Re: Animas River Railway- What was real reason for

The railbus (failbus?) is used as a shop switcher for the car dept. It was out and about a couple times a week last summer. Its last revenue use was for a Silverton - Elk Park run during the fires in 2002.
The railbus has a great talent for blowing hydraulic hoses on the road, liberally hosing the rail down with oil and causing everything behind to stall on the slick track.
The power truck was adapted from a Plymouth mine engine, that was never intended for continuous operation at 15 mph.
The open gondola is now 313 and is in regular service. It's the best open car on the road, the sides are lower, so you can see better, it's standard coach width so it rides better with less rocking than the former pipe gon, former SG boxcar gons, and the train crews like it because the rear brakeman has his own back platform to hang out on without having to elbow the paying passengers out of the back corner.