Topeka Kansas USA - Heated words were exchanged after a presentation Friday night about the proposed future of the Atchison Topeka & Santa Fe Railway steam locomotive that has been located on what is now the Kansas Expocentre grounds since 1956.
 
Davidson Ward, president of the non-profit Sustainable Rail International, which does business as the Coalition for Sustainable Rail, gave an informational presentation to about 40 people, members of the Topeka chapter of the National Railway Historical Society and some visitors, about the history of steam engines and a brief update on No. 3463, which CSR purchased from the Great Overland Station in 2011.
 
But one Topeka organization, the recently re-established Topeka Children and Santa Fe Railroad, is challenging the Great Overland Station's right to sell the locomotive in the first place.
 
Jerry Petrel, president of the organization, and some others who share his concerns, attended the meeting.
 
Ward told listeners the project crew that plans to retrofit the locomotive, modifying much of its mechanical interior and streamlining it in order to give it more efficient steam flow, hopes to set a record 130 mph speed for a steam engine while also creating cleaner, less expensive, and faster passenger travel.
 
"Destroying the artifact is nothing that we're interested in doing," Ward said, adding later, "Anything done to this locomotive can be very easily reversed."
 
He said CSR is tentatively planning to remove the locomotive from Topeka to Duluth, Minnesota, close to the end of this year, perhaps in the fall.
 
At that point, Topekan Art Gibson asked Ward from the audience, "Do you have your armed guards lined up?"
 
Gibson became more agitated as he told Ward he was one of the people who picked the engine, and he felt it belonged to the city.
 
"I can tell you, as long as I'm living, you ain't doing it," he said.
 
Topekan Joel Fenster also argued the matter with Ward.
 
He said he was "morally outraged" by Ward and the CSR moving forward with plans to move the locomotive while its ownership is being contested by the Topeka Children and Santa Fe Railroad.
 
After referring to the recent event in which a sinkhole swallowed up several rare Corvettes at the National Corvette Museum in Bowling Green, Kentucky, Fenster told Ward the project's plans would destroy the locomotive.
 
He said after CSR retrofits the locomotive, it can never be restored to its original state.
 
"So because you want to advance steam technology one-millionth, you're going to take the only existing model of this, tear it apart, do whatever you do, set your record, then give it back to us and say, well, it's not original, but it's close, here it is, am I correct in my understanding of that?" Fenster asked.
 
"I can't look that far into the future," Ward said.
 
Petrel, who said after the presentation attorneys with the Washburn Law Clinic, who are representing his non-profit, have sent Ward and CSR multiple cease and desist letters based on the Topeka Children and Santa Fe Railroad's possession of the bill of sale for the locomotive, also asked Ward how his project would be different from examples he cited in which locomotives were destroyed.
 
"Better project management," Ward said.
 
He declined to respond further, citing pending legal action.
 
Petrel said there isn't yet a court case filed in the matter, and the cease and desist letters constitute the only action taken so far.
 
Petrel said the No. 3463, which ran from 1937 to 1953, was designed in Topeka and built by Baldwin Locomotive Works.
 
He said he believes it belongs to Topeka.
 
Samantha Foster.