The People and the How

The basic facts of what happened are pretty straight forward and reasonably well chronicled. My particular interest in history has less to do with what, and more to do with why, how and who.

As I wrote in my original post, "Despite a high level of interest on my part, I have never seen a comprehensive narrative of those efforts. Indeed when the subject comes up there seems to be almost an unwillingness on the part of some to share their memories...Apparently there were some conflicts, and apparently those axes are not yet fully buried...I don't mean just the legal documents, but a narrative that talks about the people and perhaps can deal with the conflicts objectively."

When I first joined the Friends one of the things that was drilled into me is we had to be nice to the operator because we don't want to get asked to leave like the original volunteers were. Okay, why were the volunteers asked to leave? I hear rumors and urban legends but would like to have some facts. And from the stories Bob Keller and John Coker posted about Scenic, not to mention the fact Scenic went bankrupt or some such, those were interesting times of the C&TS.

Unfortunately most historians are happy with the what. The first train got to Chama on such and such a date. I'm more interesting in why did they do it, how did they sell it too investors, how did they they run the business, and who shot who for what reason. The "color" in history, which is a lot tougher to research and write than the bare facts.

JBWX