Randall Hess wrote:
>Maybe preservation standards will fit in with what the owners want to do with their property, or maybe they won't, and it doesn't make sense to carry out this discussion until we know where the owners want to take this railroad - how they want to direct it so that it can meet its various goals,
including bringing in enough money so they can continue to exist even apart from government assistance.<
There is the rub. I don’t think you will find many who can honestly state that the C&TS could ever be economically self supporting. Looking at the D&S it is easy to see why the economics don’t work for the C&TS. First the C&TS has seen 37 years of deferred maintenance. Even with the current track upgrades which are the first time that I can recall in the RR’s history that track maintenance has been undertaken to this level it will take millions more in funding to even approach a ROW that resembles the D&S. Then we have the issue of passenger equipment or lack thereof. And that is assuming that the town infrastructure could even handle the number of people required to make the RR profitable. If the D&S is carrying 180,000 passengers per year and if we assume an $85 average ticket price then they would be working with a $15 million annual revenue stream. It would be interesting to know at what revenue level the C&TS would be completely self supporting, including all capital improvements. My guess would be $7.5 -10 million in annual revenue which if translated into the same average D&S ticket price ($85) you would need somewhere in the range of 90,000-120,000 passengers per year. I just don’t see that as possible given the location, infrastructure, and politics of the C&TS communities.