Greg Scholl Wrote:
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> As Joe pointed out, Chama is a SUPERB destination
> in that it has so many things going for the
> enthusiast and the steam fans. I cannot think of
> another place in the US that can hold a candle to
> the C&TS for scenery, length of railroad, other
> factors Joe mentioned, but most importantly its
> ALL STEAM. When you go to Chama you know what you
> are getting for power on your train. Thats what
> makes the total "Experience". The fact it is all
> steam is a treasure in itself.
I'll add another quote from an author not often if ever on the forum (Jane Austen,
Pride and Prejudice)
“I should like balls infinitely better,' she replied, 'if they were carried on in a different manner; but there is something insufferably tedious in the usual process of such a meeting. It would surely be much more rational if conversation instead of dancing were made the order of the day.'
'Much more rational, my dear Caroline, I dare say, but it would not be near so much like a ball.”
I have been following the trials and travails of the Colorado narrow gauge since before there was a C&TS or a D&S. Sadly for all the normal reasons and a few more I have yet to visit either. But God willing, I will get there. I say that to say I speak as an outsider, but a not disinterested outsider.
I smile in my older age at our presumption when we say things like, "D&S is getting ready for the future...." As has been pointed out by others, they are in fact responding to very present and immediate challenges. They are making their best read on how to go forward and they are executing that about as well as it can be done, that is to say imperfectly but with a vision for where they need to go as the only truly profitable and private remnant of the D&RGW narrow gauge system. They ferry people through spectacular scenery on impressive (narrow gauge) railroad engineering and any remaining old technology is frosting on the cake, but not the cake. The old technology is useful only if it contributes to the business plan and when it ceases to do so it will give way just like the T-12's and so on gave way to the K-36's and 37's. I have been privileged to observe and sometimes ride similar operations in Europe and elsewhere, including the White Pass. May they live long and prosper!
But even more I smile because we humans are not very good at predicting and preparing for the future. Our histories are littered with the debris of our failures, and much of that debris comes from false presumptions that we knew what was coming and what to do about it. There is a reason the penalty for missing the call was often fatal to the prophet in the old days; too much was at stake. And making the right call was often just as disastrous because mostly we don't want to believe what we don't like, and the person speaking the truth is rarely popular. Mostly I think we fail at the future because we think too small.
I have followed and agonized over the C&TS from its very beginning. Learned the names of those unusual individuals who have made it happen even though I would never meet them. Watched as ways were found to go forward even as all seemed lost, and sometimes even to prosper. Delighted as the track was improved and more defunct equipment was restored to operation. To take a gritty mountain segment of a defunct narrow gauge railroad between two remote and relatively obscure points and not only try to keep it alive, but to operate it with the remaining gear as it was last operated when it was part of a "real" railroad system? What a crazy, improbable and quixotic idea! Certainly not rational. Yet there it is, 64 miles of still existent Colorado narrow gauge, cinders and all. The when(s), where(s) and whys of how it could still be in spite of everything is as much a part of the story as the original technology it seeks to preserve.
Presuming it could go into the future continuing to emphasize coal burning steam locomotives as many have here pointed is not rational. But the C&TS has not been "rational" from the beginning. The rational people took their read of the "future" and did something else. Joe, Greg and the others are right; the coal burning steam is very near the heart of the whole "crazy" show. The challenges of dry forests, insurance policies, etc. certainly militate against it. But then things always have been against it. The heart of the whole show has always been the irrational people who thought the whole crazy idea could be made to work, and continued to believe in spite of every evidence to the contrary. And lo and behold, they found a different "future" than the prevailing one, because there it still is!
I who have yet to get there but who hope to, for what little it's worth, say continue to go for the other future which includes the coal burning steam. A C&TS which plays it safe is not the C&TS which I have admired. I have learned to love it when my idea of what was possible gets blown up....
Thanks for the discussion, I learn a lot from you all;
Timothy
Edited 5 time(s). Last edit at 12/02/2020 03:19PM by heatermason.
