Re: C&TS Two shop facilities

Rod,

This discussion of "duplicate" facilites has prompted me to throw out a few points to consider.

Lumping all of the facilities together as part and parcel to the operation (and preservation) of the C&TS is ignoring some basic facts.

#1 - As John Bush states, there is a need to do minor engine service at both terminals for his stated reasons. Major engine work is based in Chama because that was where it developed over the years most likely because that was where there was building space to do the work, etc. Then and today, most of the shop guys live in Chama.

#2 - there is NOT going to be 3 (4?) car shops per se. We need to stop that notion in its tracks. That is an oversimplification of the real situation. The Friends Car Repair facility in Antonito and the proposed Chama CRF are for historic car and equipment repairs and long term projects and not for revenue equipment maintenance. These facilities are and will be owned by the Friends on Friends-owned property and are, and will be, kept seperate for the most part (notice I am giving myself an out here). From time to time, there will be some work normally done by the railroad operator (such as the speeder repairs last spring in the Antonito CRF) done in the Friends buildings because after all, we are all about helping the RR, right?

#3 - The car shop(soon to be plural?)s for the railroad is(are) for the revenue equipment, i.e. the C&TS built passenger cars, the MOW equipment and even #19. That work is presently done in Antonito for several reasons besides the much-ballyhooed sharing of the economic value of the railroad on the local economies. Primarily, this gives the Antonito employees some work to do in the winter without having to drive over Cumbres-LaManga Passes twice a day in the winter. My guess for a possible reason for building additional RR car shop space in Antonito is the railroad (when it isn't on the ropes financially) has been doing the passenger car refurbishing in the winter months there. If there is to be another car shop in Antonito built by the commission it must be to allow more cars to be worked on simultaneously in the winter inside and out of the weather. The present car shop setup is a bottleneck when more than two cars need to be worked on and the #19 or a peice of MOW equip needs repairs. Consider this as well, the space crunch is especially exacerbated when the state funds dry up in late November, all work stops, and then, in late Feb. the state(s) realize that nothing is getting done, now it is b**ls to the wall to get everything done in one or two months with no shop space available. Hey, besides, maybe they need a new paint shop to keep those red paint jobs all spiffy and new looking....

And, puhlease, remember that there is some effort expended to keep what the Friends normally work on and what the operators normally work on seperated so there is a need for seperate facilities at least as far as the Friends and the Railroad (the commission, shops or the operator) is concerned thus requiring seperate structures.

I see nothing wrong with the arangement of facilities where they are presently located given all the factors involved. There is no duplication of services to any great degree and while there might be some minimal advantage from a management standpoint as far as supervision is concerned, I think the argument for concentrating everything in one town or the other is far overrated. The C&TS is fundamentally different from the D&S in this respect and I see no comparison between the two in this regard.

One more point. The facilities in Colorado (regardless of the current funding level issues) demonstrate to Colorado based foundations and sources of grant money, including state funds, that there is a real intention to spend some or all of that money in Colorado. Move everything to New Mexico and much of that funding that is just now beginning to flow in, will dry up. Like it or not, there are political considerations to this whole ball game and to treat it strictly from a corporate-style finanancial-management viewpoint is asking for failure. JUst as it is impossible to view the whole situation from strictly a railfans viewpoint. There has to be a middle ground for this thing called the C&TS to survive.

I have cut and pasted so many times I hope this doesn't sound to mixed up.

Have a good weekend and I am off to my local train store and beer-thirty.