I have no particular knowledge of the present Loop situation - rode it with Bob Richardson behind No. 9 last Sept. 2. Should say up front I consider Lindsey and Rosa Ashby close friends, but have not seen them recently and never discussed the recent situations with them. I have nothing against Railstar or any of the bidders, no axe to grind in the present situation, except that I would like to see the Loop back in service with steam trains, especially behind No. 9.
But from 1966 to 1973 I was a graduate student at Univ. of Colo. at Boulder and a teaching assistant, working under Dr. Robert G. Athearn, a history professor, at the time he was under contract to the Union Pacific do a history of the Union Pacific, which he later published, and he was hob-nobbing with U.P. executives in Omaha and perhaps elsewhere. Eventually, after I had turned them down once, in need of money I accepted a job offer from the State Historical Society of Colorado to do history research on Fort Garland, an 1858-1883 military post in the San Luis Valley, now a state park, and I worked 40 hours a week (or more) on that 9 month project and had an office in the SHS headquarters building near the state capitol in Denver.
One day when I was meeting with Bob Athearn at the University regarding work on my doctorate (which I never finished), he said to me, "What's wrong with those people at the State Historical Society of Colorado?" I asked, "What do you mean?"
It seemed the Society had sought and obtained a grant from the Union Pacific Foundation to do a study of rebuilding the Georgetown Loop Bridge (and perhaps more of the loop, I never saw any of the paperwork), received the grant, completed the study, and sent a copy to the Foundation. After that, nothing happened. The Union Pacific Foundation was anticipating a SECOND grant request to ACTUALLY REBUILD the Georgetown Loop Bridge, and nothing happened. Time went by. They heard NOTHING from the State Historical Society. One of their key people had complained to Athearn about the State Historical Society.
The next week, I asked for a private meeting with my boss at the State Historical Society, explained what Bob Athearn had told me, and that the Society had apparently 'dropped the ball' and the U.P. Foundation was expecting and awaiting, and awaiting, and awaiting, a second funding request from the Society to actually rebuild the bridge. I guess what I told my boss must have gotten some action, because I believe the Society then DID go after and get a second grant of funds to actually rebuild the bridge, but ONLY after Bob Athearn had complained to me and I had taken that complaint to my boss.
I never saw any documents or paperwork confirming what I've said above; it was all verbal between Athearn and me and between me and between me and my boss at the Society. But the Society IS a state bureaucracy, and we all know that bureaucracies sometimes have problems being efficient. And, of course, I work for another one today, the National Park Service.
