Given these interesting economic times, I would be interested in here from those of you who wish to share as to train events that work for you.

Here in San Diego (Campo), we have traditionally offered a one hour plus "train ride to nowhere" - which has dried up. It seems lots of people have no interest in riding an old, hot or cold coach except when the weather is perfect. The fares we charge are at or less than our costs given the ridership experienced. We've tried to offer it year round - in summer and winter time’s ridership is way down. Our very popular Train to Tecate has gone away due to a tunnel fire, passport issues and Mexican drug wars. Our Christmas rides are our best event - in terms of visitors and what we present - it's truly first class for us. Our Easter (bunny) trains and pumpkin patch trains feature the same one hour train ride with an Easter egg hunt or pumpkin. Both are kind of popular and we have fun with them.

So - who out there wants to share what works for you? What brings in the cash required to keep your wheels turning and your place open? Is it wine and cheese? Steam fests? Dinner trains? Murder mysteries? Music events? Shoot outs? Motorcar trips? Rent a loco? Cab rides? Photo specials? What are you doing that works?

Jim Lundquist - note, this is an effort to see if we can implement new and exciting things, and I'm asking only as a volunteer willing to take on new adventure as approved by our Board!

NHVRR is located on the outskirts of a major SMSA and offers one operating day per month of a 45 minute, impulse-priced ride out into piney woods and back again, through pleasant but not in any way exceptional scenery. No core group of other attractions are nearby for cross-feed, just a lake used by fishermen who aren't interested in train rides. A LGB model railroad and a constant series of mild, small events like railroad art exhibits, etc help keep the "usual" operating day in the papers. Special seasonal or holiday events are very well attended. After a couple decades of stasis, in the past few years there has been much growth and improvement in the site and some in the programming, adding steam operation, additional capacity and parking, and the events mentioned above.

If memory serves, you guys are pretty much out in the desert, so the challenge will be larger, and it is likely that you will need more powerful draws to get people to drive out to your place. Once there, nothing else to do but ride the train, so that's not much of an issue. Might be worth considering basing your programming on maybe 6-8 really special events per year, heavily produced and promoted. You can then shrink to a 15-20 minute train ride that costs almost nothing - like a 45 tonner and a couple cabeese - for the "average day" operating demonstration ride, only done when you have enough people to ride rather than on a regular schedule, between special events.

Mentally, it requires a switch in perception from being railroaders and preservationists to entertainment industry producers of events.

Or, I could be completely wrong. Easy to offer ideas from the other side of the country.

Alternative: run your rides from National City or San Diego where the people already are. This saves the requirement of getting them out to your place and all you have to do is get them to buy a ticket and get aboard. Lots of market available in residents and tourists in San Diego, perhaps eliminating the long drive might do the trick.

Best wishes in whatever you decide to try.

dave

Due to limited availability of coach equipment we have done limited all first class trips. First class (or any premium service) always seems to sell better than coach. We have not made huge money but we haven't lost anything either. I believe we need to run occasionally as it is the best way for the public to know you are alive and kicking.

Branford Electric Rwy. Ass'n. - Shore Line Trolley Museum has the problem that the general public just doesn't behave as management wishes and come back to ride the same old thing time after time. Instead, what sells are special events that often have little to do with our Museum Purpose. Halloween, Christmas, Rapid Transit, and 1st Class events all seem to do better financially than plain old trolley rides to see the permanent exhibits.

EL Diner, are you able to sell 1st Class tickets to the public, or are they all quickly snapped up by insiders?

Here in Kentucky, our business is steadily increasing the last few years. There were some rough years, but some new ideas and new heads are in charge, and riders are coming back.
We've been hit and miss with our Murder Mystery, it seems you have to spend all the profit on advertising to fill the train.
We run a Trains, Planes, and Automobiles event in the summer, and are able to get a loco from our outside link, RJ Corman, a 7.5in gauge club, various car and tractor clubs. It's probably our third best event, after Christmas and Halloween.

We have a Barbershop Quartet train ride, and Ronald McDonald makes a couple appearances. Several different schools across three or four counties bring their little kids out in the spring, along with two Civil War Re-enactments.

Some of these won't work out there in in California. You might could find a car club or two who is willing to come out for a show. I don't know what type of 'Old Timey' music is popular out there, or if it has anything to do with trains.

For Independence Day, can any fire works be seen well from a point on your line?

James

I know of a nearby operation which boasts a highly scenic line and creek side picnic grove, 1 or 2 hour round trips, steam, diesel or railcar, is surrounded by over 5 million people in the Metro area, plenty of nearby activity and yet it can still be hit or miss in terms of walk up numbers. For obvious reasons, I will exclude their Major Holiday Trains which we all know on most roads are sell outs.

Weather plays an important part on their ridership. Rainy days are duds as are overly hot or humid days. They operate a myird of "themed" trains throughout the month both on weekends and for weekdays and they can be greatly effected by the weather too, but generally are good crowd drawers. One major benefit for them is they have a solid charter background that I would safely say - puts them as one of the busier tourist railroads out there in terms of Private Charters.. and they don't have nearly as nice of "charterable" equipment as you guys have in terms of hitting up the upper crust on the coporate level, yet they do it.

For the weekend/family side of operations, the significant part of their weekend revenue is via 'Charter' based and highly popular Caboose Birthday Parties during regular weekend runs. (Campo has 10 cabooses to chose from to put into service for this) There isn't a weekend there that they don't at least have ONE caboose sold on each trip. Often its 2 or 3 cab's per trip at $200-300 per rental, $400 for a non revenue day (they get a good number of them too). Capacity with kids and adults is usually around 20-25ppl. Multiply that by the number of cabs and they are already pulling in at least 20-60 garunteed people per trip times however many trips they run that day.

They just provide the caboose and a docent...the party favors are the responsibility of the charterer.

Revenue wise, those are a significant source of it for the RR and at one point, were completely covering the operating costs of each day in the late 90's, even with Steam operating every weekend. Now, coal prices have soared since and they have reduced steam operating days, puttin in more diesel operation days, so I don't know what the ratio is, but I'd safely say they're still paying the bills for a good part. Of course, this does not include revenue made by the Gift shop when the hoard of 20-25 kids and adults come strolling in.

The overall benefit of this type of weekend charter is that you;
A: build a solid, guaranteed revenue source for each weekend, even on the rainiest or hottest of days.
B: guarantee if they have a blast, they will return in the near future
C: guarantee that the 19-24 other kids/parents outside the Birthday Child will want or consider doing the same thing for their birthday.
D: Word of mouth will spread about the museum/railroad and their great party experience which is FREE publicity, generating future revenue.

Cabooses are not Air Conditioned, but are heated in the Winter. You may want to consider AC in your cabs considering your climate conditions.

Now, if you guys already do this, thats great...but you may want to consider pushing it a little bit more on the PR side. Your web site only talks of Car charters, not Caboose. Hit up the schools nearby, churches, day camps etc with flyers about parties, especially if you're already drawing in school/camp charters during the week.


Just my idea, don't have to like it or hate it.

Our public trips have been listed on our internet site and via email to members and people who have taken a previous trip. With only two first class cars and a seating capacity of 35 they sell out quickly. We hope to have coaches available later this year which will allow us to run shorter trips and more frequently.

The Western Railway museum has two types of electric powered rides.

Our twenty minute street car line loops around the main museum property and goes many times a day.

Our 1 hour Interurban ride is about 5.5 miles each way and operates on our preserved Sacramento Northern right of way. This ride will get longer as the overhead wire is restored. Several time a year we offer First Class service in our Salt Lake & Utah parlor car with drinks and snacks.

We have the advantage of being on increasingly busy State Highway 12. Our ten year old Visitor Center continues to act as a welcome for the museum to the passing cars on the highway.

Also the County has started a new bus line that goes by and the drivers come in frequently. After 50 years it is possible to visit a museum of public transit on public transit. That is train and bus from either San Francisco or Sacramento.

The Western Railway Museum turns 50 this year and we will be celebrating in June. More details on that later.

I do Car Barn tours and the public comes to them by Interurban and it still surprises me that people are saying that this is their first train ride. The museum still pays the bills with an old fashoned train ride.

Ted Miles