Re: Professional Advice 4: How is C&TS now operate

Hi Mark,
The tar and feathers are keeping me warm this time of year. That was a very unexpected somewhat positive reply you made for Paul, and you have read much of my posting, hopefully including my September 1970 efforts on getting the C&TS open. You hit the nail in many points that a name shouldn’t determine if you listen to a person on rules and methods but study what is explained. There were naysayers who wanted Black Bart to stay around longer till the railroad was dead and buried, but I didn’t, and pushed the issue like I have done here. I will not explain more as he might try to surface back at Chama.
Maybe you might know Paul enough to explain that I do have 40+ years of knowing “how things are actually done” and that if any major railroad heard his “Rule books and ideas might seem great” while he was a employee, he would be in for some extended rule classes to explain why he needed to ‘”sometimes side step”. As for his “overkill”, a safer course is never overkill- the idea is not to kill. “….they should be paying attention anyway”- they do not pay attention these days, as we know about cell phone drivers. His “would be a waste of time of train crew and the motorists waiting” I reply: The train crew is paid the 8 hours and would only cut into some coffee time, and stop the public traffic as the law requires. Agreed, I haven’t won any congeniality contest while I was on the job, but I never got anyone killed either. My first territory had 125 trackmen under my safety eye, and I never shied from making waves for a safer course.