The 712 was a bit of an unwanted stepchild at the Junction, from the start.

Officially, it was not sought from the Union Pacific by the official management structure or the Board of Directors of BAERA for the museum, even though as the last Sacramento Northern locomotive, it did indeed fall within the scope of the Mission Statement.

UP donated it to BAERA for the museum; after a member wrote a letter on his own, unofficially, suggesting it should be preserved.

After the BAERA BOD made the decision, without member input or support, to focus the efforts on the electric side of railroading, they took a few steps to make the Junction unattractive to those "certain" people. First was to end all support for the Steam Department projects. Second was to deaccession items such as steam and certain diesel locomotives from the collection. Third was to end operations of the Prairie train, even though it had been profitable and supported overall Museum funding, despite stilted accounting methods.

Yes, the Workers left the Junction and went on with their lives. BAERA's loss in the long run. Today it has a greying demographic in membership, volunteers and more.

The trade with Portola was an opportunity for both organizations. BAERA got to get rid of distractions, such as the SN 712, which would keep minded-like people away from the Junction. Portola got some nice additions to their collection such as the WP F7 917, SN 712 and more.

But from the Party crowd side of the coin, it was always the objective to make the "bad" people go away. They couldn't admit it then and never would/will, ever to this day.