I guess I should call Mr. Grigsby and get it straight from the horse's mouth. But I'm pretty awfully sure all of the remaining RR locos are well overdue for a 15 year inspection, so the money and time that takes will slow him down a bit. I'm pretty shocked that #2 has to go all the way back to Arkansas for inspection-I've been to RR's facility, as such, it's pretty modest to say the least, and IMHO I can't fathom why it wouldn't be easier to take the loco to the tools then the tools to the loco. Of course they can haul it back themselves with their own truck/trailer/equipment, so that favors bringing it home.

I'd love to see the RR itself back in service, but....I just can't see it...it's the neatest wooded 'flatland' location you could imagine, very typical southern Arkansas forest, but the location is also terrible, in that it's 30+ miles from -anything- anyone would normally go see, down a road that looks like it fell on the Arkansas highway folks "poopie list" a long time agao. If it couldn't lure enough people in to stay ahead of the game in the 80's and early 90's, what has changed for the better now? On the flip side I know Mr. Grigsby has not given up on Reader, he continues at a somewhat slow pace to make improvements to the RR site as time and money allows.

there seems to be potential that RR could supply the equipment for a excursion operation in Texas. If you search "Fannin Rural Rail" in Google you will see a lot of documents. My inexpert opinion is that they seem to be on a perpetual holding pattern with no significant progress for a few years, but that no one has given up on it yet, either. Interesting is that Tom Long, son of the former owner of the RR, is on the board at Fannin. 'Our own' Mr. Templin is involved as well, would love to see his thoughts on it from a closer viewpoint.

Robert

Its one of the advantages of having smaller equipment; you can just suck it up on a detachable neck lowboy, chain it down and take it to the shop. Its just a whole lot easier for us to work on stuff in our own pretty well equipped shop than it is to do it on a siding in the suburbs. Also, our staff is in and around Arkansas, so instead of hauling a bunch of cats to the engine and having to put them up somewhere, this allows us to work from home.

As for the #7, a 2-SIX-2...when we get something for it to do, we'll do it. There's a partial front knuckle made up for it, and it will go in when we need it to.

As for Fannin County, the rail district is awaiting the final contract with TxDOT on the last mile or so into town, so there will be access to the downtown park and depot. One of the difficulties in this has been the presence of an ultra ultra super nutty ultra right wing bunch of nutjobs that also run the only newspaper in town. They apparently don't think the government should do anything but keep illigals out of the country, and they are against any type of government involvement in rail transportation. If you think the average yuppie nimby is hard to deal with, just wait until you have to deal with folks on a crusade against everything that might involve the federal, state, or local government, and are paranoid that every one and everything is designed to confiscate their property.

Just to clarify, it seems you are implying they are nutty, would that be correct?.... :P

"Just to clarify, it seems you are implying they are nutty, would that be correct?.... :P"--Junior

Are they nuts? I don't know, I couldn't find anything like letters to the editor or anything at all other than "official" sites, but if they are, I can believe it! I should know, I've faced this first-hand! Whooee!!

About 20 years ago, I was trying to promote a light rail line, a modern interurban really, in a semi-rural area of West Virginia as an alternative to a proposed 4-lane highway; even put together a cost study on the thing. Considering the combination of speed that would be required and the historic nature of the area, I even suggested the equipment be patterned after the famous Indiana Railroad lightweight cars.

What did I get for my trouble? I was told I was trying to take people's cars away, that I was trying to bring back the horse and buggy, and that I was a Communist besides! Whooee!!

It got so bad at times, I thought I should have a bit of fun with it. I kicked around the idea of wearing fatigues and a beret, growing a beard, and taking up cigars so I could annoy those people: "Here, have a really good smoke on me. I get them from Brother Fidel!"

Ha! I might still do it one of these days!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A71wdsTq ... re=related

Just in case anybody thinks I'm making this up, check out these comments that followed a recent story in the Wall Street Journal on how some people are wanting to live differently--in other words, like we did years ago, before autos became so prominent. The person writing is apparently referring to a development-transportation plan in California:


‘”OneBayArea” is the 'vision' being pushed by ABAG and MTC, unelected and unaccountable bureaucracies. It is about 'equitable outcomes' and “social equity.” It is being done in the name of reducing greenhouse gas, but it admits that it will not achieve any reduction. Ask how greenhouse gas reduction factors into 'equitable outcomes.'

“The housing will be subsidized housing for “very, very low” and “very low” income people. This is a move to force people to live in stack&pack highrises, ban auto use, and override local zoning and control. Communities are being mandated to build thousands of these subsidized units. Some communities have resisted, challenging the data used to come up with the number of mandated units. Interestingly, when a couple of Marin County communities resisted, ABAG backed off very quickly and drastically reduced the allocations. ABAG fears public debate about its mandates. Palo Alto also is resisting. This has been going on behind closed doors. The word is just getting out to the general public, and then only to those who seek out information.

“It purports to be related to projected job growth, but the numbers tell a different story. Marin, for example, has lost jobs for 20 years, and there is no indication it will experience a reversal any time soon. ABAG backed off its numbers, saying there had been an error in calculations. If Corte Madera and Napa had not resisted, the staggeringly expensive “error” would have gone unnoticed.

“The 'visioners' have been criticized for using 'delphi' tactics to control outcomes at the very few public meetings. The meetings themselves were packed with bureaucrat insiders, skewing the 'vote' on purported options to fulfill the 'vision.' Parts of the manuals are cut and pasted from UN Agenda 21.

"Government is waiving or fast-tracking environmental studies in order to rush these projects through. Of course developers want to do these–no environmental hassles, and heavy subsidies.

“This read like a paid advertisement for stack&pack subsidized housing, but it neglected to mention the heavy subsidies. I got a good laugh at the hair stylist who said the train was not audible 100 feet away. Anyone considering a move should spend a lot of time 'testing' the claim that there is no vibration or noise. In California, the quality of much construction is so shoddy (no insulation because it’s not needed for weather, so there is none for sound) that people hear their neighbors snoring and using the toilet. There is no reason to believe additional units will be any better.

“This is being pushed by environmental and 'social justice' extremists out to punish people who worked hard and were able to establish a decent lifestyle in a single family home. They want everybody to have the same lifestyle, next to a train track. Much of the rhetoric is heavily racist and anti-white. The groups consulted about what planning should look like were 'minority' and 'underserved' folks.

“Everything I’ve written can be fact-checked.”

Link to the story itself:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142 ... _Video_Top

Another comment from the comments section of the same article:

"This sounds totally unappealing to me. The last thing I want to do is live closer to people and have to take trains, ewwww.

"I live in the far outskirts of Philadelphia, semi-rural area on almost 2 acres, my neighborhood consists of 1 to 2 acre parcels. Surrounded by trees, horse farms, other large lots. I love it. And I have to drive at least 7 miles to get to a shopping center (yea!).

"The good thing is if people want to live in these too-close-to-each-other communities, that means they won't be developing out where I live so I can live in a nice rural area far far away from people.

"Plus mo gas for me."

Whooee!!

And this is from just ONE article. I can get you a lot more if you want it.

Now, granted, a lot of this is about modern services, but I can picture it coming out against a tourist or heritage road as well; very likely some of you have even seen it in that context, and in fact it sounds like that's what's been seen in Texas.

One of the funny things about these NIMBYs is that very often they comment about how we "don't need choo choo trains anymore." I haven't seen too many transit authorities really suggest we bring back steam, despite some other group that wants to modify a Santa Fe engine for a speed record attempt.

Of course, if MARC in Maryland decided a steam tourist train would be neat to run in a service otherwise dominated by commuters, as has been suggested here for the Lackawanna Cut Off line, I'd be glad to take that as a commute! Ah, the smell of coal smoke in the morning! Not to mention those steam whistles that sing. . . :-)

Mr. Templin, by any chance, could you dig up some links to things like this for your area? I'd have used those if I could have found them. I might just add them to my (cough, cough) collection.