John West Wrote:
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> It is interesting, at least to me, how well
> maintained the green passenger equipment is, even
> though the San Juan had been abandoned. The
> consist looks positively handsome, with the paint
> still shining (talk about "varnish") on the curve
> leaving Alamosa. I wonder if this reflects a lot
> of maintenance being done to the equipment to
> inflate the losses shown to the ICC during the San
> Juan abandonment proceedings a year or two
> previously.
>
Well this was only about 5 months after the San Juan quit running and, from comments Bob Richardson made in one of his books, there was at least one senior guy in the Alamosa car shop who was fanatical about keeping the San Juan looking right. So no, I don't think it reflects an attempt to bump the costs. Colorado PUC seems to have been OK with whatever the Grande wanted to do back in the late 1940's on the 3' anyway and ICC didn't yet have jurisdiction over passenger train-offs, that didn't happen until the late 1950's.
hank