I have been watching and reading all of the postings about "historical accuracy" and "entertainment" and "not a museum" with a great deal of interest from my long distance seat in Houston, Texas. I thought that I would point out some parallels and differences with our C&TSRR or Georgetown Loop of Texas, The Texas State RR. This morning, the Houston Chronicle reports that apparently the final death sentence has been passed on the TSRR, and that at the end of this year, it will cease to be an operating railroad, and become a static museum.
The parallels between the two mentioned operations and the TSRR are frightening. All 3 are state owned, and state funded, with the only difference being that the TSRR is actually run by the state with state employees. Both the TSRR and CATS are a long way off of the normal travel and tourist routes, and are basically a non entity in the major cities of the area. Ask most people in the Dallas or Houston area about the TSRR, and they will have never heard about it, despite having been hauling passengers for 30 years. TSRR uses equipment from all over, not just even Texas. The locomotives are painted red, green, and blue, many of the vintage passenger cars have been remade into open air cars, and painted in "non prototype" colors. The local community in Palestine, TX has come out with many creative ways to entice people to come and ride the train, but even with all of this, the locomotives are worn out, all but one of them is in pieces waiting on new boilers that will never be installed, the track suffers deferred maintainence, and the railroad/state park still loses $ 1.6 million per year.
TSRR has no "Friends" organization to come to the rescue, so at the end of this year it will just DIE due to disinterest in Austin.
What is the moral of this story?
First, It is not the color of the equipment, or whether it is "historically accurate" that brings the riders off of the Interstate to Chama, or Palestine, or even Georgetown or Silver Plume. After all, locomotives and cars get shopped and improved and altered all through their careers, so that what is "accurate" to one fan may not be to another.
Second, Without active support from the Railfan community, (that's us) governments lose interest in hemorraging tax dollars for a few, non vocal special interest groups. CATS is very, very lucky to have the Friends who are the ones who take of their valuable time and money to fill in where the states have not been able or willing to do so.
Third, Advertising and tour groups are at least one answer. People get off at Silver Plume and Georgetown, not because they see the train as they go by at 70 on I-70 but because they see the brochure in the motel, and the billboard along the road. Tour groups bring their busses, because it is somewhere to go and something to do, on the way between Denver and somewhere else. After all, the White Pass is the most remote railroad in North America, and it still hauls the most people.
It may be too late to save the TSRR from the legislature in Austin, but it is not too late for CATS. We waste hours of time and bandwith arguing about the trivial when we should be putting our efforts into what really counts. If you live 1200 miles away and work an 24/7 job like I do, you can't go and help the Friends or the 315 group, but we can be thankful for what they have accomplished and send a few $$ when we can. We can talk up the sidetrip to Chama with our friends and help them plan a trip that includes that attraction as well as the Silverton and Mesa Verde.
If we don't do what we can, even from a long distance, let what is potentially the ultimate fate of the TSRR remind us of what could happen to some of the other operations that we cherish as well.
