I was wondering if any groups have any experience or recommendations for an online ticketing solution for rail excursions that can also be used for creating, sending, and tracking e-tickets. ELDCPS used e-tickets for the first time on our Santa Claus trips last December, but while they were very popular with our customers, they proved to be very time-consuming to produce, as all had to be created and sent manually. Has anyone dealt with an online solution that has worked well?

Thanks,

In 2008 The CRHS used our online store (now at www.ConrailShoppe.com) to sell tickets. It's setup using Ubercart and Drupal.

Sadly, there was a bunch of manual work at the end of the day. We recorded each ticket (manually... ugh) into a Google Spreadsheet that all interested parties had access to.

We then printed tickets using a download of the spreadsheet and a Word mail merge.

All in all, not super automatic, but it worked well enough that we're (essentially) going to be using it again (but with a separate site just for the next trip).

There are a number of vendors that provide ticketing solutions (online and otherwise). Pick up any recent issue of the ARM/TRAIN newsletter to see ads from them.

I don't know of any railroads using the service but a lot of the world is using Brown Paper Tickets. They do a great job.

http://www.brownpapertickets.com/

The Volunteer Railroaders Association in NJ uses Ticket Turtle for selling tickets on the Santa or Easter Bunny trains we run.

http://www.ticketturtle.com/website/

While they do charge a small fee for each ticket it allows those that buy the ticket to download and print the ticket on their own. Not much housekeeping during or afterward on our part. Saves postage, volunteer time, and printing.

Well worth the fee in my opinion.

I'll second the suggestion of "Brown Paper Tickets", I've worked with concert venue that uses and likes them.

Mt Rainier Scenic has used several companies, our most recent vendor is/was "Rezgo", but I seem to recall hearing they may be experimenting with a new vendor this season.

They all have positives and negatives. They do some things well, other things you wish you could change but can't.

I would say that no matter what vendor you choose, pick somebody and get online! People are used to quick and convenient ticketing these days, and your sales will increase. When we finally made the switch, the prevelant attitude was "Wish we'd done this sooner!"

The Railroad Museum of New England has been using an online ticket service for the last few years with few problems.

The ticketing is available through our web site and the physical tickets are printed locally (or at the ticket office for POS).

Contact Celeste Echlin (cechlin@earthlink.net) for more info.

As with most things, you get what you pay for. The more expensive systems have better features and more options, generally speaking.

For example, the one option that we really missed with a previsou system was the ability to say "I want to ride the train on 7/8/12, what options do I have?" It forced you to pick what type of trip you wanted to ride, then it would show you the dates available. i.e. you picked "Excursion Train" and then found out you can ride on 7/8 at 10:00 or 1:00. What you didn't find out is that there may be a BBQ train at 4:00. Since you were locked into "regular excursion train", it didn't show the BBQ.

Ideally, you'd be able to select your tickets by type "Excursion Train", "BBQ", "Special Event" or by the date you want to ride. If you're looking for a system, I'd urge you to make certain it can present both options.

In my opinion, the more your ticketing systems flows like Travelocity, Expedia and the like, the better it is. That's what folks are used to, so try and make the presentation in a similiar manner if possible.

We have had great success with Dynamic Ticket Solutions. They cater to scenic railroad/museum operations. They are a good group to work with. Call or email and ask for Lou.

http://www.dynamicticketsolutions.com/