Re: Omaha Zoo Railroad

I was lucky enough to spend 40 years in the zoo business and had a number of conversations with Lee "Doc" Simmons, the director of the zoo at the time the locomotive arrived. I'm not sure I remember the story correctly, but it seems that he told me an Austrian visitor to the zoo admired the railroad and told Lee that he thought he had a locomotive that would fit the rails. Time passed and the conversation went deep into the rear of Dr. Simmons's mind. Then one day he got a call from Houston wanting to know what to do with this locomotive they had just unloaded from a ship. It was a bit of a surprise and he was afraid he now had an expensive shipment ahead for a locomotive that wouldn't run on his rails, but it turned out to be just perfect!