Preservationist: KCS Engine 503 ‘condemned’ to rot at park
Published 5:41 pm Thursday, July 12, 2018
By Ken Stickney
A plan to use $67,629 in donated funds — money dedicated to restoring Kansas City Southern No. 503 in Port Arthur — has run out of steam and switched tracks.
Jason Sobczynski, a train preservationist from Kentucky, said this week his new plan for his GoFundMe account for KCS 503 will be to:
- Relocate the Nickel Plate Road steam locomotive No. 587 from Noblesville, Indiana to Kentucky Steam Heritage Corp. in Ravenna, Kentucky.
- Help fund relocation of the Chesapeake & Ohio steam locomotive No. 2716.
- Help fund purchase and relocation of an auxiliary water tender and tool car.
The revised plan came about because Sobczynski said Port Arthur city leaders would not respond to his calls about buying the train, restoring it and moving it to a park in Florida, where it would be made operational. Sobczynski had previously appeared before the City Council.
Instead, City Council members in the spring decided to give former City Council member John Beard the opportunity to raise funds, repair the train and keep it on display in this city.
Save 2 engines
Sobcyznski said this week he has “washed his hands” of the Port Arthur project and identified other projects where the donated money might be put to more effective preservation use and where preservationists would have more control.
The new plan, he said, would help save two historic locomotives, Sobczynski said.
KCS 503 in Port Arthur was destined for the scrap heap in February when Sobczynski, whose company rehabs and preserves old trains, traveled to Port Arthur, set up the GoFundMe account and made the public case for preserving the train, moving it and making it operational elsewhere.
Kansas City Southern had donated Engine 503 to the city of Port Arthur in 1957 and placed it in Bryan Park on Gulfway Drive for the better part of six decades. During Hurricane and Tropical Storm Harvey, concerns over asbestos and leaking oil around the engine and tender, which had suffered from obvious neglect, necessitated Texas Commission on Environmental Quality mandates to clean up the site. Although that work has been completed, TCEQ has not issued an OK at the site.
Keep it here
Initially, city leaders appeared to be prepared to scrap the train, in apparent disrepair, altogether. The public campaign to preserve it caused city leaders to reconsider, although they balked at Sobczynski’s plan to move the 503 out of town.
Beard and Sobczynski publicly feuded over the engine’s fate. While Sobczynski had presented substantial cash and a plan right away, Beard’s volunteer effort to save the train has been more muted about its plans and fundraising.
Sobcynski said it would take at least $400,000 to fully rehab the rusting engine and tender and put them under appropriate cover in Port Arthur to protect them from salt air. Beard has proposed a “public-private” effort to save the 503.
Sobcynski said GoFundMe, a for-profit crowdfunding platform, notified contributors about the KCS 503 account and advised them of the change in plans. Sobczynski said about $53,000 remained in the fund — the rest had gone to GoFundMe fees — and Sobczynski said about $10,000 in donated funds had been returned at the request of donors.
“Let’s see John Beard do something,” Sobczynski said Thursday, adding that the city had probably “condemned” the KCS 503 to “a lifetime of rotting in the park.”
