This is probably an urban legend, but I was told a group in San Antonio was given a pair of MoPac lightweights in the late 1960s only to sell them for emergency cash to purchase an electric locomotive unique to San Antonio that itself was about to be scrapped. (And MoPac was not happy) I’ve also heard a large national museum upon requesting a UP centennial was told to pound sand after Omaha found they scrapped previously donated UP equipment. About ten years ago, a museum in a Baton Rouge in the old IC/GCL depot got rid of the passenger cars (mostly IC) since the new strategic vision of the museum was art and not history.

These stories get more outrageous every time it’s told but so many museums and municipalities do these sorts of things that it’s understandable that railroads don’t like to donate things.

Jim