Some years ago, I was at Dan Markoff's on what may have been the first time the EUREKA was steamed up and moved. This was the same weekend that the Nevada State RR Museum had operated a steam train on the just donated line in Boulder City. So there was a crew from Carson City and their flat-bed work truck.

This crew came over to pull the oil bunker out of the tender using the wench on the truck. So track was built out the gate to the curb and the Eureka without tender moved out to the end of the track to allow the work truck to back in onto Dan's property to extract the oil bunker.

I stayed out of the way of the work crew, positioned myself at the curb, and answered questions about the EUREKA from the people it and/or its smoke attracted. One was a policeman who came by to check out the source of the smoke.

Another was a 20-something that conversation revealed he was into race cars and had been in the US Navy on turbine-powered warships. At some point in the conversation he pointed to the cylinder and asked, "Is that the turbine?" I replied, "No, that is where the double acting piston is located."

I'm not knocking Dollywood, which is a favorite of mine, but that is the experience many people in this area have for a railroad - figure-8s (dogbones) and open benches - and they think that is what a passenger train and a railroad is like. Many can't even understand the concept of a train moving freight.

We deal with the “general railroad system of transportation” running big freights and passenger trains using enclosed cars. You have to get people to understand the difference, and there is a big difference between a train at a theme park and one operating on a commercial freight railroad. The priorities can be very different, and generally are.

I've never seen a theme-park passenger train have to see-saw around a long freight with a crew fighting hours-of-service issues, or being held up so a shipper can get a freight car so they don't have to shut down. We also recently hit a truck because folks were out stealing track materials along the line - something I doubt too many theme-park trains have ever had happen. All of these have to be explained, especially to people who complain that our cars aren't open like Disney World, they aren't cute like Dollywood, the trains don't go in circles so the return trip is on another route, and we don't just keep running trip after trip all day.

Looking back, I should have typed "real freight railroad" as that is what I generally say, but we certainly are very different from any theme-park train.

Please, I mean no offense to the above posters for what I am about to write.

OH NO! Not another thread recounting conversations with joe/jane public who don't understand how railroads or locomotives or trolley cars or "train cars" or carriages (in the UK), etc., work.

Thanks!

My time at the museum was 1995 - 2005 and I doubt that Amtrak had their cabbages yet at that time.

They did. “Cabbage” converts were done between 1996 and 2007 and of course they are still used to this day.

It's worth pointing out that this is a stone's throw away--like, a couple tracks over:


Note the configuration.

To me it's entirely reasonable to picture a museum guest hearing a docent (or reading a sign) describing the Silver Charger pictured above as having an engine in the front and a baggage compartment in the rear, and said guest then assuming that the same arrangement might apply to other diesels at the museum as well.

It's all well and good to chuckle over these sorts of questions at a tourist / scenic railway. but if they are happening at a museum, we are not doing our job.

Fair enough on the cabbage and you are right that a person who read the sign about the Silver Charger might think this applied to other locos as well. I had never made that connection.

I'd argue a bit of an opposite, these questions happening at a museum are not indicative of a museum not doing its job. If anything these questions should be expected, because they come either from ignorance or curiosity for a desire to learn.

Questions are good, a museum fails though if it doesn't have answers. If we expect the guests to come to a museum with all the answers then we are failing our job.

Back to the original post of this thread -

It seems a Grand Canyon Railway information / ticket booth could do a much better job of advertising what they offer than that sign. The sign practically discouraged people from asking questions.

The sign SHOULD be a professionally printed sign that says “ask here for more information about riding the Grand Canyon Railway - operating daily between Williams AZ and the Grand Canyon!”

If your staff is annoyed with guests asking the same questions you have the wrong staff. Your staff should constantly be repeating your organizations mission and / or call to action.

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I would highly suggest those folks spring for the return bus ride, which has the added benefit of getting back about 90 minutes earlier.

The problem with this proposition is that NOBODY ends up at the Grand Canyon by accident. You've paid $35 a car and been stuck in a line just to drive in, OR you rode the train or a tour bus in.

If you set up a marketing kiosk, you're trying to sell a trip delivering people to a destination they're already at.
The people that a sign like this is targeted at people who have already arrived by car or tour group bus, see a train only a few yards or so from the South Rim, and literally think this train can give them a tour around the Rim, OR INTO THE CANYON. There are legends about people who think the "mule train" runs on wheels. Yes, people are THAT dense.

I understand there had been proposals to operate a shorter out-and-back train trip from the South Rim to a point like Apex or Anita during the midday layover, which would include the steep grades and pine forests of the Coconino Canyon, BUT a day or two at the South Rim is NOT like, say, spending a week at the seashore, where you get tired of the ocean after maybe half a day and start looking for other amusements like the boardwalk. The only plus to this idea is running during high-noon midday sun, when the lighting is only a little bit less spectacular at the Rim views. I'm pretty sure such an idea never got beyond the "hey, here's an idea...." stage.

Now, in some somewhat fair-minded and forgiving defense, I should remind people that not far away is ANOTHER "Canyon railroad," the Verde Canyon RR, which DOES INDEED take people into, and through the BOTTOM of, another scenic canyon.

As both have heavy marketing regionally in places like the vast Phoenix metro area (5 million people), Albuquerque, and Southern California, we certainly cannot preclude the possibility of the cliché stereotype of "Wait, what day is it--the day we ride TO a canyon, or THROUGH it???"

Yeah, Kelly, I see that a lot. It's pretty much of a standard forehead slap posting ("We came back on the same track we went out on".)

I think the only thing I've seen to combat that is asking the passengers to all change sides of the train on the 'return trip'. Not real practical on reserved/assigned seats, but think about it.

There also must be an equation somewhere to determine the number of passengers that are sound asleep on the return leg, involving mileage, elapsed time, speed, car temperature, and drifting downgrade. Not to many 'attractions' have high percentages of their riders asleep for the second half. "Yeah, that was fun...(YAWNNN). So the challenge is to come up with something, anything, on that return leg that hasn't already been done on the way out.

I've seen several operations where they only narrate on the outbound leg as well, when doing it on the return leg would probably capture more interest. The first 20-30 minutes are so new to many riders as an experience they aren't paying attention anyway.