What Railroad Company can I email?

[ZachL]

I have never heard of case where a railroad company has sold salvaged stock to a fan.

Most of the time, railfans get equipment by knowing a signal maintainer personally, or off of sites like eBay.

[ToledoRailfan]

Oh, Ok. I will see what I can do.

I guess you could ask them if they have equipment that they don't plan on reusing.

[artfull dodger]

See if you can find a seperate email for thier C&S department. Emailing the suits in the big offices will get you no where. I know NS and CSX wont sell to anybody. For those one must know the right person to "get" stuff. I got my flashers, which are off the ex-Monon line but probably date from the L&N/SBD era on the line, thru a museum that gets way to much "stuff" donated by local signal maintainers. Even the museums wont let go of stuff most of the time, I did some horse trading we both had something the other wanted. The best route is to get to know your local signal maintainer. Get to know him/her but not get pushy or ask for stuff on the first meeting. Just kind of hang out, and learn. That is how I learned how to wire an EOR relay. He was working in the cabinet and I asked which one makes the lights flash. So as he inspected the circuits, he explained the whole set up to me. I was just a teenager. By the 2 or 3rd meet he gave me a crossbuck and a spare EOR relay. In time, I had 2 of the Safetran lights to put up on the wall in my bedroom. I got volunteer in the shops at this shortline and within a month I had a key to the relay case as this set of lights like to get "stuck" on during wet weather. He showed me how to disable the lights and his phone number to call(he lived over an hour out of town). The only RR that I ever found to be railfan friendly was the old Burlington Northern. A snail mail to thier engine shop in Alliance scored me one of the Prime digital beacons they were removing during the change over to ditch lights. Mike