Good questions. Let me detail.
"I'm tired of the city council greasing someone's pocket with "feasibility studies" money."
It's important to point out that this project remains 100% privately funded. I raised $120,000 in grant money from Steel Dynamics, the Community Foundation and the Schust Foundation in 2015 and 2016 to hire Stone Consulting to give us what we needed by way of a feasaibility study, marketing plan, and business plan. We had already done a great deal of that ourselves, but the city isn't about to encourage a project that hasn't been properly vetted. Roughly 5% of our total project budget will be anything near approaching public funds -- like Legacy, Capital Improvement Board or Regional Cities money. The folks on our board have been part of for raising the 22 million for the first phase of riverfront development and 7 million for the new Junior Achivement facility, so there's a lot of horsepower in our development team.
"Will the guy running for mayor against Henry be a supporter of the deal??"
Crawford has spoken favorably of the project and has even publicly written about me and my efforts. The other Republican candidate and I have had a few email conversations. We're engaged with every other level of city government and the city's neighborhood and riverfront planner -- it would be very difficult for a new mayor to come in and upset what is being developed now, especially since all three major candidates are very supportive of economic development efforts to-date.
"Sounds like an exorbitant amount of money for what little land you get."
Consider this the tip of the spear. We're also pursuing additional railroad property nearby. The price of the railroad property is as much influenced by the real estate market as much as it is by past comparable transactions in the region (purchase of ROW for trails, for example.) We negotiated a little - the original price was a definitely higher.
"Since this would not be considered "insular", would you still be able to do things like the Santa train, and Throttle time?"
Of course. It's all part of the business plan. There are countless tourist railroad operations that accomplish that and much more. We'd have our own engineer certification program, operating rules, etc - it's just a natural extension of what the FWRHS does now, but it's not reinventing the wheel by any means. Here's a sampling of proposed programs and operations.
Outside of building a multi-use attraction that, consider these realities:
The FWRHS does not own any track beyond the few hundred feet at its facility.
The FWRHS does not own any connection to the mainline railroad.
The FWRHS has no guarantee year-to-year that it will ever be able to take the 765 out into the wild.
While there are many righteous motivations to pursue our own version of what the Oregon Rail Heritage Foundation has accomplished, the one that should connect with any railroad fan is this: Headwaters Junction is the only way to guarantee that the FWRHS, the 765, and all of our potential, will not be relegated to a barn at an industrial park forever and instead will become culturally relevant even if mainline steam operations become absolutely impractical. Doyle's mission in Oregon was to make sure that even if the engines never turned a wheel again, they would be in a place where they could be cared for and enjoyed by people and that all of their hard work over the years would be worth it.
This is one big insurance policy that diversifies our income streams, broadens our base of support, and creates a sustainable long-term business plan while elevating our organization's mission and vision. It's hard for me to say the right-of-way is too expensive or that taking on successful tourist railroad programs is cumbersome when faced with the alternative of being stuck in that barn. The FWRHS was an itinerant organization once-upon-a-time and that's not a healthy long term solution, either.
While being aboard the 765 is one of my first memories, I grew up largely at a time when the engine was undergoing its major overhaul only to sit for nearly four years. As Rich as said it was the best time to be down for maintenance because the mainline steam cycle was in a depression during the 1990s.
During that downturn, the FWRHS has to reinvent itself to a large degree. Headwaters Junction is just the next step in that evolution. I hope we can get there.
