The Boston.com website today reported Edaville to be for sale.

Boston dot com: https://www.boston.com/news/local-news/ ... -for-sale/

Well, we all know it will fully be developed as housing now.

Priscoli has a vision of "Edaville 2.0" which includes restaurants, shopping, event venue and residential units. Not sure how that is Edaville.. but I digress

You could go buy it.

It may not be the Edaville of old, but nothing lasts forever. Things always change. As much as we all love our railroad history, that only can take a place like Edaville so far. The fact is that Jon Delli Priscoli could've sold it off ten years ago when this first came up. He didn't. Instead he put the time, money and effort into the park so it could grow. With a lot of stuff brand new, the park in good shape, essentially as close to turn key as you can ask (in my mind anyway) for new owners to come in and keep it going? I doubt that knocking it down for housing is a given. The land has immediate value, but the park presents the opportunity for long term income.

Go compare the Disneyland of the 1950s with that of today--or Disney World, Busch Gardens, Six Flags, Cedar Point, Dutch Wonderland near Strasburg, or any theme park. Even amusement parks that seem to act as museums such as Knoebels Grove in Pennsylvania have had to add new rides and attractions to stay relevant in a cellphone/internet games era.

The valid question, not just at Edaville but everywhere we are interested in for this forum:
How do you keep steam railroading relevant to people nearly a century after it was relevant in everyone's lives?

I think the steam locomotives themselves have become relevant by becoming unique brands / personalities.

Only with the right work and context. Otherwise, it could just as well be a diesel, a hybrid, or a donkey on a treadmill.....

This seems like a strange riddle, and not an actual point.

There aren't any diesels or donkeys on treadmills that draw large crowds that I'm aware of so I'm not sure what point you are trying to make.

The majority of Edaville patrons go to visit an amusement/theme park. They do NOT go JUST to see steam locomotives, big or small. Just like virtually no one goes to Disney World (or Clark's Trading Post, Dollywood, Tweetsie, Knott's Berry Farm, etc.) just to ride trains/the monorail, save for a few railfans or the special "railfan weekend".

Go look at the Edaville website.
The "Steam Train" is buried in the "Rides and Attractions" section, is only on "Select Days," and when you click on "Find on Map" it's a dead link.
Keep looking, and you'll find they haven't updated some crucial pages since mid-2019 at best. "Santa Returns November 2019"................... it's nearly May, and they haven't updated their calendar since 2021. If I were planning a trip and did an internet search, I'd presume the park is closed until they find a buyer. There's also the Edaville.org website that hasn't been updated since 2005................

If the steamers at Edaville "drew large crowds" they wouldn't be selling the park, or at least announcing that it was for sale. Some large business conglomerate, on the order of Disney, Xanterra, Universal, Six Flags, a resort operator, or the like would have swooped in to buy the park already to take advantage of "large crowds" to make money.

This train is NOT a historic train ride. For all we can tell, it's a fake steamer, ONE picture notwithstanding. All the news coverage about it being put up for sale describe it as the "amusement park," not a railroad. There's mention of Thomas the Tank Engine, but only in the copyrights at the home page, nothing more.

When I want to Clark's Trading Post in 1990, I was the only apparent railfan that day. While crowds shopped in the tourist shops, rode amusement rides, and watched the bear acts, the engineer of the Climax gave me a cab ride which stretched out over 90 minutes and three round trips, and a chance to fire the loco, seemingly out of loneliness. Everyone else was only paying attention to that actor playing a crazed hermit "chasing" the train in his wreck of a car in mock anger......

None that you know of? Grand Canyon Railway ring a bell? White Pass & Yukon? Mount Washington Cog? Pikes Peak? Etc, etc, etc. Many of us here love steam, but many average tourists simply want a nice train ride.

The diesels aren’t drawing the crowds in those cases. The scenery and / or destination is.

Facebook says that Edaville has been sold. Does anyone know who bought it, and what role if any steam will play in the park's future?

Back during the big run this summer I had a conversation with someone who was good friends with the owner who claimed that they had a buyer in line who eagerly looked forward to preserving steam at the park. I wonder if this was the buyer?

I just spent several days in the area on vacation. While planning things out, Edaville was considered, but lack of information on the train on their website seemed to make it clear there was high risk of paying to see nothing but another park, which I can do any other day of the week.

Bob

Well, no donkeys, but many tourist railroads now run all or mostly all, diesels. Steam is definitely an attraction if done right, but it is possible to be profitable without it.