Re: K-28s on the WP&Y

The photos I have seen of the K-28's after the war would tend to support the theory that they were not in the best of shape. Let us remember, the Army's equipment got used hard, and probably didn't get the same tender loving care that it might have from the shop crews at Alamosa or Salida.
The photos of equipment stored at the Auburn, Washington Army depot pending sale show some very tired looking equipment, including the hulks of the ex ET&WNC 4-6-0s, and the pair of C&S 2-8-0's. None of them look like they've had a recent overhaul.
The military would not have put money into overhauling locomotives it planned to dispose of as surplus. In 1945 and 1946 there was a very small potential market for 36 inch gauge locomotives.
Questions I think that might be worth looking at are - did the Army offer any or all of the equipment they had on hand to the WP&Y? If so, why did the WP&Y choose to accept some, but not all of it? How much would it have cost to ship any of this equipment from Auburn to a potential buyer?
I think the D&RGW sold the equipment to the military in 1942, so it would have had to buy it back. With the management trying to kill off the remaining narrow gauge mileage, it seems unlikely that the D&RGW would have wanted to buy back the seven K-28's. By 1964, the time the D&RGW *might* have seen having more K-28's as a plus, it was too late, the government had sold them for scrap nearly fifteen years before.
Charlie Mutschler
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