Wally,
Check your facts before making blanket statements. The #9 came up to Silver Plume at the start of the 2006 season after having been "restored" by Marlin Uhrich for a cost of only $250,000. There were no specs, no scope of work, no ideas to what level of service it would be at. By most estimations it should have cost anywhere from $500,000 to $700,000 (remember that this was his first full size locomotive.)
There apparently was no qualified supervision with no real thought given as to what the engine would be required to do. The CHS simply hired him and told him to make it run!
Anyway, the engine gets delivered to Silver Plume and immediately Railstar has to scramble just to make it fire properly (along with dozens of other problems) again, he had no experience with oil firing.
During the "restoration" only two or three staybolts were replaced(!) and so, after two weeks, Railstar had to replace 40! They should have been replaced when the boiler was off of the frame!
So, the minute it gets to Railstar and they try to make it run it begins to tear itself apart....no kidding! The timing was all off and (as we all know by now) no real work on the running gear had been done or properly done.
So, when it became clear that the engine was a wreck and could hardly get up and down the railroad the CHS went into shock mode and refused to deal with reality (fancy that!)
After Marlin's "restoration" Railstar only got about 42 days of use and those were not in a row. They were spread over many weeks rebuilding, running, rebuilding, etc... Of course the CHS refused to believe that they and Marlin had done a bad job and so they of course turned on Railstar with thoughts that somehow they mishandled the engine (because the CHS won't ever admit that they screwed up and botched supervising the rebuild!) Now, all the CHS can do is try and sweep it under the rug so as not to call attention to their screw up and try to find the funds to fix the engine properly.
Railstar is NOT in a position to criticise the CHS (obviously) so, unfortunately, Railstar ends up being the bad guys (we warned em!)
This is very nearly verbatim a connect the dots coverstion I had. Just remember that there are many sides to a story. The CHS has it's version that it likes to spin, GTL Inc. and it's former employees have their side.....and Railstar has it's side. I hope you have gleaned some enlightenment from this post.
Oh yes, I almost forgot the best part! The #111 is even now currently undergoing the same type of "restoration" at Uhrich's with the same lack of qualified supervision and lack of plan. It is reasonable to assume that the results should be somewhat similar to what has transpired with #9!
