When we look at the history of any successful endeavor, whether the C&TS or the USA, we find them replete with many component histories of individual and/or group heroic contributions. For 50 years now there has been a constant stream of effort by many (far too many to count) to keep the railroad alive. Please don’t take my comment here as in anyway an attempt to diminish those efforts. Those contributors deserve all the recognition they can get and we should really try to come up with a way to do that.
However, John Cole’s original post was in relation to next year’s 50th anniversary and without our own set of “founding fathers” there would be no 50th. Most of us when shown the need are willing to put a shoulder to the wheel, damn few see the need of the wheel. 50 years ago when the D&RGW wanted to pull the plug, a group decided that being sorry, as many were then, just wasn’t good enough and acted. They busted their collective butts to ensure that the narrow gauge would continue to run on at least a representative part of its route. Without that first effort all the hard and often heroic efforts that followed would, for lack of need, never have happened.
To me, those “founding fathers of the C&TS” deserve special recognition and the 50th anniversary is an appropriate time to do that.
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/24/2019 08:47AM by Rich Murray.