$1.5 Billion Dollars: What would you restore?

I would have the PRR K4s #1361 rebuilt. (maybe a few mil. to the T-1 trust)

First Thing............................................I'd buy a short line railroad! 

Regards,

Swafford

2nd thing........................... I'd do buy $500,000.00 in NS stock to help block the CP / NS merger!

Regards,

Swafford

Restore Old Rivets, #4800.  Help Penn-Pacific with the K4.  Get, at least, one GG-1 to working order ($$$$$).  Provide funding to the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania.  Find some ground and recreate the Carolwood Pacific RR.  Right, that's gonna happen.  BUT, thinking about the possibilities is more fun than just burning two twenties.

This is a fun question...

First I'd love to get a California Zephyr dome observation car and have it rebuilt and ready for Amtrak service. Then take some trips hitched on the back of a few Amtrak routes. 

Second, I'd contact Union Pacific and offer to buy the 3985 and then get it running again.

Last, I'd take a trip to Union, Illinois to talk with the folks at the Illinois Railway Museum and get the RDC there up and running.

1st. $2,000,000 for grandson but not until he turns 25

2.   Same for daughter but like 5000 a month.

3.  The Railroad Museum in Sioux City 5,000,000

4.  5,000,000 to alma mater with No Naming rights

a couple of the wife's charity interests

waste some on new house, car, three blonds but then again jus' dreamin'.

Dick

NYC L3 Mohawk at the NYC museum.  Any New England steam still left.  I would also like to purchase what's left of the Boston & Albany from CSX and run it as a short line.

New wife.

I like the way you guys think!

Regards,

Swafford

I like this! 

1) Buy a second home next door to mine, connect the two, then have the new house just one HUGE layout!

2) Buy a private car to travel the USA by train!

3) Donate a lot of money to Steamtown to get 4012 and 759 running

4) Donate a lot of money to animal protection charities

5) Buy a drumset like the one they use in Rush!

Great topic!

East Broad Top Coal and Railroad Co.

Jan

New girlfriends.

Seriously, I think a couple mil would go to restoring our Harriman ten wheeler and Consolidation.  I think I would also chip in for a restored "Carriso Gorge" observation car.

Then I would have all my stuff restored, buy a house in Rancho Santa Fe for the Greek, and then fund a foundation.

But I don't gamble - I did not buy a ticket.

On a serious note.......................3rd but should be number 1 really............................set up a trust with $100,000,000.00 for all the homeless veterans in the USA and provide housing or apartments for the homeless veterans.

God Bless America,

Swafford

That's easy, 1361.

Brad

There are no train things I would restore.....I would look into (and have a financial analyst look at) how crazy it would be to set up a model train company to make conventional trains, locomotives and cars,  in an assortment of variations only existing in HO.  There would be quite a number i would NOT make.  (but most of those have been made, again and again and again and....)

As to "restoring" things, I would turn my attention to two or three vintage cars, and maybe acquire one or two not now thought affordable.  (I wonder what ever happened to that 16 cylinder Marmon coupe that showed up at a meet in Red Boiling Springs, Tenn., years ago, or its sister, a 16 cylinder Victoria shown in Ft. Wayne that was driven through WII with no plugs in one bank)

I would get a very expensive professional paint job done on my daily driver, that was only available in one awful noncolor.  (as an impolite gesture to the idiot manufacturer, I might get it painted 2015 Ford Mustang bright yellow, and grin every time I took it into the dealer for service...I am more likely to get it painted the beautiful color that was on my previous car)  Unfortunately, today, $900Million is probably not enough to start your own auto and truck mfr. Wonder what it cost Tesla?

I would see if I could get a building built on a college campus and named after my mother and grandparents (who gave me my first train) with legal mandate that their name would remain on that building and its successors perpetually.  An art building for my mother, or an agricultural building for my grandparents.....

They would do as starters in Fantasy Land...and I might make a large political donation, and set up a trust that would perpetually make donations to insure that certain constitutional rights were not infringed.

I would help The RMLI get LIRR 39 to meet its fundraising goal to be fully restored at Strasburg.

Then I would get with Scott Mann and invest some $$$ so he could make some LIRR P54's and P72's in multiple color schemes so us LIRR fans can have some proper cars to run with our locos!

I would certainly restore the 2101 and 20 or so passenger cars back to their colors of the Chessie Steam Special, as well as the 1218 and 614. Oh, and I would buy that Wurlitzer 153 Carousel Band Organ I want. 

K4s #1361, right after I buy the Altoona Railroaders Museum and put all those incompetents out of work.

George

If we're going to be dreaming, I'd love to see 1601 run under her own steam.  I somehow doubt the $500 million or so, after taxes would be enough.  In any case The Henry Ford in Dearborn would get a nice, fat, chunk of change.  

JGL 

Edit.  Since posting this I did some homework, and it appears restorations to running condition are much less expensive than I had thought, even on large steam with lots of work to be done.  Sounds like fun to me.  

Really fun question!  I would buy some significant track mileage - 100 miles or so and get it renovated, enough to stretch the legs of any big steam that I could get my hands on.  Next I would buy one of the remaining Alleghenies and a bunch of freight cars.  Then I would hire a bunch of folks that knew what they were doing to restore it all and run the Allegheny pulling the freight from one end of the trackage to the other for anyone that wanted to watch.  Then I would turn it around and run it back the other way.  

#1 give 10% to the church. #2 get the Arizona SF 4-8-4 finished. #3 get 3rd Rail to produce SSW 819 and T&P 610 models. Then food banks, St. Jude, Salvation Army, and family. Then ????? bet I can find soooooommmmethinggggg else .

I would buy a real PRR 0-6-0 and an ex-PRR cabin car, buy all the houses on my block, lay track and go back and forth all day long. 

Tom

Nothing train related but set up a trust fund for my entire family. 

If you figure about  1 million dollars per steam engine restoration, you could restore 200 steam engines.  I won't list that many, but:

1. I would purchase the section of Kansas & Oklahoma Railroad track between Newton and Hesston KS.

2. Buy some property along the track, build a station, 4 stall roundhouse and a turntable.

3. Acquire and restore AT&SF FP45 #93 to operation.

4. Acquire and restore AT&SF 2-6-2 #1880 to operation.

5. Buy several passenger cars.

6. Acquire and restore AT&SF 2-8-0 #2542 to operation.

7. Acquire and restore Rock Island RS-1 #743 to operation.

8. Acquire and restore Rock Island 4-6-2 #887 to operation.

9. Add an additional 3 stalls to the roundhouse for the diesels, and use one stall for maintenance and restoration.

10. Build a 2 track display shed next to the depot.

11. Acquire and cosmetically restore Missouri Pacific 4-6-0 #2522 and put on display under the train shed (it's in too poor shape for restoration to operation).

12. Acquire and restore AT&SF 2-8-0 #735 to operation.

13. Acquire and restore SLSF 2-10-0 #1615 to operation.

14. Acquire and cosmetically restore UP 2-10-2 #5511 and put on display under the train shed.

15. Donate money to the Eureka Springs and North Arkansas Railroad so they can restore 2-6-0 #201.

The list could go on and on.

I have found that if you know what you would do with that much money it will not happen.

ATSF Doug posted:

If you figure about  1 million dollars per steam engine restoration, you could restore 200 steam engines.  I won't list that many, but:

1. I would purchase the section of Kansas & Oklahoma Railroad track between Newton and Hesston KS.

2. Buy some property along the track, build a station, 4 stall roundhouse and a turntable.

3. Acquire and restore AT&SF FP45 #93 to operation.

4. Acquire and restore AT&SF 2-6-2 #1880 to operation.

5. Buy several passenger cars.

6. Acquire and restore AT&SF 2-8-0 #2542 to operation.

7. Acquire and restore Rock Island RS-1 #743 to operation.

8. Acquire and restore Rock Island 4-6-2 #887 to operation.

9. Add an additional 3 stalls to the roundhouse for the diesels, and use one stall for maintenance and restoration.

10. Build a 2 track display shed next to the depot.

11. Acquire and cosmetically restore Missouri Pacific 4-6-0 #2522 and put on display under the train shed (it's in too poor shape for restoration to operation).

12. Acquire and restore AT&SF 2-8-0 #735 to operation.

13. Acquire and restore SLSF 2-10-0 #1615 to operation.

14. Acquire and cosmetically restore UP 2-10-2 #5511 and put on display under the train shed.

15. Donate money to the Eureka Springs and North Arkansas Railroad so they can restore 2-6-0 #201.

The list could go on and on.

Oops I thought the Powerball was 200 million, so I guess you could restore 900 steam engines.

With $900 million, what would I restore?

My sanity...

One thing I forgot, some actual NKP passenger cars in the blue and white scheme. They would look awesome behind the 759 I restored in the last post. And, why not? I'd buy a GP10 from sterlingrail.com.

I would re-fund Williams trains

My lifelong dream - all 44 miles of the EBT restored and running.  I suspect if I hand Mr. Kovalchick a check for $50 or $75 million and a Gentleman's agreement to keep the ROW as a railroad he just might sell.

$1.3 billion and likely to climb. Yikes. Well, $800 million lump sum, minus taxes. How about buy a line to run these beasts on? After the family and other important matters.

Time to bump up the Powerball contributions at work (not going crazy - we were putting in two dollars a person the last couple draws).

EDIT: Now that I think about it some more....I'd fund the initial work on new Amtrak/New Jersey Transit tunnels under the Hudson. With naming rights, of course.

David

Nice dream - I'll go along.  Since we can not buy tickets here in Alaska, we have the daughter get our tickets.  

 I would fund the rebuilding of Alaska 557. They think another year or so to go.

Well now it's $1.3 Billion.  Nothing train wise.  After my family and a few select were cared for I'd buy a private island and disappear form the grid.

This would be somewhere on the list...

I would probably build (you read that right, BUILD) myself a railroad that functioned like a real one, but still powered by steam, mebe use used motor oil as part of the fuel. Nothing big, but one that could do the job.

BUY OUT THE REMAINING SALARIES OF EVERY PENNSYLVANIA STATE LEGISLATOR AND GET RID OF THEM FOREVER.

Help get the Gateway Tunnels built.

Get the Flying Yankee finished.

Get a GG1 back on the road.

After taxes, you'll have only about $500-$600 million to play with.  Adjust your dreams accordingly.

Rusty

Start my own museum with in indoor static steam locos on display and an operating club layout.

May complete the Pennsy T-1?