Going up to Windsor is an interesting idea. And, with a sensible source like Zark, maybe it has become a matter of "any port in a storm".... And yet, some of you sound like you'd rather have nothing at all, and cut 'em all up for scrap...? Wow!

Windsor, too far away? How far away is Rio Vista? How did that affect folks volunteering? I remember going to OERM when you still didn't have complete freeways to get you out there, yet. How did that affect volunteers (it was actually easier, we had so much less congestion back then, when that was still out in the "country")? And, you can eventually take SMART to Windsor, maybe "some day", right?

Yeah, it's a shame that ego driven factionalism apparently caused this "rupture" and required this move. If people can't keep externally focused on the "mission" (to preserve, maintain, operate, and educate the public about our rail history and heritage), and can't learn to work together, many of these collections are in danger. This is especially true where this kind of infighting and lack of focus have the effect of turning off participation, funding, and recruitment of the next generation, which will have to take on that "mission".

Yeah, many of these need to think about "merging" instead of "breaking up", as the pool of folks to sustain these efforts, and place to do them are both a limited resource.

Yeah, we are losing a lot of rail preservation "assets", including places to keep them and run them. So we'd better figure out what there is left out there that can be "saved" and/or "salvaged", and how it might be leveraged to create that space for these trains to operate on... Maybe, like on the unused remaining segments of the NWP, right? Oh wouldn't that be just horrible? I guess to some of you it would be, from some of these posts I've read, right?

Yeah, tying these to other operations and other type of historic and/or cultural tourism, that could help to sustain preservation and operations is definitely something to think about. People, other than a certain segment of folks on RR Boards, mostly like trains. And, there have been some good examples of operations, that have shown this can work (like the Grand Canyon Rwy. for example).

Yeah, these organizations getting their s#it together, and having some kind of realistic business plan, with a long term financial, fundraising, and recruitment strategy, that can effectively preserve, "market" and "operate" these museums in a more business like way, is imperative.

Those are all important, and necessary, if there is to be any future at all, for some of these collections.

Unfortunately, it is a shame to see a handful of these folks, on a Train Board, who supposedly like trains, yet seem to spend most of their time trash talking these kind of efforts, and coming up with even completely absurd reasons that nothing can ever happen...

Of course, if we actually did listen to some of those nattering nabobs of negativism peddling this kind of nonsense, and do nothing, as they would seem to have us do, then they're going to be right, and these collections will be lost....