Chuck,
With respect, I must tell you that when you say that a present day restoration of #6 would be "impossible" is frankly wrong. What is needed to restore #6 is first of all a small core of driven and dedicated volunteers. The restoration of C&H #3 in Lake Linden is a case study. There were many nay sayers. I was the primary mechanical guy on the project so I have plenty first hand experience of rebuilding a narrow gauge locomotive in the copper country. What you need are a group of patient volunteers with a vision of making the 6 run. Persistence and perseverance are required traits for your core group. Financial and mechanical obstacles can be overcome. Boiler issues are among the things we had to deal with. What is difficult to overcome is people's will to NOT do anything. I would suggest also stirring up some enthusiasm with students over at MTU. What you need is determination and you will develop the connections to raise the capital. To a certain degree you can trade time and sweat for money. #3 was rebuilt for around $95,000 and took about 4 years. 6 is a bigger locomotive and will require some bigger tools but this should not be a deterrent. I would think it reasonable that a rebuild of 6 would be reasonable to accomplish in 5-10 years, depending on how hard the volunteers work. What must also happen in parallel is volunteers doing fundraising. This was key with the 3. Then some will worry about where will it run? The obvious question. The obvious answer is that track will have to be built. Those that will build your track are volunteers who are likely not involved yet. Momentum is generated as people see a project coming to life. There are quite a few people on this board who can provide sound mechanical advice and direction. It CAN be done. It can be done in the Keweenaw. The question is who is willing to do the work? Over on RyPN, there's a year long thread reporting on the Catskill Mountain RR progress. I could see similar threads, both there and here, advising how move your project along. People are limited primarily by self-imposed imagined barriers. You have to dream big if you're going to do big things.
I did it. You can too.
Merry Christmas!
Adam Wright
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/24/2012 12:25PM by Adam Wright.
