Confirmed by several other rail lists and at least one photo, Santa Fe doodlebug M190 has left the California State Rail Museum for a new home in Belen, NM. Should be shipped east on the Transcon, not sure about arrival date.
From a post 1/29/7 on the SANTAFELIST by Charlie Slater retired BNSF (Santa Fe) Conductor: As of today, 1-29-07, the M-190 is sitting in the Bakersfield yard on rack 407. They are on train M STOBAR1 28A and should leave tonight for Barstow where that train will be humped. The two flat cars, KRL 701229 with the trailer and KRL 701218 with the cab, are 7 or 8 cars deep in the train. That train was scheduled to leave Bakersfield last night but those plans were canceled when another train on Tehachapi got a knuckle and shut down the hill. There was a M of W window on both the BNSF and the UP today . These cars should be set out at Barstow, they won't be humped, and leave sometime tomorrow out of Barstow on the M BARABQ train for Albuquerque. The customer is listed as the BNSF and the consignee is the NEWMEXRAIRUN.(New Mexico Rail Runner). My guess it will be fixed up for display somewhere around Albuquerque. Hope this will help in tracking these cars Charlie Slater
Now if we could just rescue ATSF 4-8-4 2925 and 2-10-4 5021 from the rust infested CSRM...................:sad:
Those aren't the only Santa Fe locomotives going to rust there either. Sad thing is there's no museum good enough to take care RR equipment. Recently there was a grassroots movement to preserve one of the Santa Fe Bicentennial 45-2s and NO museum could pass muster.
I've said it before, It's just too big a job for a true museum to handle so much equipment. We're lucky that the CSRRM keeps it from being scrapped in the hopes that someone will preserve it before it rusts to nothing. The Museum itself is a great place.
"The Museum itself is a great place." Yoho Doubt if you would really say that if you could see all the equipment rusting away that's out of the public eye.
Am curious- What was the motivation behind this move? Was it merely preservation of the unit? or? Boxcab E50
As stated in the 2nd post to this thread it's going to the New Mexico Rail Runner probably for their opening day ceremonies.
Yes. I saw that. It seems there has to be more than just this one brief use. The rest of that post reads to be speculative. So, will it's fate thereafter be better than where it was recently stored? Boxcab E50
Here's some pix taken in Sacramento & posted on SoCalRailFan 1/27/7. It's in not such good shape so hope they do a good job restoring it. http://www.socalrailfan.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2247
As of 2/2/7 it was still sitting in Barstow according to Charlie Slatter in a SANTAFELIST post. Here's a pic of it taken in Clovis, NM: http://www.qstation.org/ATSF_Pix/SANTA-FE-M190_MOTOR_UNIT_CLOVIS_NM.jpg
