Well Mr. Day, it would seem that the D&RGW decided half a century ago that yellow coaches would bring in more riders than green ones. Something about making the coaches more bright and colorful to help attract more tourist. Kind of like…..red.
Here and above you used the WP&Y, Knotts and EBT as models of successful railways that have green coaches. You must be kidding. I know you are knowledgeable enough to know that the WP&Y is successful only because the cruise ships drop 400,000 passengers a year right on their platforms. They do not NEED to have any other “hook” to try and get passengers. The color of their cars makes no difference.
Knotts? 99% of people do NOT go to Knotts because of the beautiful, historic train (which it is). They go there to ride roller coasters. Using Knotts as a model for the C&TS to follow is just ridiculous. People complance about turning the C&TS into a Disneyland. Knotts IS Disneyland!!
Do you really want to use the EBT as an example for the C&TS to follow? The EBT is a 3 mile railway that is just barley hanging on financially. While I may think the EBT is the coolest narrow gauge railway on earth, the average tourist are not flocking to Orbisonia.
While your examples of railways to follow DO have great looking and historic equipment and I personally love these places, I really don’t think you are doing your argument any justice by using them as model for the C&TS to follow.
Also, the three examples you mention have one very important thing that the C&TS does not. Historical passenger equipment. If we are so concerned about the fact that the color is not correct for D&RGW passenger equipment, why are we not concerned that the same cars are converted flatcars or home built cars? These cars are not historic. They where built to carry tourist (not railfans) so the railway should paint these cars whatever color helps them do their job. If that color turns out to not be Red, then pick another one. However, one thing seems to be sure and even the D&RGW agreed that the best color was NOT green.
You said “if the historic preservation part of the C&TS gets pushed aside and it is turned into a circus train, why should a fan of the D&RGW narrow gauge care if it survives or not?”
I believe there are hundreds of volunteers that show up every year in Chama and all over the C&TS line that can think of why. Or maybe the 100 plus historically correct freight cars might be a good reason. Or how about all the building that have been restored and painted correctly in Chama, Cumbres, Osier or Sublete.
These new coaches have nothing to do with the historic preservation part of the C&TS. They exist to generate revenue so there is money in the bank to pay for the historic preservation of the historic equipment. If the regular passenger train (that never ran on the D&RGW) needs to look like a “circus train” as you called it, to generate that revenue, then so be it.
And for the people that are upset because the red will not look good in their pictures, you have to forgive me if I really don’t feel too sorry for you. The C&TS is trying to do something to help generate revenue and use that money to preserve the history of railroading in the area and trying to support an economy of an area that has very little else to survive on. And you are upset that your pictures don’t come out the way you like?!?! (Not to you Mr. Day but the others who made such statements)
The funny part about this whole thing is that they probably had the same type of debates 50 years ago when the D&RGW started to paint their coaches yellow.
