Hi everyone:

I know it has been a while since our last email. Well we have been busy on a plan to raise more income for the museum. This is important as it will allow us to do more fun stuff in the restoration area.

We are planning a new special event for the 3 weekends before Halloween on Friday and Saturday nights from 6 to 10PM. We are calling it Satan’s Trolleys. It theme is that all the cars in the one barn have all been involved in tragic accidents that have led to the deaths of innocent people. They slumber in this car barn waiting for their next victim.

We need your help!! Starting this Thursday, August 30th, and every Thursday starting at 7PM we will be holding planning meetings for Satan’s Trolleys. We need help setting up, decorating, crowd control, parking, ticket sales, advertising and scaring the folks who come. The best part is some of this work will be getting cars like our private car, Northern, out of storage on their way towards being worked on.

While all this work is going on we will be slowing down on the restoration activity. This will allow our museum to grow and us to grow the many programs at our museum including restoration. So come on out on Thursdays and Saturdays to help us get this new special event to become a success we can all be proud of.

We look forward to seeing you at the museum. All the help you can give will be greatly appreciated.

Chris and Galen

Hi:

Can I make a few suggestions regards the theme for your halloween event? I make these recommendations based on our museum's experience running a ghost trolley since 1998.

1) I am not one to be overly concerned about being politically correct, but I don't really think you'll generate ridership by making satan the focal point of your event. Your neck of the woods in the Nutmeg State is fairly religious (I have relatives in Hartford, New Britain, Avon, etc.). So, from a PR standpoint having satan as your set-piece is probably not a good idea.

2) I also don't think you would want to highlight any of your junk trolleys you guys have "out back" as the center piece of your special event. IMHO this would also not be good PR. It gives a very wrong impression of your museum's fine work. I don't recommend you use the derelict rolling stock as a prop at all.

3) Parents want to bring their younger kids to fun stuff, not scary stuff. The older kids (pre-teens and teens) might like the gory stuff, so if you plan to cater juist to that audience then that's fine. But don't expect the younger set to attend if your event focusses too much on the bizarre and gory side of things.

4) Your museum used to do a bang-up pumpkin trolley or the "ride to the darkside." (In fact I want to say that your museum was one of the first to start the now common special event as a fund raiser trend.) Is there a reason why your museum has decided to go with a more sinister theme this time? Maybe there's something I don't know here.

5) Keep your event upbeat and mildy scary but not too much. You can be scary while not too scary. Think of a theme such as the dead motorman who has come back to find his lost streetcar. Or the passengers who got off in the woods at the wrong stop and were never seen again.

I have been a member of your museum since the early 1980s, so I am somewhat familiar with Warehouse Point. I do wish you all the luck with your special event.

Thanks!

I agree with Jim. I found the description of the event rather odd given the presumed need to appeal to as much of the public as possible. Keep the theme fun for all ages.

Must agree - my first thought was that the Baptists probably would stay away in droves, and never come back.

Besides, assuming you believe Satan is anything by a man-made construct, as it is popularly considered it has nothing to do with Halloween.

Halloween (Samhain) is a time when it was historically thought the border between dimensions was at its thinnest, and spirits could travel across it to our side. Hence, the ghost / death imagery. Popular culture has kept that, added the bizarre inauthentic imagery of witches, black cats, and other semi-supernatural bits and pieces, and the commercial interests of the candy making and dental industries have also benefitted.

Why shouldn't we? Best to glom on to the most successfully exploited imagery that has the widest audience appeal and work with that, avoiding any potential conflicts as best as possible. Leave the prince of darkness at home. Bring the pumpkins out.

dave