okay, I'll take the bait. I have the complete L&RP set on my bookshelf. I still remember the day Mark Smith came to Chama and made a presentation for a small group of Friends of the C&TS Members. I'll always remember his use of the term "Messy Vitality".
It's hard to predict the future. 25 or more years ago, the Friends of the C&TS started acquiring a number of "rotted out hulks", like the short reefer, several passenger car bodies, and even a caboose looking thing that we thought there was a chance it could be real. The Chama yard was full of cars that were falling apart. There were some strong opinions on the board (which I was a member at the time); some thought we needed to gather up all the DRGW narrow gauge stuff that we could find. Others thought the "Noah's Ark" approach was more realistic (which was save only one or two examples of the breed, but keep them in pristine condition). At the time, our most extensive project had been to rebuild a P-Box for that year's Moonlight Train. We primarily had been a "scrape and paint" restoration group in the previous years. I remember making a comment, "the Friends won't ever work underneath a car on mechanical components." Work sessions to this point had been one or two "long weekends" during the summer and most of the planning for those projects occurred on the drive to Chama.
Fast forward a couple years. We attracted several (well actually many) members who had visions of being able to actually rebuild buildings and rolling stock. There were some artifacts on the railroad, like the Sublette Section buildings, that needed work immediately, or they were in danger of being lost forever. One by one we started to see the successful completion of various projects. It didn't happen overnight, but by the 10 year anniversary of the formal founding, we started to realize we could restore almost anything we wanted. I don't have to go on, those here have seen whats happened in the past 20 years.
We are so lucky that we stuck our necks out and acquired what we could at the time. Not everything has been saved that we wanted, but in a couple years or sooner you will see a historical passenger train hauled by the 168 (thanks to the RR), a 10 car tank train on Cumbres Pass, and a continuing set of freight cars being maintained to operational standards. Fortunately most of these projects retain enough of the original fabric that we can truely say they are a restoration, and not a reproduction. I'd say we have experienced each of the three "Right Degrees of Restoration", but because this is a working railroad, we have to consider the operational needs (e.g. Drop Bottom Gons restorations which get most of their wood replaced).. Because he had to. Timing is everything.
On the other hand, I am a member of another organization that does have many hulks on the property that are in danger of rusting to death. Almost nothing they have a chance of saving is native to the property. Right now I could say they shouldn't have gathered what they have. But what it they are able to get their act together and in the next 5 year have restoration plans for all their equipment? You can't give up before you have a chance to fight. Or is it better to pick your fights and go home without getting hurt?
The other part of this is we had the opportunity several times to acquire things that we not directly related to the D&RGW narrow gauge. Should we have gotten them anyway and maybe made them look like a piece of history that didn't exist anymore, like a Rio Grande standard gauge steam engine? Sometimes that is tempting, and there are some examples that worked out fairly well elsewhere (Western Maryland Scenic Railroad #734 comes to mind). I'm just glad the Friends charter is well understood; we don't have a lot of "foamer talk", and are very focused on helping the C&TS continue to be the BEST. I am glad the early leadership of the organization was pretty adamant about working closely with the RR Commission and Operator to help them achieve
their goals.
Hopefully, I am not coming across as a rightous pompous ass. I'm proud what has been accomplished and how the organization handles itself. It wouldn't have happened if we didn't have some fantastic leadership and a very generous and involved membership. So to bring this full circle, if you are going to take on a comittment like this, you better be prepared to dive in over your head. You could drown or you could live. Or you could go home and watch TV. But take one step at a time.
Bill Kepner
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/17/2017 09:50PM by drgw0579.
