Most Thomas events advertise a 25 minute train ride. If you got a half hour ride, then you got a bonus. If you make it any longer, it means running more trains in order to give everyone their ride. We start our trains at 9:00 am with the last one at 5:00. Sometimes a 6:00 pm if the at the gate sales warrant it. If you run trains any later than that, then you are getting close to dark.

The price for admission is for the event, not just the train ride. Look at it this way. You can spend the $18 (I think its $15 in the U.S.?) for a 2 or 3 hour event so your children can have a good time, or you can selfishly spend anywhere from $50 to $150 for a 2 or 3 hour concert which you probably wouldn't complain too much about because you would really want see that person in order to spend that much. Your kids probably really wanted to see Thomas.

The event is for the kids, not the adults, so if your son or daughter had a good time isn't it worth it?

You are absolutely correct, the event is for children. I am just relaying the sentiments of the adults who pay for the event. I believe the charge was $18.

One of the posts on this thread commented how their patronage for the Thomas event was dropping each succeeding year. Perhaps the popularity of Thomas is dwindling, or parent and grand parents are spreading the word about the cost vs. benefits. A trip to the Oregon coast costs about the same with aquariums and other events available.

I am not trying to spoil or diminish the Thomas event, just pointing out comments made by my family and extended family members. I seriously doubt they will do it again even if new family members arrive on the scene in the future.

dan

further about the Thomas train, I saw the "real" Thomas a while back at Railfair and would like to know how to tell if that one, former Brooklyn Eastern
District Terminal Railway, is going to be the Thomas in the event?

OR does that locomotive just stay in the Strasburg
region?

Also are there two narrow gauge locos? I know that they host him at the Colorado Railroad Museum with three foot track and at Edaville, USA with two foot track?

Ted

We were quoted about $35,000 to ship the real deal. It cost us around $8000 to ship in the glorified dumpster.

I think sometimes we put a little too much emphasis on "numbers" and not enough on the end results. Not everyone on this list belongs to a an established type organization as some of the posters here. There are a lot of us out there who are non-profits, and who beg, borrow, (leaving one common alternative out) and scrape to exist. The group I belong to had to hire out on various short-lines for years and the resulting marketing, agreements, movements, etc were constantly changing from event to event. We had a steam engine and a complementing train, and had to work constantly to set these things up.

As a member of a non-profit, I'm not going to be too concerned if we made $4000 profit from an event last year and $3500 this year. It's money we didn't have before and money we need to keep going. As long as we're on the plus end, it'll just have to do. On many occasions the bean-counters in the group would being this type of issue up, and the end result from the trustees, was "we're going to run and bear the consequences". Fortunately, we've been doing that and getting by.

The Thomas thing brought a new surge of breath into many organizations. And it caught on. I agree with some of the posters here that the costs and financial arrangements are a little constrictive, but these people who have the copyrights, etc , have their acts together. The Polar Express deal is very similar in nature, and one that we have used successfully. Now these events are being passed on from group to group, and we're seeing some kind of fluctuation in attendance.

As for the "theme" of these events, they are for children only. The fact that an adult person would indicate dissatisfaction would not cause me to lose any sleep. There are certain events that we as parents have to endure, many at the behest of our offspring. This is no different than attending your childs first grade play while your friends are teeing off at the golf course.

As for the time limit, we found that a small childs attention level diminishes after approximately 45 minutes. Most of our rides of this nature were geared for about an hour to an hour and a half.

And finally I'd like to mention pets, and I have no intention of P____ing off anyone, as I have them, and they are an important part of many a persons life, but they do not belong on a tourist train or at any events like this. I speak from experience. At one event, when a rider made such a spectacle over a toy whatever it was, we reluctantly allowed her to ride with it. In any event, the ultimate disaster occurred when it bit a child. Once again, maybe the established organizations can afford to deal with this, but for a non-profit, it can bring about a tremendous amount of unneeded hardship. The only exemption to this that we held was for seeing eye dogs, that are a part of the ADA act. And believe it or not, we once received flack from a family who would not ride in a coach occupied by a blind person with a seeing eye dog.

Just some topical points. We all have to work at making our operations a success. Best to all.

Rich O

Success with Day Out with Thomas requires a serious business approach. Although our overall numbers were slightly down from 2006 (21,096 in 5 days vs. 22,300 in 2006), we were more successful financially. We contract with a PR firm in Salt Lake City, to ensure that we effectively get the word out. We also "change up" the activities each year, to provide a good balance of general kid-type activities (large Lego train layout, sidewalk chalk, bubbles, balloons, giant hay-bale maze, petting zoo, etc.) with railroading activities such as motorcar/speeder rides, etc. We also operate our regular trains during DOWT.

The perception of value offered to the customer is the key to success. It is essential that host railroads do not short-change their guests by not providing adequate staffing, facilities and "experiences". Host railroads and museums are making a big mistake if they try to do it "on the cheap". We are in an extremely tight labor market (less than 1% unemployment), and we've had to be very creative to get adequate staff for the event. One method is to make a donation to service organizations such as Rotary or Kiwanis, based upon their participating members being credited at a rate of $10.00 per hour. This reduces hassles associated with payroll, etc. By hiring off-duty city police, EMTs, etc. for support services, we have built a strong relationship with these entities (handy to have during other parts of the year).

Although this forum has contained plenty of whining, complaining, etc., about high royalty fees, hard work, long hours, etc., we have found DOWT to be very worthwhile for us. This is one of the best events (if done properly) to connect the younger generation (and their parents and grandparents) with historic railroading. If you feel that DOWT draws away from your regular business, then your "regular business" needs to be re-thought. We learned years ago that our railroad cannot survive on people showing up once every 4 or 5 years for a simple (although very scenic) train ride. Face it, we're all in the entertainment business and we have to supplement our historic experiences with other entertaining experiences that will bring people back several times a year (visit us at www.hebervalleyrailroad.org)! By doing this, we've increased our visitation from less than 40,000 per year ten years ago, to over 94,000 last year. Day Out with Thomas is one of several elements in making that happen.

The Thomas people are very smart, and will help the host railroads to bring in as many kids and shekels as possible -- because they (HIT Entertainment) benefit as much as the railroads. HIT has structured DOWT in such a way that large or small railroads can have single-point merchandise procurement and management, PR services, canned radio and TV spots at reasonable cost, and other services (and no, I'm not benefitting from this endorsement). I recognize that DOWT may not be a good fit for everyone. However, as the key decision-maker at HVRR (and not an armchair quarterback), I feel that DOWT can be of tremendous benefit when approached and executed properly.

Craig Lacey
Executive Director
Heber Valley Historic Railroad Authority
Heber City, UT

Craig hit the nail right on the head here. You can NOT be afraid to spend money on the preparations for this event, especially on advertising! If you start penny pinching, your event is destined for a much smaller profit margin or even failure.

One problem I see is the micro-managing board member who wants to save money and maximize profit by throwing the the paid advertising firm out the window. But the volunteer staffer that handles "advertising" for other museum activities has yet to figure out the difference between marketing and ordering newspaper and throw-a-way magazine ads. And would probably not have time to properly manage a thorough marketing program.

Within the ability of the museum, the most affective marketing program possible needs to be developed and fulfilled. And by marketing I mean the development of both offerings at the museum and the outward promotion to develop higher visitorship. And with more visitors should come more "coin of the realm" to fund our desires to preserve and experience history.

Mr. Laceys comments are right on target. I suspect that for most currently operating tourist rr's Thomas makes sense. BUT it is an all out effort and should be VERY carefully explored in the decision making process.
As I posted earlier we at the NH&I decided after doing DOWT for several years that the total effort was far too great for what was left on the bottom line at the end of the day. NH&I has been blessed with astute management for the last 12 years and this has resulted in dramatic growth in both the passenger and the freight business to the extent that the DOWT event was in their opinion a net negative.
They make a TON more money running their generic North Pole Express trains( with none of the mandated hassles that are part of the DOWT drill) and no ones got their hand in their pockets for a huge chunk of the money!!!
Ross Rowland

.

My family has made annual Thomas trips to Strasburg from the DC area (about a 3 hour drive with small kids) since 2001. I had lived in the DC area for 10 years before this and had never "gotten around" to going up to SRC before the kids and Thomas. We usually make it a one day trip, but one year, we stayed in a local hotel. One year we made a 2nd trip up on a non-DOWT day to meet a friend. Every year, we purchase at least two Wooden Thomas train toys there, even though they cost more at SRC then they do at AC Moore. Twice I've managed to break away from the kids to take a shop tour. :-)

Last fall, my 7-year old daughter asked to ride "the real train" and spent the entire outbound trip on Hello Dolly's platform soaking in the sounds and sight of #90 up close and personal. I think this is the real icing on the cake: introduction to steam and trains. Otherwise, her primary rail contact is hearing CSX blow for Mt Oak Road on the Pope Creek branch line.

Bob Bunge

Your comments are interesting. I spoke with my brother-in-law and my wife about the ride with Thomas. They both told nothing was said about Thomas before, during or after the ride. Youngsters lined up afterward to get a picture on the front pilot of the blue dummy, and that was about all there was to the train ride. No music whatsoever on the ride.

We are a non-profit that barely gets by, and we do allow dogs on board, always have. I have not heard of any problems in the 11 years I have been a member. We do instruct passengers that they are responsible for mishaps, and we tell them the dog has to be obedient and not nip at anyone, or they will be taken off. As Conductor I have never had to do that.

Also, keep in mind we are in a very rural setting where everyone has a dog. Also, tourists have no place to keep a dog when it is hot and humid but a vehicle, and unless it has battery powered air conditioning, I would not recommend leaving an animal in a vehicle while on a 2 hour train ride. Anyway, I can understand why the Thomas folks do not want dogs in the area because it can get messy.

This is all academic for me because it will be a long time before we can garantee enough passengers to have a Thomas engine. By the time we have enough passengers Thomas will probably be a thing of the past, as will I.

dan

It's been a few years since I was involved in a Thomas event, so maybe things have changed.

However, here's what they did at that time. (This was at the C&CRRA, not MRSR btw)

The actual ride, from start to finish, was supposed to be as close to 20 minutes as we could make it. No shorter, but not longer either if we could help it. We ran push-pull and picked a landmark for the turn-around, and after a couple of runs had the timing down.

I asked why they wanted them so short, and they said the event was geared towards young kids. They felt 20 minutes was optimum, based on the children's attention span.

We had music on board, and I think they had a special CD with narration specifically for the run. That's another reason they wanted the timing to be correct, so it would tie in with the music/narration.

Since I was the engineer on Thomas, I never actually heard the on-board narration sound track. I do, however, have the "He's a very useful engine" song forever lodged in my brain in the same way that the "It's a small world" song does after a visit to Dizzyland.

We also had a huge number of other activities, sort of a country fair type event. The kids could go from one to another as they wanted, playing with toys, coloring, playing in the "sandbox" (actually pea gravel, lot less messy) getting face paintings etc, etc.

I think they may have one or two Thomas items for sale in a small tent. (OK, so maybe it was only small in comparision to the RBB&B big top...)

Like other railroads, they apparently decided the effort wasn't worth the income and that the crowds for this event ended up meaning less passengers the rest of the season.

Your mileage may vary... Bear in mind too that population density matters, and an operation that hauls a large number of passengers each year may not feel the effects like one that hauls a smaller number of people.

What I liked most about Thomas was the shear number of little kids, and how much fun they were having. Let's face it, sometimes a regular steam train ride isn't that exciting to a 5 year old. But when Thomas showed up there were huge crowds of young kids, and they were almost all smiling and excited and having fun and thought trains were cool!

Now I realize that many of them will forget about trains, and next week's cool things will be planes or baseball or dinosaurs. But if even a small percentage of those youngsters get fascinated by steam trains, I think it will benefit railway preservation.

We had one fellow who came back every single day. He wanted my job (and he had the right outfit on too) and want to ride in Thomas and drive Thomas and build his own Thomas and... Hopefully when he gets older he'll be down there helping operate the railroad.

But yours is a rather unique case, correct? I am guessing that the income you derive from leasing all of those replicas is a rather significant addition to what you earn on your own line's events.

I fully understand if you can't comment, but it would be interesting to know what percentage of your revenue comes from the runs and what percentage comes from equipment leasing etc. Like I said, I realize you may not be able to tell us, and that's fine.

I suspect the mess isn't the concern so much as the safety of the kids. After all, this event is geared towards kids, and there are hundreds of them there at a typical event. The train is often at capacity.

What will Fluffy do when some 4 year old approaches it, or unknowingly scares it or pulls it's tail or whatever.

It's not the best idea to have young children, some of whom may not be familiar with how to properly deal with dogs in close proximity with a dog who may well be freaked out by all the noise and excitement and kids. (Thomas' whistle alone could well fluster the average pooch)