Great post Rich. Just like those who say the railfans don't support the railroad....well thats just not correct. I know a lot of guys who are serious photographers, and yes they do spend most of their time trackside, but indeed most of the ones I know will buy a ticket for a charter or some other special event. And, some like myself will ride the D&S and C&TS as well like we did in September. Take the D&S for example. We spent 3 days and 4 nights there. Two days were spent doing trackside photography, and one was riding the train. Then we headed to Chama again.
One suggestion to help defray travel costs is some motel chains have point systems like airline miles. We stayed the four nights in Durango using reward points, thus the motel costs were zero! No such chains in Chama however. We also used rewards for each of the nights we were on the road getting to NG country. So that was 6 FREE nights of our 15 day trip.
Wish gas prices in September were what they are now though!!!
Greg