Is this tourist train in operation? According to their website there is no regular schedule.

Same info on their Facebook page. A December 11 2016 posting alluded to mechanical issues with their locomotive. This might explain the uncertainty.

Mechanical issues. I think their motive power is a 44 tonner with D17000 engines, which pretty much guarantees mechanical issues.

We are alive and well. We will be doing some bridge maintenance this summer and plan to operate in the fall. We may yet have a few short runs this summer stay tuned to the website for announcements.

The trouble with the locomotive was resolved during the winter and has been run a few times this spring for special occasions.

We have a few projects in the works currently, notably our NYC bay window caboose has been repainted into as delivered NYC greenish and is nearly complete. I have been working profusely on returning one of our Fairmont A-5 speeders to service complete with a diesel re-power, link to a test run is below.

https://youtu.be/wAnP7KmwVZQ

Disclaimer I am merely a member who cares and do not speak for the board of the SMRS.

Good to hear you are still around. Is the 275 runnable? Is it ever used? Just curious.

Still there but not run for a number of years due to mechanical issues as far as I know. I was not a member when it last ran.



Disclaimer I am merely a member who cares and do not speak for the board of the SMRS.

Saw a note on their Facebook page that they were not using South Shore coach # 1 due to mechanical problems. I think that this is their only piece of passenger equipment which they haul behind one of their diesels. I'll be up in that area later this month and wonder if they are going to be open.

Les

They also use an open air gondola and two cabooses to haul passengers. However, the South Shore car is their only actual "passenger car."

They have some excursion dates posted for the summer, but I am unsure if those are accurate.

That's not necessarily a problem. They carried 7426 people in 1988. Not only was the South Shore not available, neither was the gondola. It came online late that year, but by then, 3/4 of the riders had already been carried - so not a big impact on the bottom line.

The train was only the two cabooses (seating 20 and 12 in the configuration at that time) pulled by a Plymouth. There were also two speeder trains, seating around 25 each.

SMRS was a small organization where that kind of revenue could keep mechanical and track going at a sustainable rate while paying other business expenses.

I remember turning people away by the hundreds on sunny days and running wet and empty on rainy days. Empty trains didn't pay back then, because online advertising and ticketing was not a thing back then. Certainly if the gondola had been online in spring/summer 1988, we would have topped 10,000 passengers. In fact that was a business goal! A challenge fundraiser was based on that goal.

Was ???

According to their web site, they're running every other Sat ...

See

http://www.southernmichiganrailroad.com ... tours.html

Bob H

As to the first paragraph, SMRS *was then* as described. As to the second paragraph, I mean to confine my commentary to 1980s era operations. All of which is a point on which the participants in that age are particularly proud, have every right and reason to brag it, and the railway preservation community should listen -- it shows how fast a museum can do so much with so little.

My aim was to make no commentary whatsoever about contemporary operations.