I was recently in the Miami area for the Doral Golf Tournament and decided to attend the Day Out With Thomas the Train event in the hopes of hosting an event for my organization in the future. What I saw was an absolute disaster. Not enough workers, long lines, not enough Thomas toys, definitely not the same event that I've been told about by so many people over the last few years.

When I finally got an opportunity to speak with a volunteer at the railroad, the only thing they could say was negative. Since this was the railroad's first event with Thomas, the volunteer said a "huge lack of support and direction" existed.

After hearing great things about the Thomas events and actually experiencing an event, I'm at a loss as to what has happened from this year versus past years. Can anyone provide additional information about hosting and planning a Thomas event? After talking with the volunteer, it sounded like the railroad does the majority of the work and HIT provides the train and collects a percentage. Any help would be appreciated.

Sounds like you answered your own question. Perhaps they experienced a bit of a learning curve on hosting their first event. I'm sure others can better testify to their experiences from hosting a Thomas event, but the events I'm familiar with went well. They don't call him Thomas the Bank Engine for nothing.

I actually had a minor role in the events leading up to the Gold Coast RR Museum's "Thomas" event.

I am not directly affiliated with the GCRRM, the "Thomas" folks, or the parties the GCRRM contacted regarding this event. But what I *can* say, based on my own personal experience with this matter, is that the Museum, in attempting to pull off this event, ran into some considerable logistical problems, some of which were their own faults and some of which were beyond their control (CSX, suppliers, or the like). (I'd appreciate further details on what you observed off-list, by e-mail or personal message.)

In other words, the handling of a DOWT event depends largely on the labor pool and professionalism of the venue in question. In that way, it's not unlike, say, a rock concert or just about any festival.

The groups here in California who have done it, California State Railroad Museum, Roaring Camp & Big Trees, and the Orange Empire Railroad Museum all have been successful, but only after much planning, Lots of volunteer recruitment, and even infrastructure improvements.

CSRM offered a Thomas planning session as part of a Western Regional ARM meeting three years ago. They stressed planning, scheduling, and crowd management.

Our group has looked at hosting an event, and have so far decided we aren’t ready, nor do we have sufficient volunteers, finally, we have serious concerns about our site’s capacity (based on parking, restrooms and drinking fountains)

These events can produce significant revenue, but require great effort and planning. It is not uncommon for the volunteers to get burned out after an event.

Orange Empire prior to doing DOWT had done some "large" events and used the experience to plan for the even larger Thomas event. However, these "large" events of 1800-2000 people a day paled to the 4500+ people that came during a DOWT day.

OERM had already operated events with multiple rail movements; food vendors; out side entertainment; Explorer Scouts and extensive use of volunteers. We began planning for DOWT by visiting other venues and studying what they did right and what we felt we could do better. Then we divided up responsibilities and kept meeting every month until we did the event. Then we started meeting all over again to plan how to do the next event better than the last.

By the way, it took us more than 100 volunteers – from engineers and brakeman to trash pick-up -- to do the event. But don’t expect all of them to be 100% happy. It was a hard two weekends; there were many, many kids underfoot; nerves got frayed; many volunteers put in long days, went to bed tired and got up too early the next day. Some said, “never againâ€

At IRM the Day Out With Thomas is really a year round process. There are many items needing to be addressed ranging from contracting concessions, providing tents and shelter, parking, traffic control, security, first aid with qualified personnel on hand. In case of large crowds and/or bad weather we have arranged for additional off site parking in the community and have shuttle buses standing by to go into service. We schedule 8 additional trains running and 100 volunteers would not touch the staff requirements for us. Just the entrance gate pretty much requires a minimum of 7 on duty at all times. If you wanted a guess, maybe figure one volunteer/event worker for every 50 visitors expected.

The set up starts at least two weeks before the first day and cleanup afterwards takes some effort. It is up to the host site to manage and add amenities and facilitites (i.e. over 30 porta potties with attendant full time) and to be realistic in what their site can support. My guess is we have 5-10 people full time throughout the day on trash pickup and washing down spills - running around the site in electric golf carts pulling trailers. If a large site, have walkie talkie radios set up with at least two channels - just for Thomas related needs, in addition to your operations and dispatching radios. And one or two folks just to sit and man the phones.

Your vendors may be able to help. Coke just parks an entire truck in the back lot, as depending on weather, we may sell 20,000 units of soft drinks and water in a single weekend. Got ice???

It is very hard to essentially 'suspend' your regular operations including restoration, and is sometimes disheartening to the hard core rust scrapers. But a large percentage of our visitors for this event are repeat customers who always ask what the dates will be for next season. So we must be doing something right.

Bob Kutella

Brian,

What was Thomas doing "pulling" the PE blimp? Was this a real steam Thomas or was there another engine in the train?

Wesley

The Days out W/ Thomas at the Henry Ford's Greenfield Village have been successful. Probably the best part of the set-up is the fact that loading of the one-time 3 and 3/4 mile trip is located deep in the park, so that the line up doesn't clog up the main entrance as it were to load at the main platform. The campus is large enough itself so that it's not too crowded on the Thomas days. The only problem is that the people really crowd the main crossing and Thomas' whistle is nowhere doesn't really suggest a warning and kids like to run up to Thomas. I remember running Thomas last year in the pouring rain, where the whole cab filled up with steam. The kids didn't mind getting wet, as long as they visited the merchandise tent.

Thomas comes to the Henry Ford april 16th.

We, too, had the same kinds of problems our first year that Gold Coast experienced, but by the time the third year came around we had all of the major bugs, and many of the minor ones, ironed out. It is no small task to host 8,000 to 10,000 people per day as we do, and the learning curve was tough.

The single biggest thing is having enough workers to do all that is required. We have partnered with Habitat for Humanity and one or more groups who run shelte5rs for the homeless to provide additional (paid) labor--there is just no way that we can come up with an all-volunteer workforce in sufficient numbers to support all of the vitally important functions requiring attention (see Bob Kutella's comments, too).

Whatever may have happened at Gold Coast's DOWT is not typical of a DOWT event, and should they do it again, you can bet that their event will be vastly improved. We ar IRM learned the hard way what was needed, and we have the stitches and battle scars to prove it.

Jim Nauer
Project Director, DOWT
Illinois Railway Museum

Jim:

Thanks for the reply. Wow. 8K to 10K per day. Sound like a big event. What type of support have you received in the past. My biggest concern is that if we decide to do an event, we will pretty much be on our own. I'd like to avoid a 3 year learning curve.

Our support from Museum volunteers has been little short of outstanding. Having said that, of course there are a few who believe that we shouldn't be doing it, but how often do you come across a fund-raiser that is railroad related and popular to boot?

When seeking vendors of goods and services, we have tried to use lkocal businesses, though that is not always possible. Local support is good. Because of our location just outside the Chicago metropolitan area, we do have access to a variety of providers of goods and services. We tend to hire out entertainment, food vendors (though we do have a modern dining facility the event requires more food service than we could possibly provide on our own).

We learned the hard way that, especially when estimating personnel requirements, try to determine what is reasonably likely to be needed, and then add some.

Our planning process is a year-round process, starting about 1 month after our event, when we look at what we can do better--that is, where were the problem areas and what can we do to fix them. Some problems are by nature difficult to solve--for example, if you have enough food vendors to keep from having significant lines at lunch time, then the vendors probably won't make enough money to make it worth their while.

Merchandising is a potential problem area, and in fact I don't know what to expect this year, as the merchandise provider is new to us this year. In the past, we have had problems getting the "hot" merchandise (last year's example--bedding--it flew off the shelves and we couldn't get re-stocked--we lost sales). Having enough help on hand requires a person who knows what needs to be done, how to do it, and how many people it takes to do it.

The best general advice I can give is to plan well ahead, and try very hard to not underestimate what is needed. A large west coast organization sent 2 to 3 people to visit one of our events before they did their first one. I would recommend doing this (not necessariuly sending someone to IRM but to someplace perhaps nearer to you who you have heard has done a good job). I hope that they saw what we did wrong and were able to plan to avoid whatever problems they saw.

The Thomas that visited Perris is one of the Strasburg-built push toys. The real power was a WWII era ex-USA, ex-DOT ALCO RSD-1 unit on the other end of the train. The train was made up primarily of conventional passenger cars. But for added capacity PE "Blimp" 418 was added to the train right next to Thomas. This way the stress on the motor car and its radial couplers was kept to a minimum.

The "blimp" was very popular with the kids as it was right next to Thomas.

PE 418 was actually the oldest car (built 1913) in the train. The newest passenger vehicle was a ex-SP "Shasta Daylight" lightweight coach now owned by Pacific Railroad Society.

Jim Nauer has done a fine job for us on the DOWT event and I am sure has devoted a large part of his life to making this a success. For this I personnally, and many at IRM thank him. The point here is that continuity in managing the event, year to year, is very important; we are all the better in all ways for Jim's efforts.

Another item not previously mentioned is to plan and budget time and money to promote the event. While HIT provides some promotional efforts, often in areas the Museum does not participate in, do not discount the need to potentially advertise and promote the event on your own (and out of your own pocket.)

While it may seem like magic when the crowds show up on the day(s) of the event, fixed costs and committed expenses eat up a lot of money, and an extra 20% ridership can make the difference between a so-so return for the host musem, and a rewarding one. Put together some 'what if?' scenarios at differeng levels of attendance and see where your break even point is. Then monitor advance sales and send in resources if lagging.

Good advice to visit an event in advance. Unfortunately, during the actual event, most folks at the host Museum are busier than a one armed paper hanger - so do not expect the Royal Tour. If you are thinking of doing a DOWT it is not too late to begin planning and investigating for 2006 in order to secure dates, and start the other work.

Bob Kutella

I thought you were going to tell us that the Blimp was the power. Think about it. With a controller in Thomas mu-ed to the 418!