I going to respond to my own post because a back channel response gave me some further ideas which I will steal from freely.
Governor Richardson seems to be looking at some "big" changes. Which is good. But unless he is given some additional options I would guess that the most likely change would be to put the New Mexico particpation in the railroad under the jurisdiction of the state parks in some way, and put the railroad into the regular budgeting process. Obviously fitting in with Colorado is an interesting issue there to which I have no answer.
Becoming part of the state parks system in some way is not a worst case scenario, because it could at least help stablize the political side of the funding and governance issues. But in my mind it is a far less than optimum solution because it bureaucratizes governance of the railroad and creates even less incentive to find private funding. I would also worry what would happen to the museum mission part of the railroad that is so dear to my little heart.
It has been suggested that the Friends need to focus on influencing the Governor and providing him with some (hopefully) better options. I have no idea if the Friends are actively involved in doing this or not. Their track record in dealing with these "strategic" issues is not as good as their world-class work in hands-on preservation.
Again, trying to avoid getting into details (the devil is always in the details) what I would like to see the development of some proposals for some kind of public private partnership that stabilizes the public part without excluding or minimizing the private participation in the process. For the railroad to maximize its financial resources it needs to maximize its own revenue, get funding from the states commensurage with its contribution to the public "good", and get private funding from the various individual and corporate donors who have an interest in seeing history preserved and interpreted. Similarly, this enlarged gene pool is more likely to produce some good leadership.
During the Kyle years the railroad was largely self-supporting on an operating basis. That used to be possible with a ridership of, if I remember correctly, 50-60,000 per year, although the breakeven point probably creeps up each year. Getting back to that kind of operating self sufficiency should be a major goal, and is largely a marketing issue. If public and private fund raising can focus on capital projects, my guess is the fund raising issue becomes easier. But clearly operating subsidies are going to be need for awhile.
For what it's worth.
JBW
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