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Published on: 7/1/2009
Last Visited: 8/16/2009
At the July 13, 2009 meeting of the Carson City Convention and Visitor's Politburo, Dwight Millard dropped a bomb.
You can see the meeting at the ACCTV.org website, his comment was made at 56:20.
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Dwight Millard answered, "Running that train from here to there will never be profitable for anybody, no matter what you do.
You can't charge enough."
He went on to say that tired old line I have heard from so many in Carson City, that's it's worth running a loss-making railroad because it will bring economic development to Carson City.
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NEWSFLASH: Originally I heard Dwight Millard to say that it would cost the Carson City Convention and Visitor's Polit-Bureau $4000 per weekend to "rent the bus" from the Virginia and Truckee Railroad.
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Respected businessman (real estate developer sitting on unsold houses) and CCCVP Chairman (and V&T Commission Chairman) Dwight Millard said:
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Millard to CCCVB: An Introduction to How a Railroad is Run!
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At the July CCCVP meeting, Millard kicked off a discussion by saying "this is your introduction to how a railroad is run."
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Millard then said, "I'm just kidding.
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While the V&T Commission refers to the planned depot on Dump Road / Eastgate Siding to be "interim," Millard appears to let the cat out of the bag when he refers to the Dump Road Depot as "permanent.
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A little furthe into the discussion Millard repeats the Kevin Ray claim by saying "the commission is too big and bulky" to plan operational details.
Millard also refers to a Railfest Committee, which should be a public body with public meetings.
I have yet to see any notice or agenda from this group tasked with spending at least $25,000.
IS THIS A BUS OR A TRAIN?
Millard goes on to say that the CCCVP will sit between the Commission and the Grays.
He notes that in the meeting packet are two agreements, one with each party, to lease the track from the Commission and get the Grays Virginia and Truckee Railroad to operation a train.
He then does something pretty weird, in my view.
He refers to the tranportation mode at Railfest 2009 as a "bus.
He explains this analogy is an effort to get away from "train syndrome."
Huh? He explains that this is like calling a bus company for a Rotary trip where the bus company sets a fixed price for the trip and is not responsible for selling tickets.
He explains that the CCCVP will sell tickets.
He then gets back into train-talk and explains, "this is the unknown ground of how we're going to try to run this train in the future."
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After further explaining that the CCCVP is responsible for marketing the train, Millard explains that beyond the opening weekend "we could have some losses and we don't know what those are going to be, but we have obligated ourselves for twelve weekends.
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Dwight Millard answered that "we learned something" in the process of researching this.
It turns out the CCCVP had been purchasing insurance on an event-by-event basis.
In looking into the railroad event insurance question, Millard announced that all events were insured by a "pool" and that all previous expenditures for event-by-event insurance were unnecessary.
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Millard mentioned that the train capacity was to be 140 people and the Virginia and Truckee Railroad was charging $4000 per run.
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Millard with a straight face said that's a term from the 1960's.
He was so deadpan that I think they believed him.
Basically the train has to run from Virginia City to Carson City EMPTY in the morning, pick up passengers, make a round trip and "deadhead" back to Virginia City at the end of the day after dropping passengers back in Carson City.
Millard went on to tell (BS) the CCCVP that the reason the commission chose them to deal with "so many unknowns" should be taken as a compliment.
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MILLARD DROPS THE BOMB!
Thankfully Millard was honest enough to say that for 2010 and 2011 the Commission was considering working directly with the Grays or offering the concession to Sierra.
Then he dropped a bomb.
He said, "Running that train from here to there will never be profitable for anybody."
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They almost traveled a long way for nothing, because Chairman Dwight Millard started off the discussion as if he didn't have any real reason to put them on the agenda.
Turns out Dwight had a plan.
He wanted to convince the Commissioners to hire Sierra as a consultant to tell them what to do with the railroad.
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Millard: "I don't know if we're ever going to get to Drako, ever!"
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Millard just reinforced that by saying, "I don't know if we're ever going to get to Drako way, ever."
Read more!
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I think Dwight Millard was either up to something or doesn't know his history.
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As a solution to the issue from the previous post, newly-appointed Chairman Dwight Millard put off the issue until next month.
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Dwight Millard was sitting in her seat.
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Dwight Millard "Numb" on cars stored in Portola
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Dwight Millard, in introducing the agenda item, said, "I'm numb on the issue, I don't care.
What leadership!
After previously pushing hard to get rid of the rusting natural outhouses, Ron Allen has succeeded in beating down Dwight Millard.
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Dwight has previously been strong on getting rid of the cars, even to the point of talking about scrapping them or "blowing them up."
Now our new Fearless Leader, Chairman Dwight Millard, has indicated "I'm numb on the issue, I don't care.
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Now they have a new plan, and Dwight Millard has said it centers on DUMP ROAD!
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More recently, Dwight Millard is now the Chairman of the V&T Commission AND the Chairman of the Carson City Convention and Visitor's (Polit)Buro (CCCVB).
He has overseen the process where the Commission has delegated operational responsbility to the CCCVB.
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Dwight Millard "Numb" on cars stored in Portola