Industrial locomotive on the chopping block

A recent Facebook post here (no log-in required) states that Phelps-Dodge 15, the diminutive locomotive shown in the photo above from the Facebook post, is to be scrapped unless a purchaser can be found. A comment made by the poster of the original notice suggests that the locomotive's owner, Old Pueblo Trolley, is short of funds and that the locomotive is being disposed of to raise cash. Presumably its marginal usefulness - besides being an industrial locomotive, it's also designed to operate on 250 volts and couldn't run alongside the foreign streetcars OPT has run in the past - also plays a role.

The locomotive is one of four identical homebuilt "calcine motors" from the P-D Douglas Works still in existence. Locomotives identical to this one are also preserved in Douglas, Phoenix, and Apache Junction. As such its loss would not be a significant historical blow. Still, it would be a shame to lose a complete 1906 industrial locomotive so hopefully it ends up somewhere intact - and hopefully OPT is not forced to further thin its collection due to the current crisis.