I have no stake in this in any way, shape, or form...but I think the comments towards Ross are a little hypocritical. Why? It seems to be one thing when some wish out loud for a Bill Gates or someone else who's well-heeled to restore ol' (fill in the blanks), or build a brand-new Pennsy T1 Duplex, or (etc etc)...but when Ross puts together a plan to do same, out come the critics. if this proposal comes to pass (I doubt it can work, but what do I know?), would you really mind seeing 614 under steam again?

Preserving-and especially operating-steam in this day and age calls for lotsa $, which is even more hard to come by in a recession. Yes, this plan calls for using OPM (Other People's Money), which preservationists obtain under many methods-ticket sales, fundraising, business plans, government grants, etc. A rose by any other name...

All but the smallest one man shops require OPM of some sort, whether it is venture capital, shares bought, products paid for in advance of delivery, whatever. Nothing immoral or unusual about it. Credit cards, car loans, student loans, mortgages - all OPM. Assuming we are all living completely in our time while we pursue our interest in previous times, none of us aren't using it.

Not all proposals are successfully funded and result in a product. fewer do than don't. Having one fail to reach critical mass isn't an indication of anything other than not enough people chose that investment option at one point in time. I'd rather see a lot of ideas getting tossed around than none being considered at all.

Let he that is without track record cast the first stone - sorry, already done.

dave

The way I see it, Ross provides a service with his steam locomotive. If somebody wants the service, specifically with that locomotive, and in the plans a restoration is called for, what is wrong with putting that in the contract? That is called business negotiation. It's between the involved parties, for their mutual benefit. Ross Rowland is opinionated, but his steam business track record (pun intended) is fairly solid. If he blows smoke (whoa, another pun!) at Steamtown, so what? Everyone has an opinion and is entitled to give it, particularly concerning a government operated enterprise.
Should 614 be brought back to service, who is going to gripe about seeing it at the head of a premier passenger train?

In the meantime, let's stand back and watch the proceedings.

It has been awhile since we have had the "Eat Our Own Kind Buffet" at RYPN.

I still don't like the taste.

Rob

The Greenbrier proposal seems better suited to a one-time stunt with a currently operating engine such as NKP 765 or PM 1225 pulling a string of private cars. More dreaming - this would be part of a ferry move for a season of a steam-power on the New River Train.

Wesley

Now this is what I like to hear. A Ferry Move for the NRT :)

And don't forget that every mile FWRHS racks up with 765 gets them 1 mile closer to qualifying for Amtrak certification, which we all know would be needed for this plan to have a snowball's chance in you-know-where of happening.

Convincing other people to invest in your idea (dream) is the American way and the way of every idea man since people started having ideas. That's why they invented the stock market. The truth is that if you are an idea man the only way you are truly a failure is if you don't chase your dreams. Ross has spent a lifetime chasing steam dreams and keeps plugging away today in a very difficult time. When something works out thousands of us are either riding the trains or are track side. Thank you Ross for not giving up and bravo to every other idea man out there. The only people without failures are the ones who do nothing and it seems there are a lot of naysayers who have never failed.

Arguably, the greatest idea man of modern times, Walt Disney, was fired from the Kansas City Star newspaper because they said he lacked creativity. After making a few small time cartoons his company went on to restore a number of Baldwin steamers and built a nice park where they run to this day. In a twist of irony his company bought ABC, the owner of the Kansas City Star. Another well known idea man from a little earlier in history had a crazy notion that the world was round. He also used other people's money to prove his theory, we all know how that ended.

It seems we have at least one lurker who mostly posts when he has a chance to jump out of the shadows, do a quick hit on Ross, and then return to the shadows. Grow up and try to contribute something positive.

Was that LOOSE LIPS SINK SHIPS directed at me? All I did was make a reasonable guess as to what motive power might be under consideration for this proposal. And I could speculate on another steam surprise, brought out into the daylight on this very forum, but maybe I'd better not-

I doubt it was directed at you since Ross said the same thing over at Trainorders.

This is a faboulus idea and I'm very glad that a Hotel here in the United States is planning to do this. It reminds me very much of when the Cipriani Hotel in Venice, Italy had an idea to restore the old 1930's Orient Express for service between London and Venice.

Well if they run such a train it will be fun and many of us will try to ride or chase it. Frankly I hope they spend some money on the place itself. Five star/diamond resorts must constantly be doing upgrades and enhancements or risk losing that 5th star/diamond. The Greenbrier lost the Mobile 5th star and the 5th AAA diamond is hanging by a thread. Sadly, the hotel is suffering from that railroad malady, deferred maintenance.

DW and I recently visited the Greenbrier and took the bunker tour. The hotel makes a great first impression, but after we walked around a bit it was clear that the main building could use some TLC. The bunker tour was worth the price of admission. The view from the outdoor "infinity pool" at the edge of the golf course was also stunning.

Wesley

What people have said about OPM is true - many great projects require initial expenditures from somebody with money who got it by recognizing opportunity. Often however, those great ventures start SMALL, the proprietors operate on a shoestring and obtain small amounts of external capital only AFTER they've gone a long way to proving they have a viable idea and the smarts to nuture it along. Indeed there's a theory that capital inadequacy forces fledgling businesses to develop financial discipline (that surely gets lost when you buy Skyboxes and Congress Critters and pay executives with backdated options)

Implicitly, the other posters seem to believe that a steam project is going to require a substantial external INVESTMENT. Sorry, but that's not happening. You may see something where there's a GIFT that isn't expecting a return, but that's unlikely too, because gifts just don't fund self-sustaining businesses all that often.

OPM expects a return that I suspect is just as impossible to generate with steam today as it was a half a century ago, even for the masters-the Norfolk & Western.

Therefore, I don't fault Ross or anybody else for failing to create a durably profitable business model; its economically impossible. Sooner or later, the flue time is up, the wheels need to be dropped and there's just not enough left-over ticket revenue to get that done. Is anybody questioning Jerry Jacobson's operational acumen? He couldn't make enough money to justify the regular steam runs and they went bye-bye. I do fault those that insist they can run a big-time steam operation profitably (especially on somebody else's rails)

Right now the closest thing to a profitable long-haul steam operation is the Reading & Northern; there are a series of conditions and concessions that others can't or won't duplicate-primarily that Mr. Muller owns the railroad, so he doesn't need to convince skeptical risk managers and lawyers to go give the green light as you would on any decent sized regional or Class 1. While the R&N has received some government funding, its largely a self-sustaining operation, they run a modern freight railroad with a steam sideline. And the steam operation is governed with the experience that was gained in running a RAILROAD. Once they started expanding they learned to distinguish between CHEAP U-boats and INEXPENSIVE EMD's.

With operational needs in focus; The R&N tucks a couple of SD-50's behind a relatively small Pacific-providing the go for the 425's show; there was a time on the CNJ Ross insisted to an irate CNJ Road Foreman that he needed to avoid a diesel assist-which in the late 60's may have been true, but business is often about concessions. Of course a lot of bigger Western engines have had Dash-9 pumpkins along as escorts, so it might be new to the East only. The diesels just don't seem to bother the folks filling the R&N's coaches.

Following the conventional wisdom would've dictated the R&N spending a bigger load of cash on 2102 and keeping the diesels at bay. That's the difference between a sustainable steam sideline and something infeasible, but "pure".

I just can't see this working more than a few times a year and that's the rub. You can't run too much to dilute the potential market and you need enough to justify the enormous fixed costs of a big steamer. It just isn't going to work year in and year out. Once 1472 days are up and the flues need pullin', rational money is going to be buying Intel stock.

The R&N tucks a couple of SD-50's behind a relatively small Pacific-providing the go for the 425's show;

The SD-50s are used as little as possible.....mostly to obtain track speed and dynamics with the large trains. You cant say it doesn't earn its keep.