Zack,
Very good letter and I agree with most of it. It is well thought out and provides a good plan. I only hope that the people, who need to read it, will.
On some of the other things brought up here, John Cole said
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I have 'heard', that the asking price is two or three times or more, the real value of the property.
Remember that the railroad is jointly owned by the states of Colorado and New Mexico, and as such that would mean that the state could declare ‘Eminent Domain’ and purchase the land at a ‘fair’ price (I better get out the fire proofing on this one for the flames, but it is an idea) so long as it was to be a part of the railroad.
I like the location because it would allow expansion for a larger museum later on as well as having good parking that would not interfere with the parking for the riders. I would also recommend having a lure that would get people into Chama from the museum site to help out the local businesses. This could be something like the rail transport idea. Hey, what about a speeder that could pull a small car that carries 6 or 10 people at a time and shuttles back and forth to the yard and museum every hour or half hour (again only an idea).
Lastly, I seen many post about how the ‘Friends’ don’t listen. A suggestion only, but what about someone from this group running for the board? I believe that many here are ‘Friends’ members and if we agree to vote together we might put someone on the ‘Friends’ board that would represent this group. As for who, I would again suggest that we this forum to find someone by having suggests or the person(s) volunteers by posting on to this forum and then have us all agree (this may be impossible with this group) on just one and then have them run. I know there are a lot of people here that care what happens to the railroad, such as Chile John, Don, El Coke, Roger, and Zack to name a few (I know that this is not a complete list, but I would need to get full member list of this forum to get them all) and we should be able to find someone that can represent us. I hope that this would be ok with Don if we use the forum to do this and would recommend that we get his approval before we start a thread on this. I also know that this will be a lot of work (and travel) for the person that becomes a board member, and would recommend that you consider that before volunteering for it.
