Ahh the 4450 .. .. ..

Keep these points in mind:

1) If it was built to begin with, it's restorable. It's just a question of:
2) Money
3) Find someone with the necessary knowlege and skill willing to take on the project and raise the:
4) Money
5) Don't drive off your skilled help while they are making good use of the:
6) Money
7) Not criticising is dangnerous, especially when not criticizing the powers-who-like-to-think they are, because it leaves the doors wide open to selfish misdeeds at the top.
8) 1) through 7) are directed at all RR museums, not just the one in question.
9) Money
10) Anyone who isn't acquaited with the 4450s problems (one of them being that it didn't even have its original trucks when it left the SP but rather a completely worn out and shot set from an SD-7) and who continues to delcare it within reason to restore is howling at the moon.
11) Money
12) If airplanes hadn't been invented, then we'd still have all those passenger trains running around, which means that we wouldn't be bellyaching about trains here but stagecoaches.
13) Money, but don't become so infatuated with the concept that it overshadows the fact that it's a tool to accomplish things at your RR museum, not an end unto itself.

Having run both huff and puff in Pool 2 serval times, it's sad to see it go, but you can't save everything. If you could, then there wouldn't be room for anything else, including you and me.

(Just in case anyone want's to know, I have no opinion as to whether or not Portola should have kept and tried to restore the 4450.)