Thanks, Russ. And thanks for correcting my fuzzy facts on the kidnapping of the replacement rail.
It's difficult to identify most of the people in the photo due to the fact that I'm looking at the backs of heads. But two I definitely know are Mark McMahon, who is the tall guy on the left in the white shirt. At that time Mark was editor and publisher of the Los Alamos (NM) newspaper, and was instrumental in getting then NM Governor Dave Cargo's interest in saving the RR. The other one I definitely can identify is Terry Ross (on right in the hard hat and coveralls). Terry and I have been very good friends ever since that era. It's hard to point at any one person as being "instrumental", but Terry comes about as close as anyone. Without his years of tireless efforts the C&TS most definitely would not exist today.
Terry and I worked closely from about 1966 on on saving the C&TS, and we have a close bond which although being frayed by time will never be broken. BTW (and tooting my own horn a bit) Terry and I authored or collaborated on the multiple spiral bound publication of that era. And I prepared most of the financial projections you will read there. Suprisingly (to me at least) even Bob Keller acknowledged how close our dart board financial projections match the reality of what Scenic
Railways actually experienced in their early years of operation.
(BTW, if you are lucky enough to have a copy of one of those early publications - treat it with kindness and respect. A while back I saw one advertised on Ebay for a substantial sum. I still have two copies of what is probably the best known. The one with #483 in movie dress on the front cover. It is serial #2. Terry, of course retained the #1 copy.)
I agree with you, Russ, that a definitive history of those heady times has not been written yet. Doris Osterwald had probably done the best to date, but even she didn't have access to a lot of critical information through no fault of her own. I know where most, if not all, of early information is stored, but I'm not going to divulge where, or by whom. Let's just say that it is safe and being well taken care of. And before anybody asks, I don't have the time nor energy to undertake such a task.
But I will make a small and heartfelt request, if anyone decides to tackle this job, the timeline should encompass only from 1966 into the early 1970s when Scenic Railways came on the scene. After that it was another world, and to compare this time period with any other is not useful.
CJ