Greg:
And there is a history of D&RGW narrow gauge picnic trains. In the teens and 20s, the D&RGW ran 4th of July picnic trains on the Lake City branch, the Floresta branch, the Anthracite branch, to Almont on the Crested Butte branch and to Pitkin. These trains were sponsored by Western State College in Gunnison. The trains would include one of the open cars from the Black Canon run,. These were such a success that the D&RGW had to double head the one on the Floresta branch in 1927. The trains would just stop in a nice open area, everyone would get our and eat and play games and around 3pm, the engine would blow the whistle and everyone would climb aboard for the run home.
The D&RGW also had narrow gauge ski trains on Mashall Pass, the Crested Butte branch, and on Cumbres Pass. The Cumbres Pass ski trains were sucessful and only stoppped because they opened the Wolf Creek Ski area. The skiing was done in the area around Los Pinos. A couple of extra coaches were added to the San Juan. They would be left on the siding at Los Pinos by the morning train to Durango and picked up by the evening train from Durango. The skiers could use the coaches for warming themselves and for eating their lunches. They also did some sledding. A few skiers got off the train at Cumbres and skied around tanglefoot and caught the evening train.
The Marshall Pass ski trains were so sucessful that they were doubleheaded with two 490s and met a ski train from Gunnison pulled by 472. The 472 and a coach were used as ski lifts between Shavano tank and Marshall Pass.
There is a lot of historical precedent for doing a lot of things if someone just knew how to market the idea.
