You haven't been to one of these events, have you? It's 25,000 people over TWO, three day weekends which is what most DOWT events are. Some events get OVER 25,000.

It does take a lot of work and planning including allowing for additional parking. Our first couple of years we had permission from the owner of a vacant, LARGE lot next door to use for parking. Some groups have parking blocks away, then shuttle visitors to the event.
For a number of other reasons we moved the event down the street to the local arena last year. Lots of parking there.

How many trains a day? Again, our first year, which was our largest. We ran one train every hour on the hour starting at 9 am with the last train at 5 pm. 420 seats on the train. Every seat was occupied on almost every trip.

The average family stays two to three hours I believe.

Just a few observations...
1) In the 2 yrs I have been involved in a Thomas event I have never heard a child or parent complain about Thomas being"fake." Most people actually think it actually works!

2) We are not a huge venue, but we handled 22K passengers last year(numbers we down this year). It takes lots of committment, organization, dedicaation, and hard work to make it go smoothly. This year we sold seats by the car and had a boarding area clearly marked for each car. It really made the boarding go a lot better, but it takes more people for "crowd control" & boarding.

3) Kids are very observant and many will ask why Thomas is going backwards on the way out. I tell them because he has nowhere to turn around. Believe it or not, they can grasp that concept and understand. No big deal. I even tell them he has asked one of those "pesky Deisels" helping him and they really get a kick out of that.

4) You will always have the child that gets scared of the train, is tired & cranky, etc. Can't do much about that. You also have parents that exercise absolutely no control over their unruly little one. Can't do much about that either. It is paramount that the staff and volunteers be patient and Keep smiling!

5) We were hit by a severe storm this year on the Friday of the 2nd weekend. It completely wiped out the venue and we had to cancell the rest of the weekend. While disappointed, 99% of the people turned away were understanding. Thank the Lord we had no injuries.

Bill Houston
HODRRM
Calera, AL

As a veteran of one whole Thomas event, I would say most kids don't know or care how Thomas is powered - to them, Thomas is not only REAL, but he's also ALIVE!!! On the 3' gauge replica we used the eyes moved - if someone ever figures out how to make the mouth move too the kids will love it. And if Thomas actually talked back to THEM they'd treasure the memory forever. Of course the train could never leave town 'cause all the kids would want to do is talk to Thomas!

We dropped the annual $$$ for this event for my almost 5-year old and what the hell, Dad gets a trip to B&O. Alas, work comes into play, and ended up spending the day stuffed into a tiny room in DC talking very boring technical issues over data exchange standards with 25 folks from other countries, all the while trying to avoid an international incident. Sigh.

So was with interest as to what the wife was going to say when I got home. Nutshell:

1) The 5year old, veteran of several events at SRC, didn't notice the difference and didn't care;
2) My 8-year old girl, veteran of many more DOWT events only noticed when leaving and the train went by and they saw the red switch engine;
3) Wife was concerned the 8-year would be bored, but she met a 12-year girl and they had a blast together. Go figure;
4) Wife quickly got tired of my grilling of what equipment was used. I pondered why they used the MARC cars instead of their open cars.

But I had to laugh and laugh at the blog; been there and done that, you pay for an event and the kid doesn't want to "do it". The video is priceless. I think I have several just like it.

And I have to say this. This will be our first year in perhaps 7, that we haven't gone up to SRC for DOWT. With $3:50 gas, B&O is so much closer from DC. I wonder if SRC will see a down tick this year.

Bob

At Branford Electric Rwy. Assn. - Shore Line Trolley Museum, when us ordinary members ask why we can't have large events to bring in lots of needed money all at once, the insiders reply that we don't have the parking lot big enough to handle the crowd, especially if the visitors want to stay a while.

Just another point of view from one with three boys 8, 6 and 3. While the blogger has a funny wit (and filthy writing style), it doesn't appear to me that they have been to many other 'kids' events. At each one I have been too, be it the circus, county fair, the Wiggles, music concerts, etc. You will have parents and kids that love it, some that hate it and everything in between.

One thing I have seen from being involved with running Easter Bunny trains with rented NJT equipment for the last 7 years...If the kids and parents just sit on the train and go for the ride, they aren't going to like it. You HAVE to entertain them while on the train. Typically we have the Easter Bunny and three other costumed people on the train. This is in addition to handing out stuff to the kids three separate times. It keeps the customers entertained and busy. I have heard very few complaints about our trips but of course we still get the occasion kid melt down. I also have never heard anyone complain its a standard NJT trainset. But amazingly some adults have said it was their first train ride, which is hard to believe but I guess a sign of the times.

On the DOWT events I have been to at Strasburg, we had a blast, but the train ride behind Thomas was kind of dull. Activities in the yard and the neighboring museum made the day more fun.

Amen to the comment "filthy writing style". What ever happened to "unprintable"?
Getting back to DOWT:
I've volunteered on several such events, and occasionally get asked about the diesel on the other end. My usual reply is "Thomas is English, and trains are smaller over there. He needs a bit of help with heavy North American trains." Last year his helper was our ex-Santa Fe Warbonnet FP45, leading me (a one time ATSF employee) to say "Thomas has good taste in helper engines."
Some of our more hard-nosed members find DOWT a bit distasteful, not really related to "serious railroading and rail preservation", but the funds our little blue friend brings in are most welcome. There's also the problem much discussed in preservation circles: Volunteer attrition, as members move out of the area or go to the "Great Terminal (or carbarn) in the Sky", and how to get more people interested. Granted, most of the DOWT attendees will go on to other things, but just a small percentage who come back on regular weekends and get "bitten by the bug" can make a difference between survival and scrapping.
Merchandise sales: One year my older daughter helped in the Thomas merchandise barn, selling bushels of Thomas goodies to doting parents and grandparents. When I came to pick her up at the end of the day, she commented "Aren't you glad they didn't have Thomas when Vicky and I were small?"
It's no wonder that some museums and tourist railways call him "Thomas the Bank Engine." One thing that museums have to be wary of is letting Thomas carry too much of the funding load; prudent organizations use proceeds from DOWT for capital improvements and one-time expenditures, and don't depend on him for "base load" operating expenses.

The Thomas event I worked at had a fake Thomas ("A 55 gallon drum on a skateboard" was one crewmember's comment) and a real 2-8-2.

Anyone care to guess where 99.9% of the munchkins were? The guys on the real steamer were almost lonely, while the Thomas end of the train was always in need of crowd control.

The fake Thomas is very well done, and he looks exactly like the one on TV as far as I can tell. The kids see him and they don't say "He's not a real steam locomotive", they scream "THOMAS!" and come running.

By the way, I hadn't realized it before the event, but Thomas' driver is a nobody. He apparently doesn't even have a name. Most of the kids were only interested in Thomas.

The point about safety is a good one. There are lots of kids who come running up to touch Thomas. I was definitely thankful that there were no hot steam fittings, as the brightly colored cylinders seem to attract the kids. It was nice to be able to pose kids next to him with no concerns about steam and hot oil and...

Do the kids think he's real? You bet, at least for the crowd the event is tailored to... They also think Sir Toppemhat (however that's speeled) is also real.

The show is essentially a live action cartoon. They seem to have gotten trackage rights from Mr. Rogers as the kids there have no trouble arriving in the "land of make-believe" and enjoying the whole event.

This age level is good at pretending. This week it's Thomas, next week it's Scooby Doo at the amusement park or whatever.

PS - Don't like ticket prices? Take your kid to a Hannah Montana concert instead. If you can even GET tickets, you'll be wishing they were as cheap as the Thomas event is.

My usual comment is something like, "While Thomas is a very useful engine, he needs a helper at times."

To parents I might comment that "Thomas is a big push toy" to us.

I work the front gate area at our events and get to see all the excited kids when they first see Thomas go by on a trip. Wonderful!

We have gained a number of family memberships during the DOWT events and we get return visits during the year. Some of these memberships are renewed for the next year.

Lord, now that I've had a few days of my regular job to "relax" after running Thomas's helper in Baltimore for Sat and Sunday both weekends.....

My understanding is that we actually did want to get the steam powered Thomas, but he was unavailable for the weekends desired.

The MARC coaches were used because the open cars are out of service for some brake and side curtain maintenance (we built these things for Thomas in '01 so they don't owe us a dime at this point.)

As others have mentioned the museum had nothing to do with pricing of the tickets and I believe even the advertising is directed very closely by Hitt. They even had a man on site. The "Thomas police" as we nicknamed him monitored everything very closely.

I thought most of her blog was funny, but I have to admit that part of me felt a little unappreciated after getting up at 530 in the morning on my two days off for two weeks in a row to drag that thing back and forth all day long at an ungodly slow rate of speed (the thomas police insisted the ride be 25 mins long, we have 1.5 miles of track, you do the math). At least I got to use the SD-35 which has power reduction making the speed thing a little easier. Oh yeah, its a good thing she wasnt' on the first train of the first day when our old reliable everyday engine #1200 broke an air compressor shaft coupling, that made for some fun. The only other diesel we had ready to go was SD-35 #7402 so she did the honors for the rest of the event.

I think in the end, it boils down the majority of people who, once they've grown up, forget what it's like to be a kid and see the world through those eyes. Generally, kids don't count rivets. Kids don't notice that the coaches aren't the ones from the Island of Sodor.
Conversely, many adults don't realize that kids don't realize these things and they can easily bring the kid down from their 'high' at such an event, which null and voids the whole reason for going at all. Sure, at Strasburg you can have the country's last running decapod and the kids won't even see it if Thomas is sitting the next treack over. But should they? In the end, why can't people like us realize that this WILL create a generation of train buffs, something the RR preservation field is desperately needing for the future? For me, it was riding Tweetsie (age 4) , seeing the American Freedom Train (age 7), and finally seeing "Emperor of the North" (about age 10) on TV, (even though I didn't understand the plot) that probably shaped my interest in RR preservation later on. Let's just accept this as a far better thing than most of the terrible animated stuff coming out of Asia (which are pretty much 30 minute commercials anyway) and in the end, it will be one of the best things that ever happened to this field since… well, anything! I can almost guarantee that in 20-30 years, there will be someone stepping down off a steam locomotive that they helped to restore and someone will ask him or her what got them started and seeing Thomas will be the main reason!

Ok, ok, uncle. Yes, I'm looking at the event from the "rivet counter" perspective. Indeed I'm fairly sure at 4 or 5 I could tell the difference between the real thing and a fake. Yeah, I've been steam crazy about that long. My grandmother took me on my first mainline excursion when I was four, and I never looked back. It didn't help that when I wrote that I was having my chain jerked at work.

One of the things that colored my view in watching the home video of the event was my experience working on the railroad at Cedar Point and having to deal with the know-it-all's who swore that the Porters and Vulcans were fake steam locomotives with gasoline engines in them, even though I was standing there covered in soot and coal dust shoveling coal into a bright fire. I think the old amusement part "C. P. Huntington" gas powered train rides jaded most people into thinking that there can't be a real steam engine at the amusement park.

A lot of those things are fun for adults too. But other events seem to be only accessable to kids, and a dreadful boring ripoff to grown-ups. (think Chuck E Cheese or Teletubbies). What's Thomas like? I assume he's the latter?

As for the filthy writing style, well, it was the parent of a young child, which makes them a Gen-X'er or younger.

This is the first time I've had time to do a post since last weekend. Last Saturday, my wife and I worked the event the entire day. The visitors I talked to were very interested in the place, and the "Thomas set" were enjoying the other trains as well.

On Sunday we went back with our 3 year old great nephew, and his younger brother, who hasn't quite gotten the train bug. The 3 year old has been into Thomas and real trains for over two years now, so I hope James will become a lifelong railfan. The parents had a good time as well. Alex, James' father and I toured the building, and he was very interested in the train collection. The mother, Amanda and my wife, Sue stayed behind with the stroller, and took the boys to the children's activities which James found to be overwhelming because there was so much to choose from.

Their only disappointment was that the Thomas gift store was picked clean late Sunday afternoon, and they were unable to by a "James" toy for their son. But they assured me that they want to attend the next event, by which time there will be a third great nephew joining the party.

I don't think you will have to wait that long. I grew up on 'Shining Time Station' and had the Thomas toys. Now I work for a Class-1 (maybe some day I'll get out of this and into preservation). Of course sharing the same name as the little blue engine may have had some influence...