Re: "IN-Authentic" paint scheme - for P.R.

Your thinking is just as dense to me as mine is to you apparently. I guess it will just stay that way. IMHO, your kind of thinking, to the exclusion of the real reality of the situation, has been the albatross of the C&TS. It killed Scenic in the end, and has kept the C&TS from growing and reaching its real potential over the years. OK, the "serve each community equally" albatross has made its negative contribution too.

You say "The C&TS is supposed to be an operating museum." It is an operating museum, it is a tribute to all the men and machines that labored to open up the Rocky Mountain West and, along with the East Broad Top, is one of the most authentic and original surviving examples of 20th Century steam railroading left in the US. That alone is enough. I knew that the day I arrived in Chama in 1973. I realize that you and a lot of other folks have this fetish about the D&RGW as it was when you were kids, and that's fine, enjoy your fetish. But don't inflict it on the folks who are actually trying to make the C&TS work in the real world of the 21st century. The C&TS uses the right-of-way, structures, and equipment of the deceased D&RGW, and should honor that heritage within reason. But the C&TS is not the reincarnation of the D&RGW any more that the D&S is the reincarnation of the D&RGW, or the Georgetown Loop is the reincarnation of the C&S.

Well, maybe that's a little strong, and it probably won't make me any friends. But dang, nearly forty years ago I watched some good, very smart, very competent men do their level best to make a viable operating business of the C&TS while also trying to accommodate to other peoples fetishes and entitlement expectations. They lost their asses in the process, and no one has been able to do any better since then. It made me angry then and I guess I'm still angry.

I think I'll go away for awhile. Maybe create another music video or something. This certainly isn't doing anything for my "holiday spirit."

"Time spent with CATS is never wasted." -- Sigmund Freud

"Nothing endures but change." -- Heraclitus

"C'est le meilleur des mondes possibles." -- Candide