The 90 mile excursion thread got me thinking.

How long is your RRs excursion? 20min, hour, 2-3 hours, more? From your experiences what does the public like?

Also, what about layovers? If you are a out and back operation, whats at the turnaround point, anything for riders to do? How long is the layover?

The first that came to mind when I read your post was my time working in Durango, one of the longest trips available.

When I worked for the D&S, our round trip was 3 1/2 hours each way on the train, and a 2 1/4 hour layover in Silverton. There was a minimal layover (if the train was running late due to whatever issue) of 1 1/2 hours. This made for a long day, and as such when I was assigned as a brakeman I did my very best to make sure everyone enjoyed the trip and to keep it somewhat lively at the appropriate times. For instance, in the mornings most passengers tend to be much more excited about the trip. In the afternoons after lunch, all of us tend to be a bit sleepy, especially on vacation.

To further illustrate, I tended to make informative announcements to each car on the northbound about 4-6 times throughout the trip. On the way back, I usually waited until past Cascade (1 1/2 hours after leaving Silverton) to start making formal car announcements and to try to get anyone interested in the trip again. This accomplished a couple of things; it was personally important for me and many others I worked with over the years to keep passengers (not customers) engaged and somewhat entertained throughout the day. Making 5 announcements to a car over 3 1/2 hours makes for a good interval to let people make it their own personal time, yet not feel neglected as if they just bought a ticket and held a seat. You are also maintaining a face for the railroad, and doing yourself and the company well by keeping that interaction going throughout the day. At the end of the trip, you'll have a lot more weight on your shoulders thanking everyone for coming out and riding if you've kept the trip comfortable, rather than leaving them on their own.

On the other hand, I also have worked for and ridden way too many short trips where the brakeman/conductor/volunteer has tried to cram every bit of information they've ever learned about a railroad into a 20 minute experience. Unfortunately, this is really easy to do because so many of us are enthusiastic about what we have to offer, but so often the passengers view point is taken for granted. And, on the other side of the spectrum, I've seen people ride a train for 10 hours and never thanked for their visit or spoken to by one of the crew.

Pennsylvania Trolley Museum times its normal visitor experience on one hour intervals. This suits the length of our line, stops made for a brief speech by the conductor, and the limit of interest and endurance of our typical family group visitors.

For the more seriously interested we offer a longer experience once a day that includes a tour of our Trolley Display Building which houses 30 cars in various states from pristine to basket case. Maybe 5% of our visitors take that longer tour, at an added charge.

As our ticket is for the day, not the individual ride, the really serious railfans will typically make multiple rides and spend 4 to 6 hours at PTM.

The objective is to offer something for everyone's level of interest. This seems to work well and visitor surveys confirm a very high level of satisfaction with the experience.

About one hour for the train ride. The walking tour usually last 20-30 minutes for most people. Some zero, some all day.

All mileages expressed as "half round-trip distance", to equalize out things like loops.

Western Railway Museum charges admission and then permits unlimited rides on two services.

A 15-minute "streetcar ride" around the loop and down the tail track (old "demonstration railroad".) 0.7 miles. While that may seem appalling to the excursion types, it's typical of trolley museums who laid new rail. IRM 0.4 mile, ORM 0.7 mile, OERM 1.0 mile, Seashore 1.5 mile. NORM (planned) around 1 mile. This runs every 20 minutes.

A 45 minute "interurban ride" out the above track and onto the Sacramento Northern mainline for 3 more miles. This uses existing rail but newly hung trolley wire and substations. At least half this time is stopping to lecture people about history, and a leg-stretch at the south end. This runs 4 times a day.

The Michigan Transit Museum used to operate a 45-minute round trip some 4 miles onto the airbase. This involved a stop at the Air Museum. On all but the last trip, you could lay over for an hour and see the Air Museum. This ran on 1-hour headways. Due to BRAC (base realignment and closure), the base has become much more important and high-security, and the trip into the base is done for.

It should be based on your Market.

Families with kids = under 2 hours TOPS

Retired and Day Trippers = 4-6 hours with decent on board amenities (food service, beverage service, GOOD CLEAN BATHROOMS).

If you have trackage thats Class one (15 mph or less), you cant expect to keep attention spans of anyone chugging along more than an hour at 10MPH...its just too slow.

Mid-Continent Railway round trip is billed as 50 minutes for our 7 mile round trip. We do a runaround at each end of the line and at the far end (mid point of the trip) we have time built in for leg-stretch and have the engine cut off and stop at a raised platform. The platform is at cab height so the folks can look in and talk to the crew and get pictures. We also use the runaround at the far end as an opportunity to explain/demonstrate hand signals and communication/cooperation necessary in safe train handling.

It is always fun to pay attention to your customers/passengers. While punching tickets, once almost every trip someone will make a remark about not having a ticket and how it may get them or someone else thrown off the train. I like to counter with the fact that we always need help sweeping the cars or washing windows and offer a chance to work off the missing fare. That usually produces the missing ticket & a big smile.

mld

Our operations hit both extremes. On our annual 8 to 10 hour mainline Amtrak excursions the car hosts have plenty of time to bore their passengers into submission. On the 15 minute rides at VMT, the train train crew only has time to interact with a few passengers each trip, but we try to thank as many as possible for riding with us as they get off the train. We handled about 5300 passengers last your over 8 operating days.

On our regular weekends the round trip is just over two hours including about an hour and fifteen in Sumpter to get a bite to eat, visit the giftshop, and tour the gold dredge. The other end of the line has about a half hour layover to turn and water while the passengers can get off and stretch their legs. For our operation two hours or so is ideal. If we extended the line we would have to increase the speed as well to keep the time down.

Taylor Rush, SVRR

Ours are 90 minutes round trip with a 20 minute layover at Glen Mills station. The total mileage is about 16 miles. Any longer than that, kids get restless and parents get angry. This format works well for all of our events. The train alone will not excite the general public anymore. In the 'go, go, go' instant gratification world we unfortunately live in, people expect action around every corner. We try to keep things moving to somewhat satisfy those expectations.