Wendell believe it or not there are folks in Colorado who want to see the Durango & Silverton torn up for “ecological” and “global warming” issues despite the fact that the cars and buses driving on the nearby highways are far greater producers of CO2 and those cars are running there 24/7 not a steam train running twice a day.
Mark, be careful labeling this a ‘liberal’ agenda, its NOT, these types are extremists, plain and simple. I consider myself a ‘liberal’ and I would wholeheartedly condone Caning these perps Singapore style if they are caught. Lets be clear about one thing, this type of extremists DO NOT want more ‘tourists’ they want more "hikers’ thats their ultimate goal. Namely this to me is a very small group of individuals and what they want is to have no one but people with the mindset they have to be allowed into the forests, everyone else, all the ‘muggles’ so to speak, would ultimately be banned from any wilderness areas.
This mindset goes back to the late 70’s and early 80’s with the Sierra Club battles with logging companies and ramped up during the late '80’s and early 90’s when mountain bikes began exploring the back country trails previously only used by hikers, while most were cool with it a small percentage of hikers were “furious” their “private domain” was being “invaded” despite most of the riders were in fact the same folks who used to hike those same trails. They decried trail were being “destroyed” by bikes, despite that a Sierra Club friendly horse and rider could do 100X the damage of any bike tires. This lead to many confrontations between angry Patagonia clad hikers and Lycra clad riders, this is also where the first vandalisation of trails began, including boobytraps aimed to maim and injure riders (one of these 1st boobytraps actually injured a hiker, wheres the irony!). All because a few angry types couldn’t wrap their tiny heads around the idea that “public access” meant everyone, not a just a small cadre of Sierra Club members who deemed themselves “worthy” of access to the trails. There was even a movement here to gather signatures for a proposition for a law quite literally banning anyone NOT a member of the Sierra Club or deemed worthy by the Sierra Club from any access to backwoods wilderness trails. That went about as far as a concrete balloon, but what they did manage to get by their constant whining and lobbying was a bike ban on almost 75% of the trails here in California. Eventually some folks went further attacking logging sites and housing developments using even more violent tactics, they got so bad even the Sierra Club had to publicly denounce the tactics.
This is similar to what I see happening here, the goal is to get ride of the railroad, even if that means losing 1000 tourists for the gain of 100 hikers, that’s an acceptable ratio to this mindset, the loss of dollars or tourism is a net gain for the environment if only walkers and hikers show up, BTW Hikers who stay longer than one day camp, so they usually do not stay in motels, eat in local restaurants or patronize local businesses unless they sell dry freezed bean casserole packets and sterno cans. So all that tourist money that would have gone to those local businesses you can kiss goodbye!
So thats why I think its very important to 1, get these jerks, and 2, get the word out and get public condemnation and public support for the RR. People need to know whats at stake here, its more than just the RR, its potentially a hit to the other parts of the local economy.
I’m not condeming all hikers, most all I have met or known are really cool, I’m condeming the mindset of this small cadre of eco-terrorists who think this way and find ways to justify their own ends, and Yes, I was on the pro-rider side of the California trail access debate.