Hi Jim and George,
I've been following your revial of the #19 and was wonder if anyone has made serious thoughts to beating the bushes for donation of new prime movers?
Following, you've recently done research on the prime movers and traction motors, you must have collected the orginal specs somewhere. I would suggest looking at original performance figure for the generators/motors and subtract 10 to 20 % for age. Then look for common industrial turbo diesel engines that easy meet these figures. Think of common high profile names like catapilar and cummins, look at applications in farm equipment and such and make a list of about 5 prime movers that would meet the bill.
Next would be get someone with time and a telephone and contact catapilar, john deer, cummins and the like and seek the donation of two new or used engines. Imagine the PR possiblility of the #19 storming up Cumbres freshly painted with on the cab "Powered by Catapilar". Other possiblilites would be Diesel Mechanic Schools, Votec schools large mining or trucking companies. Now that C&TS and all have non-profit statis the companies can write it off not to mention free advertising....
Naturally the next step would be to seek similar resources to rewind the generators and traction motors....the advantage of the #19 is that there are many more people involved in the technology. I think the friends could use somebody that becomes permanent scrounge artist that ACTIVELY seeks specific donations of specific items. I see examples of highly organized preservation groups here in Europe that may be small but think big and present themselves as professional and successful as the friends are. Much luck, eventually I will be there to work with the Friends but now I can only offer inspiration and ideas.
Narrow Gauger in Bavarian Exile
Thor W. Windbergs BSME
