trainrider47 Wrote:
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> Ron,
>
> I've no current info but your description of the
> G&Q "In the 1970s and into the 1990s, the line
> thrived as an authentic, historic, mountain steam
> railroad..." doesn't match my experiences. I
> first visited in 1981 and the line was operated by
> a mixture of steam and Spanish built Alco diesels.
> The line was clearly in shaky condition, with
> frequent breakdowns and derailments. Ties were
> almost non existent in places and the locomotives
> were held together with baling wire (literally - I
> watched while the crew made a wooden wedge with a
> machete and wired it in place to support a broken
> driver spring) and the rolling stock was equally
> worn out.
>
> Almost no freight was carried, as the new
> Guayaquil to Quito highway could get freight moved
> much faster and at lower cost. Passengers were
> mostly Indians and locals who traveled because a
> rail ticket was less than the bus fare. A few
> remote villages were only connected by rail, but
> this was very minor. Most Europeans were either
> back packers who rode on the roofs or railfans.
> Metropolitan Touring had their own auto ferro and
> an observation coach which would occasionally be
> attached to a regular train. None of this
> represented a business model for survival.
>
> France stepped in 1992 and supplied a lot of new
> ties and a number of new Alsthom diesels, but by
> 1997 the railway was in virtual collapse, with
> crews working for months without pay. Charter
> tour operators would pay the crews directly in
> order to run their trips. By 2000 the line was
> broken in a number of sections and no continuous
> operation was possible. Beginning in 2008
> President Rafael Correa promised to revitalize the
> line, but for the first couple of years most of
> the funding went to buy SUV's for management and
> their cronies and other boondoggles. By 2013 the
> line was reportedly reopened, but no reports of
> steam charters have surfaced.
>
> Michael Allen
Michael,
I believe your description of the earlier G&Q is completely accurate. But when I said the G&Q was thriving, I did not mean thriving in terms of modernization and maintenance. I meant thriving as a tourist attraction which featured an authentic experience of informal atmosphere and limited budget typical of many narrow gage railroads.
But when the G&Q infrastructure fell apart in the late 1990s, it needed a very major amount of rebuild to continue any sort of operation. So they rebuilt, but instead of saving steam as the attraction it had been prior to the rebuild, they re-branded the railroad as a modern, efficient, comfortable sight-seeing railroad with the primary purpose of hauling tourists through the mountain scenery.
I don’t know whether that re-branding made G&Q more successful or not. I guess it depends on how you measure success. My point of bringing it up, however, was not to change the topic, but rather, to offer it as an analogy to what may be happening to D&S. A railroad like D&S may not need steam to be successful. If nobody cares what is on the head end, and steam is more costly to operate, why not dieselize?
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/04/2018 08:40AM by Ron Keagle.