Re: How many narrow gauge steamers do we need apar

Krammitsue,
Correction, the Lake Tahoe Ry and Navigation car is not in daily service. It is held and used for extra trains, ie: overflows and does not see daily use.
But let's look at what the GTL has done for the car. I was there when it first arrived. It was falling apart. The end beams were made of a series of 1/6's bolted (not laminated or glued) together. The brake system was cobbled together and would work with some effort. The roof was held together with two torch-cut pieces of 1/2" flat metal stock. All of the decorative woodwork was removed and much of the inside structural elements were exposed. It was riding on ex Westside trucks with shelled-out wheels. The seats were Heywood-Wakefield seats from an unknown streamline coach that sat so close to the floor that you were hugging your knees. The Truss rods were a temporary affair at best and did little to support the superstructure of the car.
The GTL took it into the shop and completely refitted and rebuilt it, cutting new endbeams from solid Oak, replaced the missing decorative wood, replaced the streamline seats, reworking the entire brake system, put actual passenger trucks under it, rebuilt the supports for the roof and saved the car from the deterioration and the fire that a transient, after breaking into the car, had set one winter using the interior wood to keep him (or her) self warm. They rebuilt the underframe and components so that it actually worked as it was built.
Believe me, you don't want to make a statement like you just made until you stop and realize that without the GTLRR the Tahoe car would probably be sawdust by now.
Rick