Actually, Black Bart Faked It

As Earl has pointed out, Kyle installed 2,500 ties a year which was a requirement of the lease agreement with the Commission. Black Bart's lease had the same provision.

However, when RGRPC took over the C&TSRR operation after Bart had departed we found close to five thousand new oak ties scattered along the right-of-way, but very few installed.

To top that, when we reviewed his financials on file at the Commission we found that he had recorded the value of the ties as an asset on his corporate balance sheet, but he showed a payable of the same amount as an offsetting liability. No evidence could be found that he ever did subsequently pay for them.

Since RGRPC had the same 2,500 tie annual requirement, in the next two years RGRPC installed 10,000 ties (including Bart's 5,000).