olarmy Wrote:
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> Well Rod, I guess you have all the answers. They
> should put you in charge. Personally, I don't
> believe it will ever happen. They are doing good
> to just run what they have. Cats is 20 miles
> longer than D&S with severe grades. Running two
> trains a day would take additional crews no doubt.
> D&S, even though shorter does not do any double
> turns with engines or trains. They just have
> enough equipment to field 4 trains. All just make
> one round trip. I don't know where you think you
> will get passenger car trucks since they quit
> making them about 50 years ago. If they were
> available the cars would have them now. The
> grades from Antonito are much less than the 4%
> from Chama to Cumbres, hence I did not think they
> would need to double head. The engines never seem
> to work very hard out of Antonito. I believe the
> grades are in the 1% range. The best you could
> hope for short term are a few extra passenger cars
> to handle any extra loads should they ever show
> up. After the track improvements, maybe they
> should spend a little extra on advertising.
I never claimed to have “all” the answers, I am simply defending my proposal and trying to answer some of the arguments you have raised in reply. Please don’t read more into it than that. I think the current management is doing a commendable job given the resources they have to work with. I think though the RR can do much better given sufficient resources, hence my attempt to think creatively.
Yes, the D&S is longer and not as steep. I am proposing a similar operating scheme that they are doing, i.e. one train set and crew makes a roundtrip from Durango to Silverton daily. Right now for the C&TS, the same train set and crew only run one way from Chama to Antonito or vice versa. In my proposal they would be making a roundtrip daily, just like the D&S. No additional crews, no additional motive power, just run faster and don’t stop for lunch in Osier = 2 trains in each direction every day.
The C&TS does have one set of passenger truck frames that El Coke mentioned recently that came from the D&S. Duplicating this and applying it to cars that the Friends will have under restoration in the future plus regular revenue passenger cars or any new cars to be built in the future is a key component to this discussion. In the short term I agree adding additional cars will probably be the least cost solution when demand warrants. Either way, it is going to take a number of years to get this funding and plans going so it is best to start thinking about this now. No question that advertising is key to drawing tourists in. Hopefully this summer they will see the results of these expanded efforts.
Rod
