Reading all the comments the people of Durango (or not) are saying about how the train is old, outdated, non emission friendly and has to change have no idea on the impact it has on there town. Like it or not Durango is a railroad tourist destination. While not a true railroad town anymore, it has always had a railroad. A steam powered railroad. It was there when all these naysayer people moved there. About 25 years ago I was looking into getting a job on the DS. So I bought a years subscription to the Durango Herald. Reading all the comments made at that time about the smoke from the rail yard blowing south into these people’s new homes and how they could not enjoy the outside early on the morning or in the evening. Apparently they had no idea that the reason they could afford the place was because it was SOUTH of an active rail yard with up to six engines simmering overnight. Not to mention the south side of the yard was industrial or the poor district years before.
Move ahead five years and I was in Durango taking a yard tour with then VP Dan McCall. I had mentioned about the people south of the yards and he rolled his eyes. He was on a environmental pollution clean air council of some type made up of local business people. Ever time they had a meeting he would always ask who walked to the meeting and no one but him did. At that time they where looking into air scrubbers to place on the roundhouse roof stacks to help. And they did a few years later. Voluntary spend 100s of thousands of dollars to study, design and install scrubbers. Wasn’t told to do it just did it for the good of the community. Ever get a thanks guys for stepping up and trying to clean the air. Probably not.
2002 I rode the train during the Mission Ridge Fire. I rode on Tuesday and it shut down on Thursday. All over there were signs No Rain No Train. Heck running up out of Hermosa and though the back yards you could see all kinds of signs about the not running the train. There was a open fire ban in the area and the town folk could not believe the train could still run. Now I won’t tell you how many cigarette buts I saw get flicked out the windows of cars or a man I saw emptying his pipe on a walking Trail through town. Didn’t seem to faze those people, but keep the train running during the fire? No way. On my trip our train did start a small fire just past the old 550 hy way crossing due to a hole in the ash pan. We stopped at a Tacoma to try to fix the issue. Got the hole patched and made it to Silverton.
The D&S spent a lot of money planting trees along the ROW to offset the carbon footprint. Moved the ash pit to Silverton and has the engines burn wood pellets to help with in town smoke. Not to mention has diesels do most of the switching They are trying to be a good neighbor the best way they can. But their business is a steam powered tourist railroad. It was mentioned in one of the comments to just hsve the trains on display. Yea, I would drive over one thousand miles to look at that, no, and only run to Hermosa and tear up the rest to make a trail. How about this, Forget Durango. Base out of Silverton, run to Rockwood and return. You could then keep the trackless right of way. Make the depot roundhouse a museum or not have anything at all to do with the town and sell the real state for a premium. Oh yea and the summer of the Mission Ridge Fire and running no trains had a huge impact on the local economy but no one either lived there then or if they did, seem to remember that.
As far as running Diesels, ( funny how in all those comments no one could spell that correctly) no one apparently realizes that a hard working diesel locomotive will throw out carbon sparks out the stack. Seen it happen, so that is not a good solution to the problem
I guess the point I was trying to make was how I can not believe the Herald ran this story before the investigation came up with true start of the fire. All this did was start a media fire about how bad the train is. I have yet to see a positive story from the Durango Herald about the railroad.
Dan
Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 06/07/2018 11:16AM by JS Driver.
