The huge unknown in all of these attempts to plan forward is how is the public going to act?? If the majority of the at risk portion ( seniors, those with diabetes, hyper tension, copd, heart conditions etc.) of the population choose to stay out of the public domain until there is a widely available vaccine ( early 2021 best case ?) then the restart will be very slow and the economy in general will stay way into recession territory.

If on the other hand most folks are willing to take the risk of being in the public arena then perhaps the economy will sustain a substantial bounce back???

Be careful not to put too much emphasis on the performance of the stock indexes. The federal gov't is printing TRILLIONS of new dollars in its efforts to avoid a great depression and there's VERY few places many of those dollars can go and stocks are the leading choice. Point being that the stock market might be making new highs while main street is in the throes of a terrible recession.

I've suggested to those outfits that I'm involved with to plan on re-opening in may 2021 with an estimated 40% ( of 2019 revenues) patronage base for that year and then a 70% base for calendar year 2022. IMHO 2020 is toast.

Ross Rowland

Crescent-Zephyr makes a good point. Just saying "Hey, we've re-opened" might not be good enough."

Some people certainly won't want to ride trains while wearing masks, or practicing social distancing (outside of your family or friends that you come with). But I agree with a prior post - people will be looking, now more than ever, for local things to do. Position your railroad as an affordable option, as a safe option (as safe as can be) and get people interested now. You may keep them interested for years, if so...

I've read some comments on facebook for operations opening up and it's clear that masks are going to be a sticking point for a lot of folks. Personally, I'm not in favor of masks but I do respect places that require them and I have no problem obliging. This is another area where marketing could get involved. How about providing or selling commemorative masks with your logo or locomotive printed on them? Now it becomes a souvenir item and more fun for the kids. You could even sell a series of collector masks. I'm not a fan of masks, but I could see myself buying some just as a momento of this most unusual period.

That would be a good income generator. Put either your museum's logo on the mask or the locomotive. Tell guests they can buy a locomotive specific mask and take their picture wearing the mask standing by the locomotive.

As for disease prevention, the bottom line is trains are a congregate setting. We know from published information that people are being infected in congregate settings. For those with the interest, there is established case law regarding the duties of attraction operators to the public and there are published cases that hold that under certain circumstances, a signed waiver does not relieve the operator from certain obligations to the customer. Given that your insurance most likely will not cover any claims related to infectious diseases, your operation has to make its own decision as to what level of risk is acceptable. I am not a fan of masks either, but my personal opinion is that any train ride operator who does not require masks is operating in an irresponsible manner, given the facts related to COVID-19 as they presently are.

That said, museum specific masks could be a high profit margin item since the proceeds go to funding museum operations. Produce a cloth for three dollars, charge six dollars at the gift shop and make 100% profit. Make kid sized masks and follow the same mark up model to cover the lower production cost. That'll keep your local seamstress in business and make money for the museum.

Our Town football (soccer....) team have started selling masks in the main team colour (blue) with the teams logo on them and they do seem to be selling rather well, and that's without any hope of actuallly watching the team play for some time yet....