For financial viability, you have to look beyond the railfan who might want to ride behind an F40 (or ANY OTHER piece of equipment!]. They will probably only ride it in a museum setting once or twice. That won't pay the bills, that market is easily saturated.

To survive, you need repeat business, or a continued influx of new visitors.

If you have a world-class destination like the Grand Canyon or the Napa Valley Wine Train, new visitors are probable. Repeat visitors are less likely (distance in the Grand Canyon case, and the cost of fine dining on the Wine Train).

If you don't have an attractive destination, then you will need something "different" to attract repeat visitors. That can be events, fall colors, etc..

But in any case, do your homework before spending a lot of money. Reality isn't a Field of Dreams ("If you build it, they will come").

The money paying public doesn't care what they are riding, I could put a diamond smokestack on the F40 and say it is a steam locomotive (not that I would) and people would buy it. Also those Super liners have air conditioning (that will help win over the public)

1. Yeah but first they would have to drive 300 miles to get to Amtrak train that has Super Liners
2. I was not talking about the Naugy, except for the AC part, I even had a passenger ask me to turn on the AC once when I was car hosting.
I know that's what I meant.

Hauling around a caboose in a yard less then 1/4 a mile 3 times a year does not cost the same as running a 3 car train ten miles every Sunday.

You still have to keep the locomotive in running condition rather you go 1/4 mile or 100 miles. And if you only run a few times a year you've got to consider all the oils and fuel shelf life.

I have been involved with F40PH locomotives for a large portion of my years in the industry, and as much as I enjoy seeing them operate, I have doubts about the practicality of operating high horsepower turbocharged passenger locomotives that go through fuel like water out of a fire hose in occasional or tourist service. These are such high operating cost per mile machines that they really need a financially successful application that generates a lot of revenue to justify their operation. Their "appeal" to railfans won't produce that revenue as long as you can wait for the 2nd or 3rd train at any commuter rail station on the north side of Boston and still get to ride behind one operating in the service for which they were built.

Having said that, I also think that the F40PH (and the F40PHM-2C stretch units) have a very high display value as a "visible" locomotive. The carbody side panel application on these locomotives is pretty basic and one of them would be a great candidate for having one side or both sides opened up to make a visible locomotive display unit. Such a conversion involves panel replacement that would eventually be needed for museum preservation anyway, changing to transparent panels would not preclude restoring the original appearance and operability later, and it would produce a display that could generate some public interest and revenue without incurring a massive amount of operating expense. Without this kind of enhancement, having an F40PH on static display is every bit as exciting as walking past one shut down in a commuter railroad's layover yard.

Anyway thats just my 2 cents worth and see free to ignore it as you please. I sometimes get to ride the cab signal and overspeed road tests and I have a lot more fun seeing the F40PH locomotives work than you ever will ever be able to experience with one waddling down a branch line. It just isn't a branch line locomotive.

This entire preservation industry is entering a very challenging period where appeal to the public will be critical for many operations to survive. The public is very interested in how these machines are built, operated, and serviced, these are all things that they normally do not have any access to. If you find a better way to let them get up close to the equipment, learn more about it, and go home feeling like it was an interesting visit rather than just another train ride, it may be a winning combination.

And if you want to see how to really effectively "interpret" a locomotive to your visitors so they feel like they learned a lot on their visit, I would recommend taking a ride to RMNE in Thomaston, Connecticut to watch Howard explain the former New Haven Railroad RS3 #529 to the guests.

PC

I like this thought, one of the reasons I joined the RMNE is to get to work on the locos and actually see what is "behind the doors". Seeing a prime mover, main gen, ect up close isn't something many get to see and being mechanically inclined and curious something I've always wondered about. Nothing being a model railroader or railfan would allow you to see either.

Someday I'd like to see a hooded unit placed on display during events and have all the engine doors open so people could walk around the unit on the ground, look up and actually see what normally hides behind them. People are naturally curious and I'm sure many wonder what's behind the doors.........just like opening the hood of a car at a car show. Maybe even have a museum volunteer up on the walkway answering questions and pointing out things to the public.

MEC_557, We actually did this during a "technical" session at RMNE a while back, possibly before you became involved with the museum (wow, time rushes by). We spent the morning looking through the construction of locomotives by EMD and in the afternoon we did a Q&A session using the GP9 as a "training aid". Maybe there will be an opportunity to do something similar again sometime.

A diesel roadswitcher is one of the finest "training aids" ever manufactured. It makes a great stage for doing "interpretive" presentation (what a wonderful fancy description for teaching). It is great to have a "training aid" that is full size, almost completely accessible for viewing from the ground, and actually runs.

There are so many conventions where the passengers stampede off the train, get on the buses, and head for the hotel, without ever asking the engine crew to open the hood doors on a diesel and tell them about the equipment. They don't realize how much they miss out on.

PC

I won't have time to ride the train out of Thomaston anytime soon as I am currently working on painting cars up in chase yard, but I will make sure to wave as you go by.

I have a list I try to keep up to date on the F40PH Preservation Society website of all the Amtrak F40's http://f40ph.org/Sta.html Also with the MBTA getting new locomotives some F40's might become available.