Ed,
You speak to a very important issue in the larger field of historic preservation--be it buildings, ship, cars, battlefield sites, etc., etc., etc.--not just railroad-related artifacts. The point is this: there simply is
not enough manpower and financial resources to preserve, let alone restore, every historical object in the country. Never has been, never will be.
I know this from having worked in building preservation as well as railroad preservation. Professional preservationists make painful choices every day as to what they are going to pour their time, energy, and money into. And they
are painful choices, because you know in your heart of hearts that you are going to lose more than you save. It's a sad reality. So you learn to focus your planning and efforts on that which you can
realistically save, trying always to save those items which best represent an important historic moment in time and/or class of object.
In railroading preservation we are blessed to have the likes of the Nevada Northern, the D&S, the C&TS, and the EBT, splendid examples of the railroading craft. But we have steam locomotives and cars rotting in "museums" all across the country because eyes were bigger than wallets, and too much was saved with little likelihood of it ever being restored and significant risk of it being cut up for scrap.
To a certain extent I think the musings on this forum about "We should save this!" and "We should restore that to operating condition!" are nothing more than irrational, non-productive pipe dreams that ignore the realities of historic preservation. Does every former Rio Grande n.g. locomotive have to be restored to operating condition? Of course not. It would be a waste of precious resources because it does not support the core mission. We're not here to create personal play toys; we are here to tell a story. What you would spend on restoring a K-class to operating condition would buy one hell of a media advertising campaign. I contend that the advertising effort is far more important to sustaining what we purport to believe in than restoring still another locomotive that we really don't need as an operating piece of equipment to fulfill our mission.
Look at the D&S. Advertises like crazy and packs its trains, even though they are an 8-hour drive from anywhere of importance. I have friends who own and operate the Canon City & Royal Gorge; they pop for the big-time media advertising, and their trains are booked solid, even the premium-fare dinner trains. Wouldn't it be wonderful if we had those kinds of advertising dollars to drop on the C&TS or the EBT or the Nevada Northern? Actually, if I had those mythical $3 million, I'd drop them on the EBT for advertising, before the railroad disappears into the earth. It's one of our most important national historic treasures--and the most endangered. If you have people coming in droves to rides your trains, then maybe you will have the dollars to spend on another locomotive restoration. If, however, you blow your bank account on restoring a locomotive and then have to just wait around for people to show up to ride your train because you have no advertising budget left, what have you gained? I would imaging that, if you could get them to be honest about it, the fellows that restored the #315 will tell you that the effort was a labor of love--and an absolutely lousy business model.
I am a romantic to the core. But the older I get (warning Russ--I'm gaining on you!), the more I realize you absolutely have to look in your wallet before you step out the front door. That's reality, unpleasant as it is.
Methinks that this rail preservation business would be better off with more MBAs and fewer railfans on boards of directors.
Mike
