Re: Loco swap info

All those short trips sound good in theory. However less miles means less dollars from tickets, which in turn also means less employees at Osier, which means less reason to have someone there for meals.

But the big loss would be that nobody ever sees Toltec Gorge, the tunnels, Phantom Curve or anything else between Big Horn and Osier.

The upside would be that the running is pretty fast from Antonito all the way to Sublette, especially to Big Horn.

Back in 1971 we were out there and some days they ran trips to Sublette from Antonito(half day trips). The engine would pull tender-first from Sublette to Big Horn, and wye the engine there for the trip. However now that I think about it, they may have gone tender-first all the way back to Antonito. Did they have a way to turn in Antonito the first year???

Back to the shorter trips idea.
One way to solve ridership is to run only on weekends, but then you would not need much staff, and all the infrastructure, so thats no good.
The other thing is that to be successful you need options for riders, and a decent amount of schedule options. There are some shorter trips being run now, like the Sunset Trains to Cumbres. They have been pretty successful from what I have heard.

First class seems to be the thing most want and are willing to pay for it since it may be their only trip to the railroad, they figure splurge a bit. Thats why I think the Sunset Diner Trains probably do well.

Greg