.
Third, as was also pointed out, since you don't have the records of the F&CC, you can't be sure what the 20 has had done to her. Original boiler, probably, but the flues, firebox, tender, cab and running gear were definitely an RGS cobble.
Rick Steele
