I forgot the Durango Herland URL. See the link below.

The story in the DH also notes that,"On Wednesday, legal counsel to Gov. Bill Owens said the train fits the definition of 'open fires' contained in the governor?s June 13 executive order banning open fires throughout the state. The executive order, however, allows county sheriffs to exempt burning activities. That means that if Sheriff Duke Schirard did not exempt the train, 'the train would fall under the executive order,' said Owens? spokesman."

The Open Fire ruling is interesting. It will have a major impact on the bongs at the Telluride Bluegrass Fesitval this year, but it also has implictions for the steam community.

The local loophole is a good one politically for the governor, as it saves his tail in case a train starts a fire. Don't blame him, blame the sheriff. However, it also paints a blanket of potential guilt over responsible people... and so far irresponsible people have been cited as the cause for the fires.

What troubles me is the notion of a steam locomotive as an open fire and the apparent broad strokes of that definition. Do oil burners count? What about cranky old internal combustion engines that spark their share of fires.

I guess my ire gets up at the politicos when these massive reactions arise in the face of disaster. The fires are horrible and the loss is tremendous to humans and especially to animals.

It seems to me the governor is grandstanding. Am I out of line?

Rob



Durango Herald story
trains@robertjohndavis.com

> I guess my ire gets up at the politicos when
> these massive reactions arise in the face of
> disaster. The fires are horrible and the
> loss is tremendous to humans and especially
> to animals.

> It seems to me the governor is
> grandstanding. Am I out of line?

I wouldn't say you're out of line, but I don't think Bill Owens is grandstanding. He wasn't even quoted - just staff members. (Probably just as well - when we was quoted as saying that "the whole state's on fire," the tourism industry there beat the crap out of him for, pardon the pun, inflammatory statements.)

The risk at the D&S is different (in my view) from the C&TS situation. The main damage of a fire set by the C&TS would be diverting resources from the five other fires in northern New Mexico. A fire on the D&S south of Rockwood would damage dozens or hundreds of the condos that now sprawl along the railroad.

The issue of internal v. external combustion is mostly academic - D&S (and C&TS) have no diesels really useful for hauling passenger trains. That said, the degree of risk is much greater with a coal-burning locomotive. (It might be interesting to see if UP reconsiders sending 3985 to Denver in July if the rains still haven't come.)

Are the railroads run by responsible people? No doubt. But even responsible people might inadvertantly set a fire - and the one-acre blaze that diverted resources from the Missionary Ridge fire undercut the D&S' PR stance. (That one happened in a remote spot on the 2.5% grade between Hermosa and Rockwood, which seems to be the real area of concern.) Try telling the families that lose their homes and possessions to a loco-set fire that the railroad was responsible and had lots of preventive measures in place.

While this is new to us, it's been common in the UK - in the summer of 1995 dozens of main line steam excursions were cancelled during a dry spell, and sporadic cancellations happen every year there.

And it's not just railroads and open fires. Fireworks are banned in Santa Fe - if you've seen how housing folds into the canyons and how many could be destroyed quickly, you might agree with that move.

There are no easy answers, and the damage to the financial health of the Friends and the C&TS may simply be too much. Bureaucrats and politicos are easy targets when tempers are high. But we're all pretty good at predicting the past - it's predicting the future that is tough, and makes for disagreements between reasonable people.

JAC