I was riding a train yesterday and had a nightmare experience. A kid about 8 to 10 wouldn't get near an extended family and felt the need to scream every random thought he had. Problem was, he was never further than 5 feet from me. Kid made more noise than the locomotive.
After a very long drama session with various family members, he had the worst tantrum meltdown I've ever seen.
It took a long time but eventually he calmed down but not before he effectively ruined most of the trip for me.
My question to those who are with museums and tourist railroads is this; what, if anything, do you do when one rider is obviously making a nightmare of the ride for others?

As someone who has worked on several museum and excursion operations, and also operates a number of shortline and mainline excursions, this is actually a pretty serious issue that I have run into several times.
My first rule is to ask the family to control their child. We generally actually have that statement on our ticket and try to enforce it. I have asked a parent to take the child to another part of the train where they will not disturb other passengers. For example, we often have an extra car on the train in case of large crowds, or have a crew baggage car, to where we can move the child and family.
In very rare cases, we have explained to the family that if they can't control the child, we can make a stop and let them off the train and we will try and have someone from our ticket office pick them up and take them back to their car (this works on excursion railroads, but not longer trips).
You are very correct that one unruly passenger (I have had adults just as bad as children) can ruin a trip for an entire car, so the issue is a serious one. It does have to be handled diplomatically, and with all of the crazy folks out there today, somewhat carefully.

I eat in restaurants like Pizza Hut and so often you get loud kids there, I just work blocking them out.
Sooner or later they will get tired of the ranting.

In today's world you have to worry about how you handle any situation. People are apt to pull their cell phone out and start video taping something for the entire world to see. People love to see a good fight and we in the preservation world are no less a target than say riding public transit. Just go to YouTube and do a search for bus fight or train fight. You'll see any number of unruly passengers fighting that other passengers video taped. Now imagine if that were to happen on a tourist railroad.

You are absolutely correct. These situations are very difficult and put the operator(s) in a no-win situation. You don't know if the offending person (adult or child) is just being obnoxious or if they have a mental problem. Sometimes you just need to apologize to the other folks nearby and offer to reseat them elsewhere away from the offending party.
-- Ray

Don't know if this would help, but it was certainly entertaining to see what I saw of it, even though it was a rather serious situation.

I was just watching trains in Martinsburg, W.Va., when the westbound Capitol Limited came in, and just stopped. . .

From talking to the porter, I and another rail enthusiast found that the train was waiting for some city policemen. Seems some male passenger got on the train in Washington, apparently after doing some drinking. He also had a bottle of booze to keep himself topped up. He proceeded to get more and more obnoxious as the train headed west; his peak came when he propositioned a 14-year-old girl, right in front of her parents!

The female conductor, upon hearing of this, radioed ahead for the police response, and held the train for the cops. They eventually arrived, two men in a cruiser and a third on a bicycle.

They accompanied the porter onto the train. After a while, they came out with the porter, the conductor, and the inebriated passenger, the latter carrying a briefcase.

The whole party went forward to the baggage car, where the porter unlocked the sliding door, climbed inside, and after a while came back out with a suitcase. The party came back, where the porter and the conductor got on the train; the conductor gave the highball, and the train whistled off. The passenger and the three policemen remained on the platform.

One of the policemen asked the former passenger to open his briefcase. Inside was a half-empty bottle of Royal Crown whisky. The policeman asked the passenger to hand him the bottle of whisky.

The policeman opened the bottle, turned it upside down, and poured the whisky onto the ground. Then he put the cap back on empty bottle, and handed it back to the passenger, and cautioned him against lettering!

If you are familiar with the station at Martinsburg, you know it is in an old hotel, has been there since 1861, due to Stonewall Jackson burning the real station in that year. It has a two-level porch, above the station platform. Sitting on this porch during all of this were three old guys, who were watching the whole show. When the officer poured out the whisky, one of them called out, "Hey, that's Royal Crown, that's good stuff! You should have saved some for us!"

The policemen left the passenger at the station, going back to their patrols. The passenger was rather upset. Seems his girlfriend was supposed to meet him when he got off the train in Ohio; the stop was scheduled for something like 2:00am, and he was not going to be on the train. He tried to call her on his cell phone, but for some reason he couldn't get the service he needed. He asked me if there was bus service. I told him the last bus had run ten years earlier, and the closest he could get a bus was in Hagerstown, Md. No, I did not know the bus schedule. No, there will not be another train until this time tomorrow. Yes, we have cab service, one of the two companies is just up the street. No, I don not know the phone number.

At that time there was still a telephone booth outside the station. He looked up the telephone number, and tried to call the cab company. There was no answer. He tried calling the other company. No answer there. He tried calling his girlfriend. He still couldn't get his cell phone to work.

This was about the time I decided it was time to go home.

Sometimes questions like the one of this thread remind me of this incident. That in turn causes me to wonder what this fellow told his girlfriend later, when she went to the station and found he wasn't on the train. . .

This kid didn't get tired for a very long time, more than halfway through the ride. He was there with several adults, most of whom took it upon themselves to do a half-a**'d attempt to physically force him to shut up. It only made things worse. The man I think was his father was a typical weak authority figure and his threats were ignored totally as there was zero follow-through.
The truly annoying thing was they knew he was ticking me off (they even told him to stop yelling so close to me), I had my finger in my near-side ear as he was so freaking loud. He didn't have any obvious issues other than serious volume control. He had only one volume level and his apparent brother was used to that as he was doing an admirable job to ignoring him totally.
This kind of stuff will happen, from various causes. Nothing any of us can do to stop this from happening from time to time.
I am, however, curious as to why the crew of the train wasn't making any attempt to at least talk with the family (it wasn't a very filled train, only two cars) and what'd happen if it got any worse than it got (which was pretty bad. Seriously, I've never even heard of a kid throwing a tantrum this bad, I'd have gotten my backside handed to me if I'd dared to even think of doing this when I was his age). But most of all, I started wondering if other operations have any plan for something like this...

Moving to the next car away from the little bastard was too difficult??

I have only threatened to throw a couple of people off the car over my years of operating at McKinney Avenue Transit Authority in Dallas. I don't recall ever actually throwing anyone off. I usually give a warning and they straighten up.

The guy that got the closest was the one who lit up a joint on the car during one of my charters. Of course it is a lot easier to kick a passenger off of a streetcar in the middle of town than from an excursion train in the middle of nowhere. I could imagine a lawyer would be all over your organization if you put someone off the train in a bad area and they get injured or otherwise in trouble.

On the streetcar, I have the option of stopping and making it apparent to the offender and the rest of the passengers that no forward progress will be made until the behavior is corrected. A screaming child in the operator's ear is a safety issue that could affect operation.

I wonder if the kid was autistic...

I don't think he was, but even if he was indeed, parents have a responsibility to keep that in check. I didn't sign on to tolerate that (and moving into the other car wasn't the point, this was the only open car, the other was closed off and I wouldn't be able to get any shots from there, which is why I was there in the first place).
My wife and I were at a restaurant a few months ago and the next table over had a several autistic kid. He got up, walked right over to my wife and screamed, 'HEY!' right in her ear. The parents were right on it, and even made the kid apologize to both of us. My wife was very gracious and understood, as her family raised plenty of foster kids like that as she was growing up.
That said, I have seen a restaurant throw out an entire family once who had a kid like that. Clearly he had issues, but the family considered that to be everyone else's problem but theirs. Again, I didn't sign on for that, neither did the other people eating there. The parents were... well, real jerks about it, they thought anyone saying anything was the wrong thing that had happened there.
Saturday's events, coupled with that memory, got me wondering, which is why I posted this thread. I figured there had to be some thought and experiences like this in the past for other tourist RRs. Thanks for the responses!

If it were me I would have pulled out my cell phone and start recording, that sounds like some good youtube right there, and upon seeing you were recording the parents might have made there child shut up.

This thread is a good reminder that we are in the customer service business. Some training with your operating crews on how to handle this and other tough situations, the right way, is crucial.

I'm sorry you had this bad experience.

In my time as conductor, I have been involved in a few situations with difficult passengers. None of which have resulted in removal from the train. Fortunately, I have been able to solve most issues in a fashion satisfactory to both the railroad and the passenger.

In reading this thread, we find a good amount of conversation regarding those stricken with mental health conditions. Remember, we are not doctors, nor can we diagnose people. It is not always obvious that an individual suffers from a mental illness or condition. One only needs to turn on the evening news to see how apparent this point is.

We should also, while discussing this topic, turn the mirror on ourselves as train crew. We must also behave properly. Sadly, the only person I have removed someone from a train was one of my own crewmembers. Their attitude and conduct at the time was not appropriate and would have negatively affected the passengers' experience. As conductor, I am charged with the responsibility of the safe and satisfactory operation of the train. This includes customer service.

That reminds me of Doctor Phil. Sounds great, but says nothing of any substance.

What is "the right way"? How do you determine the proper protocol? What should the crews be taught? How do you handle a screaming child with parents who are ignoring the situation or being ineffective?

If we're going to teach operating crews the right way to handle these type of situations, how do we determine what that would be?