V&T Commission's Wildlife Condos in Portola

No. 2 -- VIRGINIA AND TRUCKEE RAILWAY -- Nevada Railroad Reconstruction Chronicles

Summary: At the May 4, 2009 meeting of the Nevada Commission to Reconstruct the Virginia and Truckee Railway, it was deja vu all over again. As noted in the Nevada Appeal Article linked below, the commissioners seem to have forgotten what happened a year ago when they decided to sell railroad cars they own. The highlights are one Commissioner suggesting the decrepit cars be used in a parade, and another commissioner getting caught up in red tape and forgetting his own price quotes from a year ago...

V&T Commission Votes to Sell Cars -- Again!

The link above will take you to a Nevada Appeal article expaining how, a year after deciding to sell the unused railroad passenger cars they have stored in Portola for years, they decided -- again -- to sell the cars.

It's worth putting this all in context that Chairman Bob Hadfield was not at this meeting, so John Flanagan was running the meeting. I nearly guarantee you that if Hadfield were there this conversation would have taken about five minutes.

For a short backgrounder, when the Nevada Commission to Reconstruct the Virginia and Truckee Railway had a few different commissioners a few years ago, the idea pushed by then (and still) Commissioners Ron Allen and John Tyson was that the Commission itself would run the train. Toward that purpose, they took a $500,000 loan and bought the old McCloud Railroad #18 steam locomotive and five former Southern Pacific Harriman coaches. #18 was lent to the Sierra Railroad below the Commission's cost, but that's another story.

The passenger cars were acquired from the Golden Gate Railroad museum as they closed. IHMO these cars were in such bad shape that no one wanted them, so the Commission spent about $5000 per car plus transport costs to hire the Feather River Rail Society / Western Pacific Railroad museum in Portola, CA for transport and storage.

The folks in Portola hauled the cars to their yard, and the understanding was that once the Commission boarded up the broken windows and otherwise sealed and maintained the cars, they would be moved inside the WPRR museum's yard.

Last year, leaving aside a few details, a slightly different group of commissioners now felt the government should not be in the business of owning and operating a train. They had variously selected either the Gray's Virginia and Truckee Railroad or Sierra Railroad of California to provide equipment and operate the tourist railroad when it's finished. In the July, 2008 meeting the Commission voted pay pay the unpaid back rent to Portola and put the cars up for sale, to generate revenue for the Commission.

Fast forward to May 4, 2009 and we find the Commission rehashing the issue from scratch. Ron Allen never sold the cars and claims he's being tripped up by RED TAPE! Funny to see a government body tripped up by red tape.

Here are some excerpts of the 5/4/09 discussion of the delayed sale of the SP coaches that have been stored in Portola. You can view the meeting for yourself by visiting the ACCTV.org webpage for the meetings of the V&T Commission. This discussion begins about 35-40 minutes into the meeting:

Ron Allen: "I wasn't aware until recently ... I guess there's a procedure we have to go through to make these cars surplus and then be able to sell them ... I need to get that so we can get going on the sale of those cars."

Mike Rowe: "This matter was discussed last July, I guess, and back then I developed that information, I'll verify that it hasn't changed."

Ron Allen then suggested that maybe the Commission had changed their mind. Ron said at the time he received five or six inquiries about the cars. He then blamed the economy but said he still thought he could sell them.

A member asked if the cars need to be appraised, and Mike Rowe said no, that's not needed, just to follow the procedure to sell surplus property. To me it's funny, usually government sells surplus property AFTER they use something. Here the Commission bought these cars years ago and left them to rot in Portola. Portola, CA, for those who don't know, is in the Sierra Nevada mountains and gets snowy winters and hot summers.

Commissioner Dwight Millard asked how much the Commission paid for the cars. Ron said the Commission had $10,000 into each car. Dwight pointed out that the Commission was paying $6,000 per year to pay for storage, and suggested that if they couldn't be sold they should be junked.

Dwight suggested that they might be worth more as scrap than as sold. "If we're going to sell em let's get rid of em, if we're going to keep em let's keep em."

Bonnie Weber piped up, saying "it's interesting we're having this conversation again ... I'd like to know" what the motion was from the previous year. "I thought at our last meeting we would have this item on our agenda to have a final discussion ... are we now asking to go back and decide" whether to sell the cars. She said, "I would like to see if someone can do the research and get the minutes and see what the motion was." Here you are, Bonnie:

Mike Rowe seemed to recall that they agreed last year to pay another year's rent. I don't have that in my notes, and it doesn't appear in the minutes. To review the minutes see Item 10 in the July 7, 2008 minutes. A review of those minutes seems to indicate that only the back rent was to be paid, from the minutes,

Commissioner Millard said he had two questions. One was why would they pay the 3^rd quarter, June, July , August and September, when they don’t know what they are going to do with the cars. Two, what if they decide they don’t want the cars and leave them, why would they pay for them. It was discussed to amend the motion to $7500, to table the issue and Commissioner Millard said since they do owe so he asked Ron if he would amend his motion to $7500. What to pay was discussed. Commissioner Allen amended his motion for the Commission to pay the Feather River Railroad Society in the amount of $7500 which would take them through period January through June of 2008. Commissioner Baushke said the second agrees.

...

Chairman called for a vote on the motion and the motion carried and was so ordered.

Then came the discussion of whether to sell the cars, here's a summary of what the 2008 motion said. Again, check the minutes for a fuller understanding:

Commissioner Teixeira said they should put them up for sale and get rid of them. Commissioner Weber seconded his statement. Chairman Hadfield asked for discussion on Teixeira’s motion to sell the cars or dispose of in any manner to bring revenue back to the Commission ...

Chairman Hadfield called for a vote on the motion. The motion carried by a vote of six to two and was so ordered. Commissioner Allen and McPherson voted no.

CONDITION OF THE CARS -- Negative!

If you go to Portola you can see these cars for yourself. I wrote a letter to the editor of the Nevada Appeal that was published on May 22, 2009. The titled it, "Railroad cars morph into wildlife condos." I went to look at these cars last weekend. I didn't enter the cars, what I saw from the outside was bad enough. I pulled up to one of the cars, opened my door and stood up on the doorjamb/sill to get a look inside. I scared a bird, but it didn't fly away, which makes me think it was nesting in there.

A person from the area who is more familiar with the cars said there is human feces and the rodents and pigeons have "made it interesting." In a side note, because there are birds making nests in the cars, Federal law prohibits disturbing migratory birds nests. I guess they have to wait till to babies fly the coop to sell the cars.

LET'S HAVE A PARADE!

Bonnie Weber apparently has not seen the cars for herself! That's just a guess, but here's more of what she said: "I would like to see what the sentiment is (about selling of keeping the cars), maybe the sentiment has changed. We don't want to get rid of them, we do want to get rid of them. I think that at one point in time if there's nobody that was really anxious to purchase them, that using them again to have out on a location, that the V&T is coming, or some form of use for advertisement, parades, I don't know, I don't know what you would do with them. It seems to me that rather than junking them it would be great to utilize them if we can. Maybe I'm not the one to be speaking on that, maybe it costs too much to do that."

DISCUSSION OF COSTS TO EVALUATE AND RESTORE CARS

Millard, bless his heart, said, "I think we made a major fopp-poo (his version of faux-pas) when we made a decision to sell them and then didn't do anything about it. I guess we assumed that Ron (Allen) was our agent. ... I think we either junk em or list em with a broker and sell." Millard went on to say to Ron Allen that he wasn't blaming him but that naming him as a agent was probably a mistake, pointing out that Ron would not be likely to sell the cars.

John Tyson said. "we were going to sell them until we found out that we had to go through specific procedures as a government agency." No shit, sherlock. Weber seemed to recall that that aspect was discussed, and Mike Rowe indicated earlier that he indeed had done the paperwork to declare the cars surplus. IMHO, since Ron Allen has been the champion of keeping these cars, as long as he's in charge of the sales process the cars will not be sold. Apparently they won't be maintained, either!

Allen said he could only speak for himself, that his sentiment has not changed, and he still thinks the cars are valuable. Now they really began to rehash a decision that was already made a year ago. Larry McPhereson said he was under the impression that out of the five cars they could get two good cars. He obliquely referred to another agenda item that was pulled from this meeting where a discussion of buying MORE cars would take place. Larry thought there were cars available for $5000 that we ready to go, already sitting on the track. I have no details about these other collectors items, er, I mean railroad cars. Larry suggested that you could buy a whole new car for a few thousand dollars, but he certainly must have meant a whole used car. Between these comments from Larry and Bonnie Weber's comments, these people have little to no idea of the cost of refurbishing railroad cars. That's where we get to another interesting point.

WHO'S THE EXPERT?

In summary, John Tyson declared his extensive knowledge of the costs of refurbishing cars, because he owns the Metis, an Amtrak-certified private railcar. He then claimed not to know how much it would cost to refurb the cars. He implied that it would cost less than a $7000 wheelset.

Fair enough, you can't blame Tyson for trying, right? Ron Allen really crossed a line in my opinion.

In the July meeting last year, Allen said he knew someone who would evaluate the cars for $26,380. He suggested this was a good deal because the Nevada State Railroad Museum had paid $50,000 for an equipment evaluation. That was last year. This year, he conveniently forgot the $26,380 quote and said he didn't know how much an evaluation would cost.

Tyson at one point suggested that for the next meeting, an agenda item be added to perform an evaluation of the cars. He suggested that if it was going to cost $70,000 to refurbish a $5000 car that might be a bad idea, but it might be done with volunteer labor and volunteer/donated materials.

Weber asked if he had any idea how much it would cost to have them evaluated and who would do it. He said he didn't know how much the evaluation would cost, "haven't a clue, haven't a clue." He said he knew from his own experience what upholstery, windows and paint costs, but he was unable to give even a guesstimate of the cost to evaluate or refurbish these cars.

Tyson then said, "I would like to believe if the V&T (abandoned in 1950) had been able to hang on much longer they would have replaced the wooden cars they had with cars very similar" to the former SP coaches going to rot in Portola.

Here's some more details and then I will wrap this post up:

John Tyson said, "The last discussion I had with Mr. Hadfield was that he thought we could restore two of them and use the rest for parts. ... I know that the Gold Hill Historical Society has offered to put a lot of volunteer labor to restore two of those cars, and they haul ninety people apiece ... but they are historic in the sense that they were made in the 1920's and they hauled a heck of a lot of commuters over the years."

(I might note these cars were used in service on the San Francisco peninsula, where you don't find a lot of tight curves and 2+% grades. )

Tyson said "we looked at those cars to see what condition they were and, and the running gear was in perfectly good condition." He noted that the cars came up on rail, not on highway trucks. This doesn't square with a quote from Ron Allen in a March, 2006 Nevada Appeal article where he said there were problems with the wheelsets. The article says some axles needed to be borrowed and returned. To my knowledge this has never been repaired.

Tyson did qualify his statement by saying the inside of the cars need work. That's an understatement. All they need is a little TLC: Tools, Labor and Cash. Tyson said it's worth looking into the cars to see if it's worth saving them.

Bonnie Weber spoke up again, saying she wasn't "into all the train things." Tyson replied, "I understand, believe me, we all understand." Weber continued, "Is anybody here the expert that is the one that knows" how much it will cost?

Tyson replied that he was the expert because he owned and runs an Amtrak-certified private car. He stated that the most expensive part of the car is the running gear and gave a price of $7,000 for running gear. My opinion is that it will cost a heck of a lot more than $7,000 to refurbish the totally trashed interiors of these cars in Portola. I like Tyson but he is doing a great disservice to imply that these car interiors can be made ready for just a few thousand dollars.

He went on, "the brakes on those cars and the running gear is in excellent shape, what's going to need work is the interior. Some seats need to be reupholstered, new paint is needed, the windowsills need to be redone, but when you compare what that's going to cost compared to replacing a brake system or a truck or a wheelset I don't think there's any comparison to be made."

As noted, according to Ron Allen in the Nevada Appeal article, on top of the complete refurbishing of the interiors, the wheelsets DO need work. So I just don't know what John Tyson is trying to say.

He appears to be seriously underestimating the cost of refurbishing the cars. Materials alone will be quite pricey. Bonnie Weber continued to beat a dead horse by asking, "who does the work? Do we hire somebody ... can we trade it with someone? It seems to me we've already spent a lot of money on it. ... Who is the expert who says yes, this is what we need to do. ... I think we asked Sierra what it would take..."

John Tyson replied, "they had their own self-interest in mind." Ooooohhh, that evil self interest. In this Nevada Appeal article, Sierra indicated it might take $250,000 per car to refurbish, and said Sierra could build usable cars for $175,000.

Referring again to a couple Nevada Appeal articles, Ron Allen claimed it would take $10,000 per car to make them ready. In another article titled, "Rail cars bought for V&T may only be worth their steel," Robert Pinoli of the Sierra gave his much higher quote and a rather negative opinion of the cars, saying, "From a distance they look great, but up close you start seeing visible signs of wear and aging." He told the Appeal there could be compatibility issues with using 1920's equipment with more modern steel. He indicated there was an asbestos issue and that almost every component of the coaches needed repair.

Again trying to bring some rational thought to the discussion, Dwight Millard said the ongoing discussion goes right to the heart of the matter of whether the commission was in business to own railroad equipment. He asked, "Do we really want to run a train or own a trainset?" In the recent days when Mayor Marv and Bob Hadfield ran the show, the clear answer was no.

Then the conversation really took a turn for the worse, when Dwight Millard suggested they needed to pick an operator or take a fresh look at who will operate the railroad. I know if Hadfield had been there he would have thundered his gavel down and yelled, "we already have an operator, it's Sierra Railroad, case closed." In fact the Commission spent a big chunk of time (and money) using a consultant to run an operator selection process, and Sierra Railroad won.

At this point they started rehashing the whole question of who will run the railroad. This post is already way too long, so I'll leave it at that. Until next time, whenever that might be.