In our own community the planning has gone full-bore with adding EV charging stations to the prime waterfront/dining area as the local tourism destination, as well as the site for the municipal parking garage.

EV charging stations are now showing as marked locations on Google Maps, and in case you're stuck in 1990, the ability to navigate about anywhere and find about anything is based on that system along with others on smartphones.

As as test in your own area, search for 'find a charging station near me'. And think about using one of these as a reason for people to come to your museum or operation, and remember, you can't charge up as fast as you can gas up, so they're going to be there for a while, and they may as well enjoy themselves and do something while they are waiting. You can find ranges from 30 minutes to 12 hours depending on the vehicle and the power of the station.

Many communities are looking at this now, your challenge is to see if you can be considered as a destination location, and there's a portion of the market that will be searching these out, way in advance of a trip.

One of the big annoyances with EV charging is that the chargers are often "in the middle of nowhere".

Like, chargers in grocery store parking lot kinda things.

Put a charger or two in front of your museum, have an offering for a "30 minute snack" visitors and then enjoy the captive audience.

We recently observed charging stations being installed in seldom-used spaces of a Burger King parking lot, where people could go to the drive-through and then charge their cars while they eat their meal.

Drove by a few days later and copper thieves had cut and stolen all the charging cables.

We have one electric vehicle, used locally mostly for shopping. The capabilities of electrics often are less than advertised, and when the temperature is low they are even less. I can't imagine electric as a sole vehicle, with the current battery technology.

PC

Please be careful with those. There’s a reason they’re kinda out in the “middle of nowhere”.

Why?

Because they can be a fire hazard.

I don't know that this thread or forum is really the place to debate the merits of electric vehicles.

Back to the original subject - It makes sense to me to add them assuming the cost isn't too high. I see more and more Teslas etc on the road around me, and my state doesn't even have an actual Tesla dealer.

Our group is having enough trouble stomaching our regular electric bill. There is no benefit for us to install a charging station for what is still a niche market.

That's a pretty short sighted (and poorly informed) view to take of the situation.

I live 111 miles away from a "Top-20" steam heritage railroad. Although it is a 222-mile round trip from here, the railroad routinely advertises in my local media market (because there are 5.9 million people in my city and just 0.4 million people in the railroad's city.)

Google Maps says there are 25 public EV charging stations just within a 1 mile radius of my home. There are five (5) different brands of stations within this 1-mile radius: EVgo, ChargePoint, Blink Charging, Electrify America, and Tesla Destination chargers. All of these stations have multiple chargers. I have no way of knowing how many private (home) charging stations there are within the same radius, but I figure there must be at least 70 of them (extrapolating from the number of Teslas & other EVs parked in my neighborhood of single-family houses.) There are 13 gas stations within the same 1-mile radius of my home.

In short, there are a lot of Teslas and other EVs here, a city that the steam railroad draws many of its customers from. There are no charging stations at the steam railroad; the nearest charging station to it is 2.4 miles away while the nearest Tesla Supercharger is 3.2 miles away.Charging stations are not free - EV car owners have to pay to charge, just as they would have to pay for their gas if they were driving a gas car. One reviewer posted a complaint on google maps about having to pay to park in the parking garage and then having to pay again to use the charging station in that parking deck.

Are gas cars and gas stations not fire hazards as well?

The places with EV charging stations near me include the regional shopping mall (it has 4 of the 5 brands in its parking lots and decks), two other high-end/luxury shopping centers, a grocery store, two hotels, several parking decks under office buildings, apartments & condos, a typical stand-alone McDonalds, and a parking deck at a subway station.

Less than 0.02% of all vehicles in America are electric as of 2022. It is by a far sight, still niche market. Most of those customers to that market live in urban areas. A significant portion of railroad museums and tourist lines are located outside of these urban centers (some still yet outside electric vehicle range from their nearest urban center), that see the majority of electric vehicle ownership.

For many museums on a shoestring budget that couldn't afford the additional electric costs, let alone any installation costs (outside subsidies or sponsorships) or maintenance, it simply doesn't make sense to pay for charging stations. And it's not constructive to criticize them for making that decision.

Additionally, the lifespan for an EV charging station is less than 10 years. For all we know a station installed today could see little use more the majority of its life, or at least until the percentage I mentioned above increases dramatically.

Charging stations are one of those "if it's right for your organization" decisions. But at least for now, I don't believe a significant enough portion of Americans rely solely on electric vehicles that not having a charging station would have a noticeable impact, even for those near urban centers, in which case there's probably an EV station within a few miles anyways.

Read my post above.

As an owner of an EV, I would much rather sit and charge at something interesting instead of a Wal-Mart parking lot. And I bet a lot of other EV owners are the same way.

Your tea leaf reading may not be that great, but I'm sure you can at least read the writing on the wall. EVs are going to be a big part of the near future, and smart organizations should be looking for opportunities to benefit from that future instead of pretending it doesn't exist.

I was just about to email the driving force behind the CRHS's museum about this very thing, but then I realized that there's already a charger where folks would park for it.

Too bad, it would've been a great opportunity.

Your info--and thus the conclusions you draw--are considerably out of date.

The numbers presented are all over the map, depending on who's crunching the numbers (and their politics) and how biased they are in presentation. All cars with batteries including hybrids, or battery-ONLY EVs? As a percentage of light passenger cars, or "all vehicles" (which I will cynically point out includes mopeds, motorcycles, heavy trucks, fire engines, government fleets, Amazon vans, etc.)?
But the best info I can gather at the moment is that as many as one out of five new, private autos being sold right now are "electric," and that in many places sales are being split evenly between all-electric and hybrid. So, potentially, distortions aside, you're looking at as much as ten percent of your market. (People who have money to buy new vehicles and EVs tend to be tourists; people too poor to replace vehicles are a smaller part of your market.)

I am in what in theory should be one of THE absolute worst markets for EVs nationwide: A small metropolitan area in the high desert of Arizona, where SUVs and gas/diesel-guzzling big pickup trucks are rational and not status symbols. Yet I swear, 5-10% of the vehicles I see on the roads locally are now Teslas, Chevy Volts, and the like. The one owner I spoke with explained: "I have to do a 120-mile round trip to Phoenix about once every week or two. This will do it without recharging. I have six solar panels on my roof, and until I got this I was selling power to the power company. Three more panels, and I'm back to selling them power. This gets me anywhere I need to go around here," he said as he was unloading a carload of specialty food from Phoenix into his restaurant........

Also, remember this: This is more like a vending machine or ATM, IN SOME CASES, than just a power drain. EV users are supposed to pay for their charging. Depending on the arrangement, the charger company may pay for the electricity they draw, and may even be paying "rent" to the location. Tesla's chargers are proprietary to Teslas, as I recall, while others are not.

I'm skeptical of the overall proposition (including higher electric costs), but I think the proposition bears investigating in the right markets........

Good morning folks,

While Mr. Gustafson proffered an idea for trying to bring people to your museum or tourist attraction, I respectfully disagree with the premise in its entirety.

First off, in the interest of fairness, would your group be willing to provide free fuel (gasoline or diesel), or provide a place to purchase such fuel from a vendor, as an incentive to bring people to your museum in addition to providing EV charging stations? Providing charging stations for EVs is nothing more than providing free or convenient fuel. So, are you going to offer free or convenient fuel to one group of people, but not to everyone?

However, nothing in life is ever truly "for free". There are many costs associated with the infrastructure necessary to accommodate electric vehicles. As a taxpayer, I don't want government money subsidizing EV technology at the expense of proven technologies which do not require such an investment. So, who will pay for these charging stations if you choose to install them? The power company? ... The town? ... Who is ultimately going to foot the bill?

In addition, if you are providing a charging station service, how does that service support your museum or attraction? Could it threaten your organization's 501(c)(3) status? How will your host community's zoning, planning and construction requirements for such facilities impact your current and/or future operations? How might putting these charging stations on your property impact your liability insurance coverage?

Without the benefit of the current government subsidies, electric vehicle would not exist at this time. The battery technology has simply not yet reached a point where electrons can be added to a cell equally as fast as a fossil fuel can be poured into a car's fuel tank. At this point, battery powered cars are evolving, but have not yet reached a point where they can do to the automobile industry what the diesel electric locomotive did to the steam locomotive. That is the sad truth.

One day in the future, I have no doubt that fuel cell technology might very well render fossil fuels obsolete, but that day is still well off in the future.

By way of contrast, .... How many organizations offer free charging stations for cell phones and cameras? Is your museum or attraction currently offering such a service? How would your insurance company handle claims (and adjust your premiums) if you provided such a place where people could charge their phones (presumably unattended) while the owner walks around and enjoyed your facilities?

I cannot fathom the proverbial can of worms that providing an EV charging station would open up. This is a concept I sincerely hope will go nowhere.

Just my two cents.....

I think the decision on adding a charging station depends on the nature of your museum/tourist railroad. It might make great sense for a very large commercial operation like Strasburg to add a couple of charging stations as an added incentive to bring in visitors.

Hmmm… There are a lot of “it depends…” factors to consider i.e. the cost of the charging station installation, the cost of electrical infrastructure for the station, network costs, franchise or direct ownership, how much “vig” to add to the kWh or charging time to pay for it, length of time for a return on your investment, your location in relation to EV owners, etc. etc. There are programs available, both federal and state to help offset costs but I have not looked into which or how much would apply.

We’re located in a small town, sort of off the beaten path. I can see that having a charging station(s) might be advantageous to bring in EV owners who can get a top-off while visiting. But if we had to shoulder the entire cost of installation and managing, I predict it would be a money pit for a small organization like ours.

But, ya never know. With a bit of research, this may be something that’ll work for some of us. I’d be interested to hear about this from anyone who has done it.

Again, EV charging is not free. Does having drink vending machines onsite threaten an organization's 501(c)(c) status? Selling food? Selling model trains and other trinkets in a gift shop? Etc., etc., etc.Are you a gas station owner?

Privately owned cars spend at least 90% of their existence parked. Think about it - even if you drive your personal car 2.5 hours a day seven days a week, the car is only running about 11% of all the hours in the week. The rest of the time the car is parked. Pretty much every place where you would park a car in a urban area has electricity there already.... so EVs get charged when they're parked.

Customers are going to park at your railroad anyway and providing EV charging saves those of them on longer day trips the trouble of having to go top off their charge at an off-site charging site. You can get revenue from the EV charging company, your electric utility and/or various incentive programs. Why pass it up?
Have you not been to an airport or library in the last decade? Have you never seen "Park/use at your own risk" signs?