RDannemann Wrote:
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> Maybe the reason is simply available cash?
>
> Not sure of NG D&RGW profits post WW2 and
> early 50's. Their existing snow fighting gear
> was
> bought and paid for in previous years.
>
> If the profits were always there, most of the NG
> in
> Colorado would still be running as a private
> business
> and modernized with diesels long ago, including
> dozers, as older equipment failed.
>
D&RGW was a very well-run and profitable railroad post-WWII, right up into the 1980's. (I used to own a tiny dab of stock)
The profitabilty, or lack there of, of the Narrow gauge lines is a contentious question. Managment claimed they lost money on the narrow gauge, many others claimed that figures were being juggled and traffic shifted to RG Motorways trucks to make the 3' gauge lines ( and some std ga branches) look bad on paper.
D&RG(W) managment had, at least since the 1890's, underspent on improvments on the narrow gauge lines. Up until about 1912 the assumption was that they would all be standard gauged eventully and money was being drained off the whole D&RG to build the WP so improving the 3' ga lines was not a good use of money. Even the big(relative to the previous 30 years) rebuilding of the 1920's was just catch-up ball. It can also be argued that what was done in the 1920's was not enough and that it was mostly stuff (like replacing worn-out 40 lb rail) that was way over due.
I've spent many an evening reading old financial statements and I have come to the following conclusions: 1) The D&RGW *could* have done improvments in the period 1936-1950 sufficient to keep almost all of the 3' ga lines profitable to operate. 2) The D&RGW could *not* have made the lines profitable enough to pay for the $$$ that would have been required.
To put it another way, pushing tourist traffic on approriate lines (Silverton, Cumbres, Marshall, Black Canyon, etc), using diesels or electrics on the more extreme sections (probably starting with Marshall, Monarch and Cumbres), reducing curvature for faster times, buying newer & larger capacity freight cars (and rebuilding bridges to allow them) and other such fixes would have cost a bunch and the money spent would have earned a much greater rate of return on the std ga mainlines.
By 1930 the entire narrow gauge part of the system was, for all practical purposes, a collection of branch lines, and branch lines were out of style.
Last note: If you look at the 1938 Branch Line study reprinted by CRRM, you'll find that the Gunnison-Montrose line was proposed for abandonment, even though it was admittedly "paying it's way." Argument was made that most of the traffic from ponts West(South) could be diverted at Montrose, retaining a high percentage (too lazy to go look up the exact number this AM) and that the over-all system would be better off. In the 1947 abandonment case the D&RGW claimed it would cost over #1 million to cure the slide problems near Cedar Creek but there was testimony from local construction people, at least one of whom had worked on the slides for D&RGW previously, and geologists that D&RGW was greatly inflating the scope, and cost, of the work required.
It is also good to rmember that all this was over 30 years before Staggers and the railroads in general were being regulated as if it were still 1920 and they had no competition worth mentioning and were, in the eyes of many, the vary platonic form af a greedy, powerful corporation tha needed to be slapped down. All that almost killed the whole industry by 1980. We (the USA in general) are still suffering economically from the results of that short-sightedness, at least in my humble opinion.
hank
