Guys, many of you seem to be determined to avoid the plain simple truth here. It costs A LOT MORE to power the GCRR trains with steam/diesel than straight diesel. You don't need to do any complex formula's or other fantasy calculations. The steamers have an average thermal efficiency of 6% vs. 30% for the diesels.

The steamers require SUBSTANTIALLY more shop forces to keep them road worthy.

98.76548934% of the customer base doesn't care what's pulling the train.

The GCRR is a for profit exercise.

Decision obvious!!

Ross Rowland

Although there are a lot of things Ross and I don't agree on, he is a thousand percent right here. The "green" reasoning here is money. That's capitalism. That's how our country has operated for 200+ years. The same is true at Mt Washington.

The environmental thing is a convenient, pc excuse. I only wish they'd be upfront about it. Don't pee on my leg and tell me it's raining. If running steam was cheaper, GCRY would probably have that SP&S engine running, and would probably still have the 18 on the roster. To that end, I'd be watching CP stack trains roll by my tower behind 4-8-4's instead of SD-40-2's.

I'll be in Vegas in a few weeks, a trip I'd planned for a while. I was going to go out and ride the GCRY, but now I'm not. Out of the tens of thousands of people that will ride the train this summer, there's what, a hundred people like me that lost interest when they dropped the fires? Life goes on. It's a bummer, but not a tragedy...

Dave Crosby

So the logical followup is, at the conclusion of this season, will GCRy. notice enough margin in the bottom line to conclude they are missing the boat by not running a steam train several times weekly?

I highly doubt it myself, though I'd love to be wrong. I'd bet my life that you'll never see steam operated by GCRY again.

Dave

Might hedge that bet - no reason GCRR woudn't capitalize on the remaining margin in the steamers by using them as "special event" operations marketing devices. Given the previous investment and their continued presence, seems a likely possibility.

Richard, it would be very difficult to determine what the effect of steam might be on ridership relative to other economic considerations at this time. Is there anybody not down from 2007 given similar product offered?

dave

Having spent an inordinate amount of time doing business plans, economic costing, etc....

I haven't found a single instance whether putting steam on a line doesn't increase ridership. The question is - does it raise ridership ENOUGH to cover its additional costs of operation and maintenance. That issue will never go away, and I hope it doesn't.

In some cases, markets, and operations - that difference is very strong. I've had a couple client railroads drop steam, anticipating maybe a 20% drop and it became more like 60%. If the railroad was 'associated' with steam as part of the visitor experience the fallout can be relatively brutal. Of the three that I've documented in detail, two are now operating steam again. Ridership will likely take two full years to recover. What seems to happen here isn't that the operation itself is more or less profitable, but the lack of people into the gift shop and ancilliary site activities is a killer well beyond the seat.

Those operations that still use steam on a selective basis, limited route, etc. seem to have the best of both worlds. If they make it clear where steam runs, they don't let down those that truly expect it, and will pay more for it. Yet the train miles behind diesel are significantly more. And, if they are even smarter, they price accordingly. We always survey test markets to see if they are willing to pay more for steam.

In the case of GCR, the real puzzle to me has been the "Polar" events, because if there was an activity that covers its costs and where steam REALLY adds to the event if you have it, there it is. You're not selling the Canyon there.

The other side of the equation is that if you have an annual rebuild, you're kinda foolish if you don't have a plan to eat those boiler days within the 15-year cycle when you have to tear down anyway. Parking it without using it at all except for special events is kind of a waste, but so is operating it every day without leveraging the visitor value to the max. A classic case of that was running 4070 on the Cuyahoga Valley in the 80's - at no point could the average paying train rider ever actually experience the fun of steam. Very few curves, no terminal experience at either end, few grades and mostly closed windows. Add in long-distance day on the original Cleveland-Akron run and it was a poor visitor value. Now, bring in the OC G5's on a special event, or any other steam, and it's now a big deal and a sellout.

As kind of a plug, I got to watch the Polar events down on the TSRR last year, and the showmanship of running steam on one end, and the diesel on the other as a 'pull-pull' for maximum train length and capacity was masterful. Steam was showcased, and orchestrated, for maximum visitor value. Lines of people posed by the steam locomotive, and at the other end, the diesel was completely ignored.

I do not see any reason to come up with a theory that explains why Xanterra ended steam other than the explanation they have given. Being green today is a powerful motivator, and Xanterra, in particular, is all wrapped around the green movement. They even built their own solar power plant. While ending steam may or may not save money overall, Xanterra said they did it to be green. I see no reason to deny it.

If they discontinued steam to save money on the overall operation, we have no evidence of that being the motive. In fact, we have no conclusive evidence that ending steam will save money overall. We do have evidence (or even proof) that discontinuing steam would save money on pulling the train, but we don’t know how much the lack of steam might reduce ridership. So we don’t know the economic effect.

The inescapable fact is that some future visitors, who would have ridden the train, will refuse to do so because it is not pulled by a steam locomotive. So the only question that remains is this: Will the loss of patrons be offset by the fuel savings? I speculate that the GCRY does not have the market research to answer that question, and because they have made the switch without that information, they may never learn the answer. But then the answer would not make any difference if Xanterra ended steam to be green as they say.

If they really wanted to save money, they could just eliminate the train. If you can theorize that people riding the train don’t care what is pulling it, why can’t you theorize that people visiting the Grand Canyon are not interested in train rides? For that matter, why can’t you theorize that the D&S could save money by ending steam?

I can second the opinion that Xanterra is heavily focused on environmental management. I stayed at a local state park last winter managed by Xanterra, and they had a copy of their annual report in the room. The report was heavily devoted to discussion and tables demonstrating their reduction in carbon emissions and other managerial changes to reduce visitor impact on the sites.

Steam engines are big carbon emitters, and consumers of water. If you add the incidental fuel use/carbon emission from transporting water, then the steam engine at Grand Canyon negates many of Xanterra's objectives.

As nostalgic as steam may be to some, including myself, for many others it is just an obsolete technology that is damaging to the environment. Continuing steam at a natural park ranks up there with straight piping sewage into streams and feeding the bears.

As steam sites like Grand Canyon and Mt. Washington (and Durango?) disappear, it may ironically give more logical purpose to places myself and others have criticized such as Steamtown. At least at Steamtown water, coal, and an industrialized backdrop are readily available and supportive of the exhibit.

One of the absolute best environmental impact studies I've ever seen was on the Grand Canyon, one of the few places I've ever seen a professionally-done study on a steam locomotive's environmental impact. This was done by NPS in response to the shuttle expansion project to the parking project. I still have a copy. Dated June 1992.

This wasn't just exhaust, it was comparative to diesel exhaust, trains vs. vehicles, and also included the noise pollution analysis. Got into soot, NOX, etc., but at that time didn't really address CO2.

In the end, it supported the train over vehicles, and was surprisingly evenhanded about diesel vs. steam (fewer, but nastier, emissions).

The sarcastic response is that the 'greenest' alternative is to close the resort and the road, and just keep people out entirely. Generally, NPS has taken a stance (where practical) to restrict private automobiles and go to transit - busses or trains, to shoulder as much load as practical.

I think the perception of green is more important than 'how green', and the business value of selling green is very much part of it. You could just as easily sell green by selling train vs. car, never mind the motive power up front. That's my point - there's a huge 'green' value by just taking the train, and NPS already did that exercise.