Rick is correct about the former Executive Director at Stuhr. She hated the train operation and the railroad equipment from her first day on the property. She said that the train had nothing do do with the history of Grand Island or the of the plains (the full name of the place is The Stuhr Museum Of The Prairie Pioneer) When she found that she couldn't get rid of it right then and there due to objections of the Board members, she found ways to spend tons of bucks bringing in various consultants to study things to death while doing nothing constructive and delaying any decisions. Then she sould say with a straight face that the museum had gotten along fine without the train for years, and that proved that it didn't need a train. The fact that museum attendance dropped when they stopped the train operation was merely inconvenient.
The 69 has been evaluated by at least 8 different well-known, steam experienced people; a couple of them were brought in again years later to look at it again and prepare yet another report to be filed away and forgotten. It has been partially dismantled (the wheels are out of it, as well as other things) and left that way. Offers by volunteers to work on it or reassemble it or to help in any way have all been repeatedly spurned, to the point that many have simply given up in frustration.
I hope this stuff does end up at good homes. It's painfully obvious that the Stuhr doesn't want it.
I've never heard of their new "expert," but I wonder why it took him 11 months to "evaluate" 35 pieves of equipment, some of which has been evaluated to death already.
