Re: Reality bites - Is the RR ready? Will "fans" accept?

I'm sure your post will attract quite a few responses. Hopefully they stay constructive. Assuming that two road-diesels are acquired and 493's conversion to oil goas as planned, my 5-year prediction is this:


1) All operable steam locomotives will be converted to burn something other than coal. Why? Once you have one and it goes well, the rest will be converted for PR reasons once they realize that many of their customers could care less whether the train burned coal or oil, let alone care whether it was steam or diesel. Consider the reasons GCR is burning french fry oil. And once the infrastructure is in place for one oil burner, it makes it much easier to convert the others. The negative PR from the Durango residents is alarming - and it would be wise of ownership/management to do what they can to silence that.

2) At least one regular train per day will be diesel, and possibly the winter train. Why? They aren't going to buy diesels only to have them sit around and wait for another bad fire year. Once again, they will recognize that many of their customers don't care (or don't even know the difference) and the bean-counters will see the advantages of using the diesels as much as possible. I'm guessing the cost savings of using a diesel will outweigh losses from having certified boilers sitting idle.

Two diesels isn't enough to handle all the summer traffic, so I don't steam becoming only for "special occasions" such as on GCR. However, should Harper sell the railroad, the new owner may have other ideas.

Kevin