Re: The Challenge

John, the Friends are heading into uncharted territory, and people aren't sure how to proceed here. This is where someone with your unique perspective is invaluable. I hope you will try to stay involved.

Rebuilding cars is something the Friends know how to do. If you watch the summer work session pictures, you may have noticed that the teams are going deeper into the cars to fix everything possible. This has been going on in baby steps as the knowledge is gained.

As for the new agreement between the commission and the Friends, I believe that after everything is adjusted and tweaked in it, you will see more control of how the non revenue, (historic) cars are restored. This is not an exact science, when Jerry pointed out that the snowplows should be MOW gray, I made a few calls and was told that the gray color was standard after WW2. Before that, they were painted boxcar red, just like the rest of the other cars. That is why one plow is red, and the other is gray to show different eras.

Just like Osier, Sublett, and Cumbres has different color building paint to show the buildings in different eras of their history, the R/R cars experienced change as well. All of this has been researched and approved by SHPO. I am certain mistakes have been made, but we keep trying.

Bill is right about people who say they care about the future of the railroad, until you actually DO something to help, it is all talk. It becomes your responsibility to put your good intentions into actions. Please join us. John