With all due respect, the figure $1,000,000 is a little high for a narrow gauge engine. I don’t know exactly what narrow gauge means in this context however a 15 year on, say Dan Markoff’s engine would come in at about $25,000 plus labor in my estimation.
An example of how I arrived at this number is predicated on my work on the Glenbrook locomotive. We designed the necessary repairs, hired a professional engineer to review all boiler repairs, UT’ed and ran material tests on those parts that were to be kept, rolled and riveted the two straight courses, the eccentric course, flanged and installed a rear tube sheet, removed the dome and applied a liner, riveted the dome back on, machined from solid a new dome lid, repaired firebox side sheets as needed, applied all new stay bolts in the fire box, made a new dry pipe, installed new tubes, and applied new safety valves. We fabricated new grates, applied new back head fittings, and built a new stack. We applied three new driving axles, made a new cab and pilot. We fabricate a new jacket, applied new lagging. We renewed all piping, some in schedule 80 seamless copper pipe (CPS). We painted and lettered the locomotive. We did this for $263,000 plus labor. Incidentally we also wrote a Form 4 and satisfied the federal requirements however we didn’t contact them at this time.
Typically one wouldn’t do all of this for a 15 year so, if and when we go FRA I don’t anticipate spending anywhere this kind of money. I suppose if you were a suit and all you knew how to do was write checks then perhaps someone could run up the bill but really $1,000,000 is ridiculous. If instead of writing checks you got out and into the shop and got to work, then it would be a lot cheaper.
I guarantee you that Markoff isn’t going to spend even a fraction of $1,000,000 on the Eureka. I certainly wouldn’t.
