http://www.losttracksoftime.com/p47324941

All,

This summer the Strasburg Railroad has been running regularly scheduled freight revenue service pulled by a steam locomotive.
For the last four weeks I’ve dragged myself out of bed at 3am, follow the above link to my photos - click on "Slideshow" at the top right of the screen.
See you there this Friday morning?

Enjoy,
Matthew

Truly beautiful and a few simply spectacular ones. Worth a 3 a.m. alarm. Thanks very much. Now think about trying to that on Kodachrome 64.

Sigh! Dear, departed Kodachrome!

Mike

Thanks, Matthew. Wonderful shots. I particularly liked no. 31.
Cheers, Bob

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I'm imagining the scene of a mixed freight in December or February, with snow on the ground, how beautiful that would be... :D

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Of course, I just booked a motel room to ride the mixed on 10/3. Oh well.

Kelly, any plans to expand the mixed train schedule for the forseeable future or will September be it? Looking into riding sometime next week.

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I know I will get flack for this, but.....

... if they offered it only at certain times of the year, it is more of a rarity and therefore a higher demand...if they continue it further, it becomes an "every day thing"...and wears off the novelty of it quickly (yes, I know, Novelty of steam powered freights wearing off?...am I nuts?...yes and no) since it is readily available.

It's like operations that host Photo Freights year after year...they do wonderfully the first 2 years, then the response starts to die off the 3rd and 4th years, and it winds up getting canceled before the 5th year, if not sooner...(Offering NH&I as an Example). It becomes watered down. Of course, they are providing the service for their freight customers no matter what, but you get the idea....hopefully.

The rarer you make something, the better the response when it does take place.

I am sure I'm not alone in saying I would definitely like to see some trips run in Snow but that is weather dependent.....and the the fall season, maybe.

Just my two cents.

Of course it all comes down to it being extra revenue for the SRR. As I said, they have to run the fright no matter what, but its their justification as to whether its steam or not and whether to carry passengers and pay the extra crew members needed to do so.

Junior -

The key, I think, is not in the steam locomotive (which may not change) or the setting (which won't change much, if at all). What CAN change, is the train itself. As an example, if the museum has say, three authentic vintage, freight cars (let's call them A, B and C), then they can be arranged into an ABC or ACB or BAC or BCA or CAB or CBA configuration. Get's tired fast. But expand that to 4 cars and the difference in consists increases tremendously. ABCD, ABDC, ACBD, ACDB, ADBC, ADCB, BACD, BADC, BCAD, BCDA, BDAC, BDCA, CABD, CADB, CBAD, CBDA, CDAB, CDBA, DABC, DACB, DBAC, DBCA, DCAB, DCBA. Each of these combinations, presents a different "look" (photo) for photographers. How about 5 cars? I won't even try to list the number of different combinations here. But how about 8 cars? Or 10? We have more than ten cars at our museum; I don't even want to think about the total number of combinations (different looks) we could offer (anybody got a computer who could figure it out?). I didn't count cabooses, or passenger cars, but these could change too, adding to the variety. Another possibility is switching. How about a siding somewhere, where a car or two can be added to, or switched out of, the consist? I was at a non-railroad show that also featured a modular 3-rail O gauge layout. Nice trains. But the most interesting thing that happened was when one of the operators stopped his two Milwaukee Road F-units and switched out a refrigerator car at an ice plant. Later in the day, the car was picked up again. We don't need a genuine ice plant, or warehouse, or whatever, to do this kind of thing.

My thoughts.

Les

This has more to do with photo freights than anything else, but there are parallels to other events that museums offer. if you simply repeat the exact same thing from the last time, your chances of getting the repeat business needed to make the event a success will diminish.

Take the photo freight side of the equation. There is a market for this, but if all your patrons are doing is getting the same pictures year after year, they won't come back. If you make a positive impression the first time, chances are people will come back for the second one. If the second one is exactly the same as the first one, why would you expect someone to spend the money just for a 3rd set of identical pictures? That 4th and 5th year starts getting really dicey. Eventually, people will come back because it's been long enough that they want to see it again, but once you do something to death, maybe your tourist dollars could be better spent doing something that you haven't done before.

The key for repeatable sustainable business in these special attractions is to make each year special. What can you do this time that makes this event different than the last time? For the photo freight side of things, can you use different locations? What about a different consist? How about different motive power? What about something staged that you can set up. There are plenty of classic car groups out there. Can you work in with them to make something? There's always the change of season (spring to fall or winter), but that might only work so many times. Tweetsie Railroad went to the expense of re-lettering the engines for several years to honor specific things like the 50th anniversary of the park, and putting engines in authentic livery--although I admit this does get expensive for one weekend out of the year. Done right though, magnetic signs and tape can make the same effect for considerably less money.

You have to think hard and ask yourself what are we offering that will make someone that came last time want to spend the time and money to come visit for this event. If you are doing the exact same thing, you may not get that repeat business--and repeat business is what you are looking for. You want the positive word of mouth from the person that came last year, and told their friends about it. This year, you sold two tickets instead of one for the same amount of advertising. That's where the returns start to come in.

Some locations are better blessed than others in the variety and extent of trackage/motive power/cars that they have, but every museum has something you can offer. "What can we do about this year to make it special?". That needs to be the question you are asking yourself when doing the planning. This specifically goes well beyond just talking about photo freights and railfan events. It's easy enough just to repeat last year's north pole express or the halloween fright train or whatever, but how can you improve on it? You don't want to abandon what made the event work to begin with, but how can you make a different experience from last year so that people are getting something new? That's the hard part, and the answer may well vary from museum to museum.


Now as far as the Strasburg mixed freight situation goes. The continued operation basically boils down to money and exposure. How much difference in price do you get with running the steam mixed compared to the diesel freight? If you already have the steam engine fired up for the day, and are selling out the passenger accomodations onboard the train, with a short run, it may balance itself out. The other point to consider is the publicity from offering this special train. If the word-of-mouth is good enough to sustain it, maybe it survives longer, but eventually, the novelty factor will wear off unless you can keep a steady stream of new people showing up for the ride. Then, it simply becomes a case of economics and desires of the crew.
Kevin

My point, exactly.

Its a niche market you're drawing on...railfans...no family with 3 kids is going to show up at 630 in the morning to ride this. Its' market is small and once it is saturated, it will be pointless.

Less frequency of operations means more revenue in the long run for what they are offering. Steam is up, but you still have to call a crew in earlier than normal to run it on these freights, you still (assuming they are) have to now pay an additional person to also show up to attend to the those riding...so you've essentially take a freight that could theoretically operate with 2 crew members and jumped that number up to 3 or 4...

Summer time, yes, I think its great to offer - longest daylight hours - great for photography...fall, maybe.. remember it's going to be dark still at the time of morning this train operates in the fall and winter.

I offered the photo freights only as an example of saturation of a market, not an actual comparison. If it came across as such, my apologies.

I was there on Aug. 22 for the Strasburg Rail Road's (3 words) freight train.
It was amazing!
Lee