I have noticed there are a number of museums that offer a day out with Thomas trips that use a steam locomotive that resembles Thomas the tank engine. these trips seem to be very successful and I am curious as to who coordinates them and who owns the locomotive. any help is appreciated.

PuddinBoy@hotmail.com

> I have noticed there are a number of museums
> that offer a day out with Thomas trips that
> use a steam locomotive that resembles Thomas
> the tank engine. these trips seem to be very
> successful and I am curious as to who
> coordinates them and who owns the
> locomotive. any help is appreciated.

That would be Gullane Entertainment (an umbrella company for Britt Allcroft) who coordinates them and Strasburg RR who owns the locomotive.

Wrinnbo@aol.com

> That would be Gullane Entertainment (an
> umbrella company for Britt Allcroft) who
> coordinates them and Strasburg RR who owns
> the locomotive.

As far as it being successful, we did four days last year at IRM, with over 33,000 visitors (about 60 percent of a normal YEAR). But keep in mind that the costs are high, so the net is perhaps not as much as you might expect.


Kevinmccabe@avenew.com

> As far as it being successful, we did four
> days last year at IRM, with over 33,000
> visitors (about 60 percent of a normal
> YEAR). But keep in mind that the costs are
> high, so the net is perhaps not as much as
> you might expect.

We had right at 39,000 people over 6 days in October. We ran 5-car, 350-seat trains 11 times per day every 45 minutes. A lot of good exercise loading and unloading 3-year-olds and their parents.



Wrinnbo@aol.com

> We had right at 39,000 people over 6 days in
> October. We ran 5-car, 350-seat trains 11
> times per day every 45 minutes. A lot of
> good exercise loading and unloading
> 3-year-olds and their parents.
went for a day out with Thomas two years ago in oldforge NY it was a farse my seven yr old took one look and said dad it's a fake. we all were very disappointed. I felt that the whole thing was misrepresented.

Thanks for all the input. As i had imagined it seems to be more of a public relations success than monetary success. But i guess that the public relations is what most of the non-profit organizations are for

Aren't there two Thomas engines? The Strasburg one is a steamer but I thought there was a second one made out of a diesel switcher. The second one basically was gutted and can't pull anything, it's just for show on the head fo the train while a real engine is pushing from the back.


davelecount@juno.com

> Thanks for all the input. As i had imagined
> it seems to be more of a public relations
> success than monetary success. But i guess
> that the public relations is what most of
> the non-profit organizations are for

You may be missing an important point here - the Thomas ride is a loss leader which will hopefully just cover event production costs allowing you to sell huge quantities of related items from your gift shop as well as get a whole new audience in to your site. Real financial gains are very possible given good management and marketing as well a constituency building. Thomas events have saved more than one program in the past.

I have no financial interest in Thomas or its sponsors BTW. And I do wish the owners and sponsors of Thomas would reduce production and licensing fees so tham more of us smaller organizations can produce successful events. If they wait until the public interest is dead before moving from a skim the cream to a penetration strategy, they will find themselves with no customers.

Dave

irondave@bellsouth.net

Thomas can be a real money maker for an operation. As my associate Randy says, "Its the gift shop stupid". How you set up your operation makes all the difference. We advise our customers on what we have seen works to maximize the positive cash flow from a Thomas experience. It can be done, we have seen the numbers.

Thomas is very important to the tourist rail industry. This is because it is an icon to children exposing them to trains. We need to collectively encourage all the icons we can find.


Stone Consulting & Design
garylandrio@stoneconsulting.com

There are at least two engines. In 1999, the Illinois Railway Museum's Thomas Day boasted a small thing which looked like a three-axle speeder with a sheet-metal superstructure. This unit had a small gas engine in it for moving itself on and off its flatcar, but couldn't pull anything. The idea was to have a diesel on the rear of the train pushing it. The Thomas at IRM's 2000 event was a real live steam engine, though.

Thomas is single most important icon to innoculate the next generation. All the effrot that the preservation community is expending will not amount to much unless there is a next generation!

The new generation has many more diversions to entice its interests and regretable more and more families are growing up further and further from active raillines.

Thomas and his breathern are bringing us the newest generation. If we are going to enjoy our own efforts in our golden years then we need to insure that today's youth are stakeholders in our efforts and come back as they mature!

Three Cheers for Thomas!!!!

v-scarpitti@worldnet.att.net

We did two Thomas events in Ontario, both utilizing the tiny (Plymouth?) diesel from Green Bay. By the time of our second event, it was getting quite decrepit (It really only wanted to operate in one direction.) and it was taken out of service at the end of 1999. By that time, Strasburg had converted a former BEDT 0-6-0 to Thomas and to my knowledge that is the only Thomas operable in North America.

Several statements made here about these events are quite true. The monetary profit is most definitely in the gift shop. We were hampered by problems in obtaining product in Canada and our owners' reluctance to invest significant dollars in Thomas material. (With our station/gift shop located in the heart of a city of 250,000, we had an opportunity to become a year-round centre for Thomas stuff, but that opportunity was lost.)

The other major and more long-term benefit is exposure of a whole new generation to your museum/railway. Give every kid a coupon that allows him/her to ride or enter your regular operation free if he/she brings an adult along. Or something like that to entice them back.

Also, if you can partner with the TV station which carries Thomas locally, the publicity will be more than you could ever buy and should have spill-over effects downstream.

Unfortunately, the change to the steam Thomas killed us. Just the fact that it is a steam locomotive raised issues with boiler certification in a jurisdiction outside the USA. This version, being some 65 tons and oversized for road haulage, is very expensive to transport. In our case, we had an estimate of at least $60,000 US compared to about $2,000 for the diesel. The economics just don't work for us.

You will notice virtually all the Thomas events are now multi-day affairs to spread the transportation costs. Unfortunately, that precludes the medium and small market operations.

Tom Henry

windy@bconnex.net