First I was wondering if there is any news about the beloved little Stewartstown RR. Next the Bellefonte Historical Railroad is on hard times and it might be done. This is also posted to Flimsies.http://www.centredaily.com/mld/centreda ... tmComments? Insight?

Welcome to Pennsylvania!The issue here is pure politics. More volunteers are not going to cure the problem, only more money will because of the fixed costs. SEDA-COG actually owns the railroad and is a function of a compact of county governments, and you will not get any added revenue from their tax base. However, there is the availability of TEA money if and when the authorization opens. PennDOT is rail friendly and surely this issue is a higher priority for Federal Transportation dollars than the restoration of decrepit equipment. There is also State Rail Transportation dollars that funds unfrastructure improvements, but it requires a fractional match. And finally there are State capital dollars that are also available for track improvements. However, this trackage is not high priority as is for instance the actual Bald Eagle Branch which is getting welded rail with state aid.The folks in Bellefonte need to get the folks that they send to Harrisburg and Washington to get behind their operation to get money to improve the infrastructure over which they operate.And finally they is the issue of Tourism. Several years ago the State Museum Commission got about a dozen RR sites in the State together for a joint marketing and promotion package that was wildly successful. It was put together by a woman named Gloria Schliecher who was the Market Manage of the Commission.Under the current administration she is no longer there and either is the program. Pennsylvania with its rich railroad heritage needs a comprehensive marketing program for all of its Railroad sites.Only the government has the money for the infrastructure or the promotional effort.However in Pennsylvania getting access to the money is like "pigs fighting to get to the trough". You know the answer, "The big Pig Wins".The Bellefonte people need to look in another direction. The villian is not the NBER who run the county owned rasilroads. Only the politician who knows his way into the pork barrel can bring home the bacon.

There's a part of me that isn't surprised in the least.At times, it's hard to throw a rock in Pennsylvania and not hit an excursion operation. And, in discussions with the B&O Museum over the perceived "folly" of running a three-car passenger train with a locomotive when passenger loadings would barely fill half a more fuel-efficient RDC, the officials said, "We tried that, and folks complained it was too much like riding a bus!"It's entirely possible that Bellefonte has simply worn out its potential ridership, much like, for example, the nearby West Shore RR did. It would be nice if the BHRR could mothball its operation until trains are scarcer, but I can't forsee that happening.

There's one other thing about Bellefonte that is hurting it. Location, Location, Location. State College is the nearest "big town" and its population drops dramatically over the summer when PSU is on summer break. Its too bad, especially if they are running on old Bellefonte Central trackage. That was truly an interesting little shortline whose history needs to be remembered.. but of course right now, that 150 mile road trip that used to cost 12 bucks for gas not so long ago (2 X 150 miles, 30 mpg, 1.19 and 9 gas), is more like 25 and people are sarting to think more about pleasure driving. I suspect that this is another unneeded pressure on some lines, along with insurance and Mr. Levin's aptly described assessment of PA politics..Pennsylvania could've been the capital of tourist/historic railroading but well, instead we'll try to copy Atlantic City.

There have been some excellent responses to this thread. But when I photo-copied the article in question I observed more red flags with regard to this operation. These are not unique problems either, they are what all operations of this type are facing. Mandated costs, the reliance of someone else's property (rent), barely viable ridership, insurance costs, a lack of volunteers in all aspects of the operation, etc, on and on. How many times have we seen the expressions ' There is great opportunity there", "we really need people", " expensive to fix", "if only we had.....". This year so far I have received at least six requests from organizations I belong to stating that they are in dire need of funds to complete projects that were planned or promised. It would seem that everyone is spreading themselves quite thin, and as someone so correctly pointed out, the cost of anyone even getting there ( and back) now has escalated with this energy situation. In any event, we have another operation in crisis, which is not good.

Actually, barely a mile or so of the Bellefonte Central, connecting the Coleville enginehouse with the Bellefonte station area, survives. The trackage that the BHRR excursion operation has available to it is all ex-PRR, and includes the stretch of the former Lewisburg & Tyrone from Lemont to Milesburg. At one time the BHRR also had operating rights over the PRR Bald Eagle Branch between Tyrone (Vail) and Lock Haven, but seldom ran these long trips; after Norfolk Southern signed an agreement to let them overhaul the Bald Eagle line in exchange for trackage rights, it basically became a busy mainline rather than a shortline, and I doubt they've been on the line past the Milesburg "wye" since that time.Oddly, at one point that surviving mile of BCRR track was allegedly purchased and owned by Richard Sanders, the principal of the West Shore RR excursion operation out of Lewisburg/Mifflinburg. He removed a few artifacts from Coleville to Mifflinburg, including the entire smokebox front (door and the flat piece it attached to!) of a PRR steam loco. I don't know what the current ownership is; I assume SEDA-COG, the owner of the Nittany & Bald Eagle trackage, probably has deed to it by now.

Regarding the Stewartstown Railroad, I can report that a small group of railfan/stockholders are working on the right-of-way sporadically. They are limited by their full-time job work schedules, but they are concentrating on the first four miles of right-of-way (working westward from Stewartstown).It has been proposed to senior management that they allow the Stewartstown station to be opened for tours and souvenir sales on Saturdays or Sundays (or, if staffing allows, both). This has been done by museums successfully over the years to generate some cash flow. Hopefully this will come about soon. -- Ray

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Interesting thesis. Not sure I entirely agree....check out Disraeli's list of lies. Tourist railroads are not like railroads. They are like tourist attractions, but they just happen to run trains. They are not in the historic preservation business, but the entertainment industry. Historic interpretation can be a theme used within the broader context of the entertainment experience they offer, however. I have been to PA and ridden many trains, but never this one. If they had been where I was doing other touristy things, a handy and convenient way to spend a pleasant hour at reasonable cost after leaving a nearby motel (impulse time and $ commitment), or offered (and marketed effectively) an experience worthy of making them a better destination than Strasburg or Steamtown I might have made them my "destination" and gone there instead. And I am already prone to riding trains, unlike the average tourist, who needs to be taught to do so. If you want to build a tourist railroad that will be successful, first be in the right place, then offer the right product at the right cost. Build the railroad to suit those criteria. Any existing freight railroad that does well in the tourist venue does so purely by fortunate coincidence (Strasburg having tourists flock to their area after WWII) or by being a premier saleable destination / experience (D&S NGRR). Some lines that have neither (WK&S) can exist by building a reliable regional base of business while keeping their requirements low - a tricky strategy that few others have done well for more than a short time. I am convinced that as energy prices rise and tourism patterns change, proximity to a base of tourist resources will be a key to success - Mom and Pop and 3.2 kids in the ever-shrinking fake SUV will go where they can do lots of fun things rather than drive great distances to seek them out individually. How does your operation fit into this evolution? Do you need to look for partners in your community, or move?dave

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Hell, I'll question its validity. >;-)Let's look at the list you presented. Many of them were on questionable ground from day one, and probably should never have been opened. At least one probably qualified as a "benevolent millionnaire's plaything". Many sprang up in "the middle of nowhere"--if you forced me, a Pennsylvania native, to describe to a fellow Pennsylvania native where the Kiski Jct. RR, or the Knox & Kane, or the Laurel Highlands RR is/was, I'd have no choice but to drag out a map and point several times. Furthermore, many of these operations were "shoestring" operations, run with a minimum of equipment with no relevant historical value (ever enjoy a Cornell "dog's breakfast" consist on the Gettysburg or K&K?).As nice as some of these operations might have tried to be, comparing the Strasburg RR or the East Broad Top to the K&K or West Shore is still on the order of comparing a Sotheby's auction to the antique co-op stand filled with miscellaneous offerings, or perhaps in some cases to the Sanford & Son junkyard. The Stewartstown RR, as another example, always struck me as having a "Toonerville Trolley"-like charm, but there's still a limited market for such charm in this modern world, sadly.Of the entire list, the only one that actually fills me with some sense of alarm--besides the self-imposed purgatory the EBT has been in for two decades--is the Bellefonte Historical RR. I'd like to think that a rethinking and re-structuring of the operation (more advertising, a better working arrangement with the RR, whatever) might save this little-noticed gem.

While it's nice to hear of so many operating tourist railroads, one can have too much of a good thing. You can only have so much of a particular thing on a certain market. The key is location, presentation, and the knowledge to run a business (as any business) successfully. So many groups around the US (many of which are pipe dreams) imagine starting a grand tourist railroad of their own on some old ROW; in my opinion (agree or disagree), there's only enough room for so many operations. Volunteer organizations aside, most tourist railroads are legitimate businesses (as any) with a high cost of upkeep and scattered talent around skilled in steam mechanics, etc. Tourist railroads must appeal to the general public, as that is the majority (95+ percent) of their audience. Since it is impossible to have a business base on the small percentage of "railfans" in the US, having three tourist railroads within a 20-40 mile radius will probably mean the latter two will go under.One good example (though I am biased) of a smart-run business is none other than Roaring Camp. To complement two railroads, the company probably schedules more (and original) special events each year than any other tourist railroad in the West. There are additional activities and entertainment at a replicated logging town almost daily, which too bring in profit. The combination of everything the company has to offer and the experiences people have at Roaring Camp keeps them returning. Smart-run business skills, within one hour to both the San Francisco and Monterey bay areas, and the only regularly-operating steam railroad within several hours.

If you look beyond the obvious in most of these situations, there's a story.The Knox & Kane is both obvious, and not obvious. When you loose your prime attraction - scaring the livin' %%$# out of everybody on an enormous trestle - to an F4 hurricane, ridership drops like a rock. What's not obvious is that Jim Cornell came up from Gettysburg to operate this for his dad, and when Jim died, that sure didn't help the K&K, either. Sloan also lost his wife this year, and she was a big partner in the ticket sales, etc.The Bellefonte operation is a neat place and Bellefonte is a neat town. When it first started, they pretty much had the run of the entire N&BE railroad with Robeys' operation. When NS started to move unit coal trains to Lock Haven from Tyrone, NS took over dispatching and wanted nothing to do with the possibility of tourist operations on them. That took out Curtin Village as a destination for the train, and a chunk of ridership with it. They've still been operating the RDC's out of Bellefonte but the loss of Curtin Village as a destination has certainly hurt them.A number on that list have been directly impacted by increased freight business on their shortline railroad hosts - a bad news/good news situation.If you've got a good location and a good market, you're still able to make a viable go out of it. But just running a train someplace as a 'unique' attraction really doesn't cut it. To be honest, if Strasburg started up today with the way the did early-on with the tiny Plymouth switcher and the single wood car, they probably wouldn't survive - the market is much more selective.The price of liability insurance - base cost - has certainly impacted some of the lower-ridership operations - and many on that list were actually under 12,000 per year. You've got a minimum cost to participate now that is higher than ever before.

Does anyone know what will happen to the K&K equipment at this point? Is it for sale or has it been sold?JK

I've heard that some selected equipment has been sold.I have not heard anything concrete about the 2-8-2. It had not been requalified under the current FRA steam regs. It was not operated after the bridge was closed during the repair because the only wye to turn it on was on the far side of the bridge. Now with the bridge down, the wye was stranded in the woods at the far side. Sloan even had to file suit to recover the scrap value of the rail when the State Parks dept. tore it up.There are a couple customers on the line so the freight services are still being operated on an intermittent basis. The big one is the particleboard plant at N. Clarion Jct.