Re: C & T SRR Marketing during the Kyle era

Eric, I believe your estimate is close. That brochure is probably from '84 or '85. As I recall, the vans in question were purchased in the spring of 1982. They were a pair of brand new 15 passenger ford vans. There was also a third smaller van that was occasionally used.

As detailed in another thread by gothpapa, Scenic Railways had been using a fleet of full size buses for ferrying passengers between the two terminals. Working over two high mountain passes with 6% grades was more than they were mechanically up to and the maintenance on them became horrific after just a few years. They also required 6 full time drivers.

Disclaimer-I am digging pretty deeply into the dark recesses of my memory here, so if some of this proves to be inaccurate I cheerfully welcome corrections. As ridership improved, the 4 day per week one way by train/one way by bus schedule was reaching its limits. The options to increase available seats were limited. One possibility was to add another round trip to the schedule by going to 6 days per week again. This still required busing every single passenger. Taking into account that many people thought that the trip was too long anyway and wanting to find a way eliminate the expensive bus operation they came up with a different format entirely. The solution was the two train schedule with one train originating at each end and meeting at Osier. All passengers would return to their starting point and there were no through trips anymore. This had the added bonus of more flexibility in that trains no longer had to be run on paired days. I think this format started in 1980 but it may have been 1979. (employee2, help me out here) The first season we ran 5 days per week through most of the summer but went daily the last few weeks for the fall colors. What we referred to, tongue-firmly-in-cheek, as the fall stock rush.

When Kyle took over the operation they came up with a plan to offer limited through trip availability for a higher fair using the cheaper vans. It was believed that most people would opt for the shorter, cheaper round trip ride. With the two vans we had a capacity of 112 seats per day, half originating at each terminal. It was popular and often sold out. We saved on costs by using the train crews as drivers. Half of the train crew, for example an engineer and conductor, would start from Chama in the morning and drive the vans to Antonito. Their counterparts from Antonito would drive back to Chama. The crews of both trains would work through to the other side and then the other half of the crew, the fireman and brakeman, would do the driving in the evening. It was an efficient system and normally worked pretty well although it did complicate crew scheduling.

Hours of service was not a problem. The Chama crews that drove in the morning had the earliest start at 7:45 and were done by about 5:30 in the afternoon. It did make for a pretty long day for the crews that had to drive in the afternoon after working on the train all day. The passengers got the added bonus of being able to visit with the train crews during the van rides. For me, answering questions and talking with people always made the trip go more quickly and I enjoyed the interaction with our passengers.

As business improved and there was more demand for the through trips we started leasing larger vans and eventually went back to full time drivers. It was after my departure from the railroad, but I think they went full circle back to full size buses again.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/14/2010 11:33AM by Russ489.