On the Practicality of Operating Winter Specials on the C&TS

At the thread discussing past Winter Specials on the C&TS, John West referrenced a picture taken in 1999 of the 487 derailed and darn near turned over during a spring line clearing operation. The caption of the picturte ended with the following statement regarding C&TS winter operations:

"But also something was lost in terms of the ability of the C&TS to recreate the past winter struggles of the DRGW."

Now, I ask you, who in their right mind would even want to do a thing like that? That was a deadly dangerous undertaking at best.

The fact is that narrow gauge mountain railroading using antiquated steam equipment is a hazardous undertaking even in the best of weater and under the best of conditions. Any of you guys who have done it know that.

When we (Scenic) operated Winter Events for the railfan community, they were very low-key WYSIWYG events. We actually were inspired to do this because we ourselves wanted to see a rotary in action and had the means and opportunity to do it. The goal was to give those who were sincerely interested an opportunity to see this equipment operating in winter like conditions. We made it very clear that we would not go any further than necessary to throw a little snow and create a few good photo ops, and that we would turn back at the first sign of trouble. That was it, take it or leave it. And that's what we did.

John and others mentioned the dangers to man and machine attendant upon late winter operations. To minimize these dangers we scheduled our events as early in the winter as possible. Even then we had problems, but we had no need to push our luck.

A problem that is inherent in scheduling and promoting these events is the impossibility of predicting when the conditions will be right. That's why our event in 1978 was called a Winter Special, unlike the previous three that emphasized rotary operations. We promised only to have a rotary under steam and to demo stuff as conditions allowed. And under no conditions would we go beyond easy access to the highway. As it turned out, this was our last winter event due to conditions that had nothing to do with the success or failure of that event.

Another consideration: the rotaries, both the OM and the OY, but especially the OM, are significant pieces of historic railroad equipment. IMHO, If they are ever used agian it should be very limited demonstrations under tight control, like we did in the early C&TS winter operations. Any thoughts of "recreating past winter ops" or "lets see how far we can go" should not be considered.

One final thing, then I will throw this out for discussion. Looking back on those Winter Specials that we did, I have to ask myself "What were we thinking?"

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

"Nothing endures but change." -- Heraclitus

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



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/16/2010 11:23AM by gothpapa.