Hagerstown Should Just Sell the Ugly Looking Pile of Scrap on Display at City Park (Opinion)

For many years now, there has been an ill-maintained display in Hagerstown City Park supposedly worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, sitting without maintenance other than occasional cleaning, and routinely surrounded by duck feces. No, I’m not referring to Locomotive 202, I’m referring to the pile of granite that looks like scraps from someone’s kitchen counter remodel known as “Pod”. But maybe, selling Pod is the key to keeping Locomotive 202 in Hagerstown.

While I have not been the most vocal opponent of Pod, I have always been an opponent none the less. The sale of this “asset” as it was so lovingly referred to when the City paid $15,000 to $30,000 to transport and install at City Park in 2017, depending on how you do the math, could greatly benefit the overall cash on hand for Hagerstown’s Parks and Recreation. After all, one of the justifications provided at that time was that “Pod” is worth $300,000. When accounting for inflation, that places Pod’s value now at approximately $393,975. I say it’s time to cash in on that asset’s value, and put the funds towards proper preservation of Locomotive 202. It would make an excellent “nest egg” of funding for restoration by the local Save Locomotive 202 group.

You can view Save Locomotive 202’s competing proposal to City of Hagerstown through the video below.

“You don’t appreciate art!” is a common criticism I received when I originally questioned if Hagerstown should spend a penny on Pod. To be perfectly honest, I don’t appreciate Pod, and I do not see several chunks of granite as being an art display worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. But clearly, someone thinks it’s worth that much, so I think that City of Hagerstown should sell it to someone who will value it more than we do. But you know what else I don’t appreciate? An organized group of railfans nationwide pressuring the Hagerstown City Council into giving away such a treasured part of our history.

It is absolutely heartbreaking that the City of Hagerstown would consider giving away a historic asset such as Locomotive 202, especially with local groups expressing interest in establishing a conservatorship to maintain the historic steam engine. And while I do take comfort that the proposed agreement with Western Maryland Scenic Railroad (WMSR) requires the railroad to return the locomotive to Hagerstown if they’re unable to restore it to functioning condition, I still feel that Hagerstown is giving up a historic treasure they have absolutely failed to properly capitalize on and promote.

And what would donating such a historic treasure to WMSR get the children of Hagerstown, to whom the Locomotive was originally donated? A 25%-off ticket, as long as they’re willing to drive for over 60 miles to purchase such a ticket. How does encouraging Hagerstown parents to take their children to Cumberland in any way benefit Hagerstown’s economy? For those parents who can afford the trip, that’s likely one less family meal held at a Hagerstown restaurant, one less family patronizing local businesses in Hagerstown for a day. The only winners in this deal is WMSR and Cumberland, Maryland.

Now I don’t ultimately have a say in such matters, because I’m not a resident within city limits. However, I ultimately view the City of Hagerstown giving away such an asset to WMSR as giving away a piece of local history. This would be in my opinion no different than the aviation museum giving away one of its many Fairchild aircraft to another museum, it’s just unfathomable to me that such an action is under consideration. The only way I would somehow consider this would be for WMSR to establish a line between Hagerstown and Cumberland, but such a move would be cost prohibitive and likely not allowed under current regulatory authority as it would require running coal-powered passenger trains on tracks with diesel-powered freight trains – something railroads such as CSX or Norfolk Southern would be very hesitant to authorize.

If you’d like to weigh in on this, please feel free to submit an opinion piece to us for consideration, or contact the Hagerstown City Council. Personally, I’d rather we sink Locomotive 202 to the bottom of the Potomac before we “donate” it to anywhere that won’t benefit the children of Hagerstown, without requiring those children to travel over an hour to view it.

Here’s a novel idea. Let’s donate it to the Hagerstown Aviation Museum. Wouldn’t it be great if they could have a Planes, Trains, and Automobiles exhibit, including a Dagmar automobile? Highlight all of the transportation methods from Hagerstown’s history, all in one place.

Opinion article by Ken Buckler, President of Radio Free Hub City. All opinions are his own, and do not reflect those of our clients or sponsors.

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