Interesting story this week from Arizona. ‘Take the last train to Clarkdale and I’ll meet you at the station’ Back in 1988 a nice US entrepreneur purchased a short rail spur off the Phoenix to Flagstaff section of the Burlington Northern Santa Fe. This short line runs from Clarkdale, Arizona, to the mainline, about 40 miles, and had good volume of coal freight for a local cement plant. The freight numbers were good and the deal done sight unseen – oh to be rich and intuitive. When our hero finally got to ride his very own rods as it were, being a guy of vision, he saw at once the tourist potential of the 20 or so miles from Clarkdale through the upper canyon of the Verde River to Perkinsville, a still working 1,200 ac ranch, and return. We were told that the ranch had been the location of the scene with Debbie Reynolds descending from the train in How the West was Won. The hunt for rolling stock was on and by 1990 the Verde Canyon Railroad was up and pulling them in. There are some minor lessons here for our own favourite railroad - see  full story and piccys at www.avenue.zone