It's been making the rounds of the internet for a few days and a few have posited some outlandish theories, but times are tough in Michiganand the SRI has laid off its staff to conserve funds for debt reduction.

Since innuendo and more cryptic assertions such as the 4449 trip "depleted" the TrainFestival revenue are making the rounds, this helps demystify the situation.

http://www.argus-press.com/articles/2010/01/26/news/news2.prt

Tuesday, January 26, 2010
Steam Railroading Institute lays off employees

By SEAN ELY, Argus-Press Staff Writer

Tuesday, January 26, 2010 10:34 AM EST
OWOSSO - The Steam Railroading Institute's corporate officers have laid off all of their employees, except Executive Director T.J. Gaffney.

After an all-day meeting Saturday, financial concerns led to slashing the positions of Chief Mechanical Officer Greg Udolph and Marketing Director Kim Lazar.

Office Manager Jodi Hak previously was let go in late December and two contractors' contracts, Sue Grieve and Justin Hamilton, were not renewed.

“This has been a very difficult process,” Gaffney said. “We know several groups benefited from events we held last year, so we hope several local businesses continue to support us.”

Despite a prosperous year in sales, totaling about $2 million, the corporate officers cut the budget to about $650,000 for 2010.

Gaffney said, in the end, paying off long-standing debts and employees' wages wasn't manageable.

“That has really played into some things we've been dealing with for a while,” he said.

More than 40 potential local residents have stepped up to volunteer their services so the Steam Railroading Institute can continue to operate.

Gaffney said ties with Great Lakes Central Railroad will become stronger than ever to assist with upcoming events.

Despite recent staff cuts, Gaffney said, the Feb. 13 Sweetheart Casino Train event will still take place. Tickets can be purchased at http://www.mstrp.com.

Jane Unterbrink, a director on the Board of Corporate Officers, declined comment on the Board's decision.

“I'd rather you get a hold of (President) Richard Greter,” she said.

Greter did not return multiple Argus-Press phone calls Monday or this morning.

Most recently, on Nov. 27, the Steam Railroading Institute pulled the Pere Marquette 1225 steam engine from service after a season-opening North Pole Express run as a precaution when officials said it didn't sound right. The train has not run since.

The 1225, made famous by the children's movie “The Polar Express,” which was based on a book, is the signature engine of the SRI. In early 2009, the 1225 was one of the key attractions to the first-ever Train Fest in Owosso.

Gaffney said the Steam Railroading Institute applied for a surface transportation fund grant from the Michigan Department of Transportation to restore the 1225, raising about $300,000 in necessary costs.

“All of this is a rough situation,” he said. “The positive comments made about the staff are correct but the negative ones I've heard recently about Greg (Udolph) and Kim (Lazar) aren't.

“They're very good individuals and it will be hard to move the place forward without them. We'll work towards bringing the staff back again in the future.”

I think the Owosso show was a good shot in the arm, bringing in 4449 was an incredible feat and with 4449, 765, 1225, 110, Leviathon, and the rest made for quite a show. One you can't duplicate very well again.

Get that engine the overhaul it needs.

Cheers.

I think their laying off staff was the best decision to make right now.
What has many people unhappy - including me - was this quote on TRAINS Newswire about TrainFestival:

"Despite the thrill and ostensible success of the event, Gaffney said, "Train Festival's income and expenses were very close to each other." "

I would like to hear some more explanation on how this could be, given the success of the event.

Chris.

Ya wanna play ya gotta pay.

Success is breaking even or coming out slightly ahead when marketing a huge event to railfans. If you want to make money, you need to produce an event for the wider general public. We aren't enough critical mass to matter in this context, and TJ and company are to be commended for doing as well as they did, and proving to us all that it is possible even in the depths of a recession.

Hard choices and they have made the best one they could under the circumstances. Of course, they could have sold off 1225 like another musuem did recently......

dave

Having seen first-hand what that team had accomplished, this news just makes me sad.

I would not be shocked if TrainFestival only made a few percentage points over the cost. If this were a ripe for-profit business, Warren Buffet would be restoring Northerns not buying BNSF.

I hope it works out for those laid-off and those still there.

Rob

Important things to always remember:

Running trains is a very expensive proposition.

The railfan community will never pay the bills.

Nobody is getting rich by running steam locomotives.

The National Trust for Historic Preservation just posted a story that Arizona is closing half of it's state parks, mostly historic sites. This along with recent cuts in PA and CA are clearly showing that not even government funding is a sure thing.

http://www.preservationnation.org/magaz ... parks.html

Times are tough all over and historic sites everywhere are feeling the pinch.

Understatement of the year.

Given what government money has done to VMT, CSRM, the Brookins collection, Steamtown and RRMoPA: I boggle at how anyone can think it's a good thing in any sense.

You end up burning half of it merely complying with the terms and conditions attached to the money - and the other half hiring contractors for jobs your volunteers could do yourself. Meanwhile the money distracts, priority-shifts, and creates squabbles. While also making prospective donors go "Hup, why support them? The government has them covered." Just seems like a net lose generally.

Seriously. Do you know of any rail museums that depended on G-money, which also have a respectable endowment? I'd rather have an endowment, thanks.

No, painful as it may have been, 1225 did exactly the right thing. Lay off that expensive staff and bring it back to the volunteer core. I know, it's heart-wrenching to let people go, but that's part and parcel of hiring. They have a lot more debt than I realized. That can bite you if you don't have an endowment to balance it. I hope they do/will.

With all due respect:
The VMT was a "state" museum in name only, same as the Illinois Railway Museum or the Kentucky Railway Museum or the Pennsylvania Trolley Museum.
Brookins was not a state-operated museum.
As for Steamtown, the CSRM and RR Museum of Pa., and the North Carolina Transportation Museum, I would ask: Was there ever a viable alternative? Sans the state museum set-up, what would we have? Probably half the stuff in the Northumberland roundhouse cut up, and the rest rusting outside an underfunded museum at Altoona. What about the Cumbres & Toltec--would it still exist save for maybe a couple miles of demo track at one end?

And the alternative? As much good as the Friends of the EBT are doing, it's still "death by a thousand cuts", one piece of rail, station, or culvert at a time.

There's a hell of a lot I loathe and despise about government funding and administration, but sometimes that truly is the best way to assure long-term survival.

It is easy to see that places like C&T and Cass simply would not exist if not for state funding. I guess I was thinking what of it in terms of what if a RR Museum of PA was simply closed for a six months or a year. These are tough times and I think we are lucky that there have not been any significant permanent losses due to the economy. The USS Olympia is a prime example of an incredible artifact in serious danger of total loss. I guess the EBT has been for the last several decades as well.