Let's the gov't subsidies begin!

No. 31 -- VIRGINIA AND TRUCKEE RAILWAY -- Nevada Railroad Reconstruction Chronicles

A long time ago, in a galaxy far away ... actually it was the sixties. The last guy to run the Virginia and Truckee Railway, Gordon Sampson, was providing an Oral History for the University of Nevada Reno.

In this history, exhaustively titled Gordon A. Sampson: Memoirs of a Canadian Army Officer and Business Analyst—Manufacturing, Motion Pictures, the Virginia and Truckee Railroad, Financial Affairs of Western Nevada, the Washoe County Fair and Recreation Board, Sampson said:

It would appear that the railway should have been preserved as a tourist attraction. This has been done in other states and to the benefit of all concerned. But there is the other side of the picture. My answer to these inquiries is always the same, there would be no use of operating the "V & T" railway unless it was operated with its own equipment. To do so would require a large expenditure of money on the one and only remaining locomotive, No. 27. As to the equipment, the sole remaining coach, No. 18, would have to be torn down completely and rebuilt with steel concealed behind the old tongue-and-groove outer sides with the traditional canary yellow and green trim. That would take a large sum of money.

Yes, there have been several attempts made to bring the line back into operation, but it would only be through an annual state subsidy, apart from the initial capital expenditure. We also must remember our winter months when the tourist traffic materially drops, and we must also remember that a large percentage of our tourists arrive in Reno to gamble and not to drive automobiles to Carson City for a ride on an old-fashioned type railway as far as Virginia City. Personally, there is no one that regrets more than myself the fact that the railway has not been preserved in some shape or form.

Gordon Sampson said years ago what is coming true today. At the second July meeting of the Nevada Commission for the Reconstruction of the Virginia and Truckee Railway, the Commission approved $25,000 to be given to the Carson City Convention and Visitors Poliburo for operations of a train over the Railfest weekend, Aug 14-16, 2009. (I would provide a link to Railfest, but amazingly just 30 days away from the event they are not listed on any website or event calendar.)

To wrap up this post, unlike virtually all other government infrastructure projects, the Virginia and Truckee Reconstruction project has never been able to accurately project it's full costs. The costs continue to rise, starting with a construction budget of $10 million, now estimated to come close to $70 million. At the same time the original projections were that the railroad would reach an operating profit. As recently as two years ago the claim of operations profits were intact.

But now we are seeing the first instance of operational subsidies. "don't steal, the government hates competition!"