Re: the rest of the story...

Fritz pointed out:
The internal funds generated by CHS, like from memberships, gift shop sales , admission to their properties, can be spent outside of the restrictions imposed on the Fund, but again within certain guidelines subject to audit.
I recall reading in the Railstar proposal (that was previously posted or linked to here on the NGDF) that Railstar specifically identified the gift shop area at Silver Plume as being much too small to return a sufficent amount of profits. I remember thinking they were right about that, since the gift shop was the smallest of any tourist railroad and railroad museum I'd been too.
Heck, on my 8/23/04 visit, I spent a total of $1.07 in the Silver Plume gift shop, buying four postcards... I just happened to come across the receipt while going through travel receipts the other night. (That $1.07 purchase was probably the least amount of money I've spent *anywhere* this year, other than at parking meters.)
You can criticize them all you want for not having the operating expertise that the GLRR had, but I think you need to acknowledge that Railstar really seems to "get" the needs of the CHS.
This leads me to a pair of "Follow the Money" questions: If the tourist spends money on souveniors, food, and film in a gift shop on the Loop site, a percentage of it will go into CHS's coffers, right? If the tourist buys those items from a vendor in downtown Georgetown, the CHS doesn't get a cut, do they?
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Chris Webster
[www.speakeasy.org]