There are a several matters that need clarification here.

There have been a several excursions on the Feather River Route. In 1999 there was an excursion that did experiance the rockslide delay on its return trip to Sacramento which I did not ride on which was being offered during the Railfan 99' celebration and wasn't the subject of my criticism in the post. The Saturday, April 1, 2006 Feather River Express which I did ride on was not affected by this situation but was delayed by being put in the siding for 3 hours to let three frieght trains pass even though the train was within 40 miles of its final destination of Portola between Williams Loop and the Spring Garden Tunnel and could have made it there by being closer to being on time. One passenger on the train who claimed to be a UP supervisor from Fresno became upset and told the crew that this late performance was unacceptable. Portola is a remote community with a lack of lodging and many other services there close early at night and does not have the amenities to the extent that Reno does which was the final destination by bus. Some passengers got so fustrated that once they made it to Reno by bus they decided to take the California Zephyr home for the return trip over the Overland route instead on Sunday, April 2nd.

Interestingly, when excursions and detours have occured on BNSF trackage they have been known to move efficiently and in a timely manner even in single track situations like the 4449 Excursion from Portland to Bend Oregon on Saturday, September 16, 2006 and the Coast Starlight Detour from Klamath Falls and Keddie on Sunday, March 23, 2003 that Chris Guentzler rode and reported about online which even left Klamath Falls late it completed its Highline detour within an acceptable amount of time like a passenger train movement should especially of interest being that the Higline is not in the best of shape physically with old 1943 made rail and being single trackage mostly in dark (non-singled) territory.

Also, the Amtrak Southwest Chief and Empire Builder which run mostly exclusively on BNSF trackage have highly rated on time performance despite the large amount of frieght movements on that trackage as opposed to the Coast Starlight (AKA: The Starlate) and the California Zephyr that are constantly late that operate mostly on UP Trackage. Just see the recent Trains magazine article about the on time performance of various passenger trains.

As for the rude behavior by the UP Steam Crew there attitude towards the public when the 3985 was on display in Roseville, CA on Saturday, September 3, 2005 the was unacceptable when the team acted indifferently towards the public while we were there by not seeming to enthusiasticly respond to the publics questions about that famed and respected locomotive. Nope, I don't owe them any apology because of it.

Sure the UP Steam Program is an asset but the UP has acted unfairly towards other organizations that would prefer to run their steam locomotives on their trackage but are denied such access as well like the SP 4449 of which should because most of UP's trackage is Ex-SP trackage that that Steam Locomotive used to run on when it was in service originally. Thanks goodness for the BNSF generousity in allowing it to run on its trackage and the SPS 700 as well as well as the ATSF 3751 as well.