To Earl-I in no way meant to infer that you were infering(Now do we have everyone confused) Take a look at my second sentence.
To Key Route Ken - I think you are in a better position to provide answers. My understanding was that a particular years elections were very carefully crafted to take the leadership base away from Mike and his supporters. I can say first hand that not all of the mailings went to all members.(Including the ballot) There were several members that thought they were not being kept in the loop as far as activities( I might add that these folks were the Tea and Crumpets group in my opinion). I also think that part of the problem was that there was not enough time taken to keep everyone up to speed; but golly gee whiz when all folks have to do to keep up to date is show up Ya kinda get tired of holding everyones hand. The workers are there to get specific tasks done and don't want to give up very much of that work time to explain things until someone has shown a serious interest in adding to the project. That was probably a short coming of many of us out there, then again we had planned out what we wanted or needed to get done that day and that was foremost in our minds. Boy did I get sidetracked. Anyhow, there was a sop of an invitation for Mike to stay on in an advisory capacity. I think he saw the can of worms that opened up as far as his well groomed contacts at the SP/UP, the city and so forth. My only hope is that GGRM and Project 2472 can somehow re-group, see the errors they have made and work things out with PLA and hopefully the guys in San Jose. It's a shame to have three 3 close to operating Steam Locomotives in as close a distance as they are, a railroad willing to let at least one of them run(and the others could if they are maintained as well as 2472 and the other facets of working with the JPB handled correctly). And not have them run as they were intended to. Don't forget there is a fair supply of era proper equipment available too. Then there is more in Sacramento rusting away as well as Rio Vista. John