Does anyone have statistics on the growth or decline in ridership on operating lines and visitors to railroad museums?

Mark Bassett has addressed the ridership at the Nevada Northern Railway Museum in Ely on prior occassions. Information includes annual statistics between 1987 and 2006. In 2007, 13,687 passengers were served. See the following for detailed information:
http://nevadanorthernrailway.net/thrott ... 042603.htm
http://nevadanorthernrailway.net/thrott ... 040607.htm

Hi:

At our museum, annual ridership stats have been recorded since August, 1971 when we made our first revenue passenger run using Twin City Rapid Transit Co. standard streetcar No. 1300 (100 years old this year) pulling a gas engine connected to a 300 volt trolley bus motor turned into a generator.

From August 1971 until this weekend our museum has carried around 1.6 million passengers.

From 1971 until 1999, we operated only one demonstration railway, the Como-Harriet Streetcar Line (CHSL), located in southwest Minneapolis. CHSL has approximately one mile of electrified track with three Minnesota streetcars operational on that line. During those 28 years CHSL carried around 1.2 million passengers.

Starting in 1999, we added a second demonstration railway, the Excelsior Streetcar Line located in the west suburban town of Excelsior. This railway has one-half mile of electrified track and two operational Minnesota Streetcars, including Duluth Street Railway No. 78 that celebrated its 115th birthday this year.

Our Como-Harriet line reached its peak ridership of 50,000+/- annual riders during most of the 1980s and into the early 90s. Since then annual ridership has declined significantly until today at CHSL we carry somewhere between 30,000 to 35,000 passengers each year, depending on the weather and other factors. At our Excelsior Streetcar Line, ridership has remained steady at between 6,000 to 7,000 riders annually.

From what I have heard, all rail museums, with some notable exceptions (Thomas does help boost ridership stats, and the bottom line), have experienced drop-offs in ridership over the last 15-20 years. I think this is to be expected given the number of people who remember streetcars, or actually rode them up until the late 1950s, who are now passing away. Same for those who remember and rode passengers trains in their hey-day and who are now gone. Freight railroads just don't seem to catch the general public's eye today like they did up until the early 1960s.

Thanks!

HVRM recently reported their riders for 2008. A total of 3,119 passengers or 229 more than in 2007. This represented an increase of 229 riders, and was done travelling 303 fewer route miles. Much of the decrease in miles operated was due to cutting back from 4 trains per operating day to 3 trains. Thus, a modest increase in ridership.

Les Beckman (Hoosier Valley Railroad Museum/North Judson, Indiana)

Riders and revenue for the Cumbres & Toltec Scenic Railroad's 2008 season reported in the LaJara, Colorado Conejos County Citizen: http://www.conejoscountycitizen.com/V2_ ... ory_id=279