Re: the rest of the story...

Stephen asked me: What's your inferred point? ... that Railstar and CHS should GUT the Silver Plume depot so they can sell more rubber tomahawks and postcards?
Well, even if they did that and devoted the entire floor space to a giftshop, I think the resulting shop would still be noticably smaller than the gift shops in the Durango station.
If it were up to me, I'd devote the whole Silver Plume depot to historic displays and put a giftshop operation inside some rolling stock, probably converted boxcars. But that probably wouldn't work since narrow gage boxcars are so small, so I'd instead try to build a new giftshop nearby, probably next to the potty building.
Anyway, I think my inferred point is that there could be a potential double whammy to local merchants that they're not expecting. The first part of the whammy is the often stated point that patronage at local shops will drop if the new operator can't accomodate as many riders as the GLRR could.
The second part of the whammy is what I was trying to get at, namely that both the CHS and the new operator (apparently) have their eyes on increasing their own gift shop sales. Now, I don't know about the rest of you, but when I go on vacation, I have a budget I need to keep to. Every extra dollar I spent at an onsite gift shop is one less dollar I can spend at nearby merchants.
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Chris Webster
[www.speakeasy.org]