Hi,

The UP closed the Tennessee Pass line - rail still there but unused and the section west from active rail west through the canyon was sold to someone else (I never can recall who). Ashby's SG operation uses the line through the Royal Gorge.

Moribund to UP even though they have trackage rights. In trying to be very brief and not stir up controversy on the NG Loop, I misleadingly implied info about the ex-AT&SF/ex-D&RG(W) line through the Canyon (the route through the Royal Gorge and the hanging bridge was built while AT&SF controlled the D&RG).

The main thing I was trying to reassure is that a " 3' Narrow Gauge Musuem Liquidating?" was not happening.

Difficult to offer more or less summary information only when subjects as touchy.

Sorry about that. You may try that next time. I give up. This is like trying to be Politically Correct to everyone about everything when everyone has chips on their shoulders.

Doug vV

I'm not sure if you were asking about the thru freight service over Tennessee Pass or the Royal Gorge Route Railroad tourist operation.

Thru freight service over Tennesee Pass ended after the UP/SP merger. My understanding is the UP rerouted most thru freight over Sherman Hill. The remaining traffic on the former D&RGW, mostly coal trains, goes via the Moffat Tunnel since that line has 2% grades while Tennessee Pass has 3% grades.

Colorado tourist railroads are seasonal, so the Royal Gorge might have appeared to be "moribund" if you checked its schedules during the winter months. Also, the Ashbys' daughter Leah passed away in 2012 from complications of a bone marrow transplant; she was only 48. She and her husband Mark began the Royal Gorge Route railroad and were managing it.

Doug, I was caught in the middle of it and I don't completely understand it. The situation was certainly not obviously rational from the perspective of somebody whose interest was simply to make the trains run and make a lot of passengers happy and send some money to the owner and the contract operator in the process........perhaps if everybody involved had worked from that as the basis and set aside every other consideration it could have been different.

Things have changed in the past few years very much for the better, but I'm not in any position to assign that change to any particular set of circumstances or individuals. I think it simply was getting so obviously unworkable that either everybody gave up or everybody found ways to stop getting in their own way and some critical mass of change happened as a result.

The one lesson I'm taking home is that railroaders should run tourist railroads, and entertainers should market tourist railroads. Bureaucrats and politicians should simply help the entertainers and railroaders from a very long distance as invited to do so only. Railfans should stop in, buy tickets, take pictures, suggest visits to their friends and otherwise shut the hell up.

It isn't surprising that you don't understand it from a distance, Doug. It was incomprehensible from the center as well.

dave

And with attitudes like that, they wonder why railfans don't/won't support them.

No Sandy, they do sort of support "them" but nowhere to the extent the general public does, and the public expression of opinions grounded in ignorance by people with no dog in the fight is just noise, but distracting noise. When ignorant people in positions of influence read and believe ignorant opinions in the noise, complications ensue which do nobody any good.

dave

Chris, that info was also in the quote that I included in my post. It reads as follows:
Quoting DougVV "Lindsey Ashby restored the GTL to operation...
Ashby started the rebuilding in the late 1960's and he and his son run the now moribund ex-D&RGW Royal Gorge SG operation out of Canyon City using F units."

Doug used the term "moribund", not me, my reply was pretty much "Huh? I thought they were doing great, what happened?" What he based that on is unclear, which is why I asked the question. From the wording, I'm unclear if "now moribund" bit applies to the D&RGW, or the Royal Gorge operation, and I was hoping he'd clarify that.

But this is the reality of EVERYDAY business and decision-making. For every reasonable, intelligent opinion expressed by intelligent people with enough background, experience, or education to understand the matters at hand, there are five or more ignorant opinions expressed by people who lack those qualifications. This goes on in business, in education, in science and medicine, and especially in politics. (Your last sentence, in fact, describes almost all politics to a "t", which serves to explain why so many folks want to reduce or eliminate political influence in their lives wherever possible.)

Railfans and rail historians CAN be a terrific asset--your unpaid marketing and social media staff, your volunteers, your excuse for a profitable Railfan Weekend or photo charter, etc. They're not your only reason for existence, especially with an outfit like the Napa Valley Wine Train or Grand Canyon Railway, but without enthusiasm for things railroading why would anyone bother to ride your "train to nowhere and back" when there are other alternatives? Why "flip off" your potential friends and allies with a deliberately arrogant attitude?

But an attitude like "get onboard, ride the train, and shut the hell up" only works if what you're selling is as spectacular as the view of the Grand Canyon or the "Soup Nazi's" soups. And even the Grand Canyon Railway can't really claim that, let alone all the other lines in the nation.

Yes, by all means, ignore the bozo that utterly demands that you operate a GG1 just because you have overhead wire, or can't understand why Strasburg doesn't restore and run a UP Big Boy. But to paint every "railfan" with that stereotype is utterly wrong, as wrong as calling everyone who voted for Obama a "socialist" or everyone who drives an SUV an "egocentric road-rage warrior" or whatever.

But Sandy, the issue is not what I can easily ignore..... it is what it becomes that affects the real world. If it had no effect, I could not care less. And, simply ignorance being widespread does not make it desireable, supportable or fortunate. I'd rather try to improve humanity by badgering humans to get smarter that accepting them as impossibly lost as a given. Sometimes it works, a lot of the time it doesn't, but I think it beats trying nothing.

dave

sorry was to have been a pm....

I'm just saying that there are better ways of doing that than suggesting that people whom you want to get money/work/resources from should

I'm glad I won't live to see the result if that occurs.

I did try humaning badgers, but they wouldn't sit still for it. Perhaps they know things we don't........

Now, back to the original focus of this thread..... who needs some nice century old wooden 3 foot gauge cars?

dave

OK, so let's ignore, for the moment, the seemingly questionable pricing on these cars and locomotives.

Let's consider the other problem. Who can possibly use them? C&TS, D&SNG, WP&Y, Sumpter Valley, Huckleberry and a few amusement parks. Have I forgotten any realistic prospects?

Seems like a rather limited sales potential.

Pine Creek, White Pass & Yukon, and... Georgetown Loop. Maybe the last possibility is why the advertised price is so high. Just guessing.