How important is a steam locomotive to the tourist railway industry? Is there a philosophical difference between a railroad that includes preservation in its business model and a railroad that just happens to operate steam?

Some tourist lines that have been around for decades have been operating steam for so long it's become part of the railroad’s brand. Like the white M's on an M & M or the bow tie logo on a Chevy, I can't imagine the Durango and Silverton without the outside frame, narrow gauge engines or the Yosemite Mountain Sugar Pine without Shays or so many other lines without their iconic pieces of steam power. Is this preservation for the sake of preservation or a collateral benefit to a successful business? Either way, I'll take it.

Happy Holidays everyone!

Steam is part of your brand and mission or it isn't. I like IS better. Of course, if the scenery out of the train window is the Grand Canyon, it's less relevant.......if it's just the NC piney woods, a definite plus. I'm anxious for the 110 to join 17 on the New Hope Valley in about 5 years. Maybe this should go on the 2012 preservation thread?

Best wishes of the Winter Solstice related holiday season to all - or not if you choose not to celebrate it an any form. At least we now know the Mayans were wrong or we misunderstood them.

dave

I can't imagine a Tweetsie RR without either ET&WNC 12 or WP&Y/Army 190...
Steam is their brand for the train ride itself, I can't see that having the appeal with a diesel at all. The last time I was there, I heard a family from New Jersey mentioning that they probably never would have come there were it not for the steam (which in my mind said a lot about the 'the public doesn't care what's on point' argument, as none of them were train fans as we'd define the term).

Hey Dave, the day isn't over yet! Still a few more hours to go.

As the fellow said as he passed the 85th floor of the Empire State Building after having jumped: "So far--so good!"

Merry Christmas & a prosperous and successful New Year.

Thanks!

Don't forget the Forneys on the Maine Two Footers!


Best Regards,
Glenn

What's your point about them, Glenn? A definitive part of the identity or just because you guys like it? What's the rationale and marketing plan?

dave

"What's your point about them, Glenn? A definitive part of the identity or just because you guys like it? What's the rationale and marketing plan?"

As I see it, our preservation movement didn't start out as a business as such. Rather, it was an emotional thing, much like some environmental stuff might be, and perhaps even like the early environmental movement, which was called the conservation movement back then (don't give it negative connotations, that's why we have a national park system). Later, it evolved into a bit of a business, but its main reward is its sustainability and its entertainment value to its owners, not its overall profitability.

Put it another way, we had some guys who wanted to preserve real steam locomotives in an operating environment--in essence, a really large-scale model railroad--but had to have help in paying the bills. That's where the business part comes in.

As to what is a "brand," or how do you justify running steam, well I would say what justifies running steam is a good railroad. If you have a railroad that is economically viable--good location, good scenery, other attractions in the area that complement your operation--steam makes it better. Not everyone will feel it is justified (see recent decisions on Grand Canyon, Mount Washington Cog, and for that matter, White Pass & Yukon (limited steam operations) or Pikes Peak Cog (dieselised for many years now), but I also think this still illustrates the need for a good railroad to justify itself--and thus to justify steam.

Lets see... I may only be 16 and my views of the while tourist business might be a bit limited but from what I see steam adds... something to a railroad that diesels never could. I don't know if its the sights and sounds of the engine or just the thought that something older then you are is pulling the train. I myself find the sounds and overall look of the engine exciting but some others might not like the fact that they smoke so much and are noisy. I think, and this is just my views, that a railroad could hold itself above the water running just steam but that's when they haul freight as well as passengers.

I like to think that if the small tourist lines like the Strasburg (which already does to an extent) and the other eastern lines hauled freight that they could make it and be profitable. But since most of the rail side industry has degraded greatly that's no longer possible. Its not that steam isn't profitable anymore, its just that the infrastructure isn't there any more to support and maintain them.

(I really hope this makes sense...)

Austin from MN

From a professional business management point of view, we really don't have any hard data on this question. This would be a valid research question for a paper. For example, it would make a valid focus area of market research or a survey. That new rail tourism department at the West Virginia business school should encourage a student to write a thesis on this.

Hi Dave,

That's the problem when you have loved something for as long as I have loved the Maine Two-Footers. You forget that most people don't intuitively know what you are referring to.

With the exception of 7 mogul and prairie type steamers, most of the Maine Two Foot locomotives were of either the 0-4-4T or 2-4-4T Forney type. In fact, all of the remaining two-foot gauge locomotives at either the MNG, WW&F, and SR&RL museums are of the Forney type and three of the five historic Maine Two-Foot lines rostered no other type of locomotive.

George Mansfield, the chief proponent of two foot gauge common carrier RRs in the U.S., chose the Forney type locomotive for his Billerica & Bedford Railroad and for the two Maine two-footers he was involved with precisely because the design permitted an extra large grate area and because no separate tender was required.

The Forney type is as emblematic of the Maine Two-Footers as the Fairlie type locomotive if emblematic of the ffestiniog Railway.


Best Regards,
Glenn

Austin, there are reasons why we don't see steam powered freight trains in the US any more. I read an engineering textbook written in about 1945 many years ago that predicted that, on the basis of current economic understandings and economic life expectancy, the newest generation of modern steam locomotives just built for the American railroad industry would be eventually replaced by the diesel electric locomotive entirely when fully depreciated in about 1975.

I was in college in 1975, and wouldn't have gone to school but on to the railroad if steam hadn't died off in all but protected custody in tourist and musem venues, and the occasional marginal industrial or shortline operator too poor to replace steam with a diesel for his dying business anyhow, by the late 1950s.

So, the professor who wrote the book was technically correct in 1945 but realistically wrong less than 15 years later. What happened?

Reality changes, and not always for rational reasons. The new reality then rationalizes itself. This is much easier to see in retrospect, and you are living through a LOT of this kind of change. Start to look at it from this perspective....and when you are 20, it will be very evident.

OK, now about specifically railroad museums and tourist railroads: you've probably read about mission statements on this forum. Museums use this to limit the scope of their activities. The broader the scope, the less depth you can provide given your resources. The narrower the scope, the greater depth you can afford to provide. On the other hand, the broader the scope the broader the potential interest, and the narrower the scope the less the potential interest. More people are interested in railroads in general than in just the Marietta and North Georgia Narrow Gauge Railroad, for example. Most railroad museums started out like J3 describes, and came to the idea of having to define their mission later on when faced with less resources than scope of collections and programming needed to be supported. Reinvention.....always messy, but necessary. So, we have some organizations that chose a mission that reflects the steam era, some that didn't.....some that operate and some that don't......depending on how their mission has been defined.

Tourist railroads are different. Museums generally are nonprofit groups with education as their focus, tourist railroads usually for profit with entertainment as their goal. If you are visiting Mt Washington you can ride a diesel hydraulic train up the cog railway to the top for the view, which is spectacular.....or you can refuse because the old steam locomotives aren't running that day. You miss the spectacular view, which most people want to see more than they want to see steam. The Grand Canyon is similar....but what they are selling is the experience of the scenery and the pleasant trip there and back, not the experience of operating steam. Durango and Silverton has committed to steam power even with scenery - this makes them interesting from a business / branding perspective compared to the others. They have chosen the steam as an integral part of their brand and identity despite the higher cost of operating and maintaining it.

Some organizations are publicly operated as tourist development nonprofits - Cass and Steamtown come to mind. Their purpose is to bring people to a place to create a destination where there isn't much reason for a destination to exist otherwise. Scranton? Steamtown, Dunder-Mifflin, and a lot of dead coal mines and empty storefronts. Cass? In the winter there's some skiing, but in the summer it's a hard place to pass through easily on your way elsewhere, and equally nice mountain scenery is more acessable in other areas. So, a mountain railroad with steam is an integral part of the attraction to bring people there to spend money at other businesses in the area. Either of these places are very fortunate to cover their operating expenses through revenue from visitors.

I'm not going to go into the technical reasons here and now why steam isn't anywhere near as inexpensive to operate as diesel.....think about why it is still rare: if it cost not much more, everybody would be running it.

So, steam runs to support a defined educational mission, or to give tourists a reason to go someplace with little else to offer - but that doesn't cover all the uses and users. Why do you think it is run otherwise?

dave

I'm with you 100%, Glenn, but please read Paul's question in the first post on this thread and apply it to the Maine 2 foot operation we all love. It isn't about history; it's about a present day business decision and rationale.

Not loving the Maine 2 footers is like hating kittens - a sign of mental illness.

dave

Preservation is an important aspect of the business model of the Maine Two-Foot museums. This is specifically true in the case of the WW&F, which rightfully prides itself on being a "time-capsule" of Maine history and prominently markets the line's roots in that history in its advertising brochures. The message is, "... a group of us decided the time had come to reclaim our heritage ... We're still at it. Rebuilding history, one spike at a time."

It also just so happens that the original railroad and its modern equivalent are extremely attractive to visitors and volunteers as well. So I guess you can say, at least in the case of the WW&F, the answer is both.


Best Regards,
Glenn

OK, you guys have chosen to be a time machine. Combined with the good fortune to carry people back into a very attractive slice of the past, a great mission for including steam and excluding diesel. Thanks.

dave

How important is a steam locomotive to the tourist railway industry? If you include the preservation of interurbans and streetcars, running them etc...it is not important if you do not slice and dice the "industry"
Without wire or with wire, preserving an object in aspic is not as appealing as seeing it "do it's thing."..a full sensory assault. I dare say that simply looking at an object and seeing the same object operate are two entirely different experiences. Everything has it's limits and to experience mainline steam not on a mainline..and rather on a branch line setting is like watching captive animals in a zoo, that are not in their natural habitat. Of course, ignorance is bliss whether it comes from not having the memory of what was ..compared to what is. This serves the "industry" well..