This was a crime! I'm sure they could have easily given the beast to a museum or something...sad sight to see even after all these years...
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I remember when this unimaginable scrapping occurred....a steam locomotive that survived well into the diesel era being scrapped in the late 80's. The rail fan community was certainly upset when this happened. Sad!
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| Posted by J.PO on July 23, 2017 | |
wow!
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When it comes to preserving history, we Yanks could take some serious lessons from the Brits. Americans often don't know what they've got until it's gone. That a locomotive such as this one could survive into the late 1980s and end up like this is indeed a crime.
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Despite the crude way of scrapping the engine, this is one of the better "cut aways" I've seen that shows the iner-workings of a steam locomotive.
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First he looses CB&Q 5632 due to C&WI's incompetence and then he looses 5629 due to Metra's stubbornness and bureaucratic red tape. It seems Richard Jensen just couldn't get a break in his preservation efforts.
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I believe this is the same photo that was in a 1987 issue of Railfan & Railroad. My understanding, is that Metra, never even built anything on that property after the fact. Jensen was stubborn as well. Your mileage may vary...
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In fairness to Metra, they had tried to contact Jensen several times about this locomotive and warned him several times that it would be seized if he didn't move it or pay back storage charges. For reasons unknown, Jensen never responded and this was the result.
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Before reading the caption I thought I was looking at the aftermath of a boiler explosion.
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Supposedly Metra would have preferred to sell the engine, but they were court-ordered to scrap it. Sad.
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