Basically no, it would not have been a good thing for the Rio Grande. The Grande knew it was a loosing situation back in the 1920's and considered standard gaging the entire line, however the stock market crash of 1929 stopped that because the entire area was depressed, and operatons became more and more intermittent. Additonally, automobiles and trucks continued to take more and more business away from the line. The war stopped the slide for the duration, however after the war, increased labor costs and improved highways forced the railroad to start abandonment in the late 1940's with the Cerro Summit line (also the fact that this line was on some rather unstable ground helped this. The Grande management originally intended to abandon the entire operation in the 1950's but the Farmington Gas and oil boom kept the operation going for about 15 or so years. Remember that the railroad was a "common carrier" and the government regulations required them to continue service if it was needed. However, by the mid 1960's the gas and oil traffic was gone, and the Chama oil traffic to the refinery in Alamosa ended with the dismantling of the refinery. Diesel technology might have saved the line, however the traffic was gone. The railroad got permission to abandon and did so in 1967-68. If the states had not stepped in and purchased what is today the Cumbres and Toltec, it would have been completely ripped out, and the remaining cars burned. Since most of the older locomotives had already been retired, none of them would have been around anyways.
You have to realize that the main cause for the end of steam operations in the US was the high cost of maintenance and upkeep of a steam locomotive. A diesel does not need anywhere that level of care and feeding, and combined with a downturn in the economy around 1957, spelled the end for almost all steam operations with only a few exceptions, such as N&W, GTW, CN, CP and several small operations that maintained steam operations into the early 1960's. In fact the narrow gauge was the LAST regular steam operation in North America.
Basically the narrow gauge was operating on borrowed time at the mid-point of the 20th Century, and another 5 to 10 years not only would not have any impact on this, but probably would not have been possible.
Bill Daniels
Tucosn, AZ
