Dynamic Ticket Solutions along with Josh Miller of North Shore Scenic Railroad has been presenting a FREE webinar series on navigating business during Covid-19, with future topics including how to re-open dining cars, insurance and liability, etc. We welcome feedback from the RPN community. Tomorrow's webinar features discussion with HRA President G. Mark Ray.
Register here:
https://register.gotowebinar.com/regist ... 1249821710

One that has announced reopening this Mother's Day weekend: The Grapevine RR in Texas:

https://www.grapevinetexasusa.com/grape ... -railroad/

We have discussed reopening in our organization and will probably resume volunteer projects in the next month or so. However, museums remain ordered closed and it is entirely possible that museums here may not reopen until the fall, as our tourism season in the southern part of the state is now over. Our museum’s financial situation is somewhat resistant to a lack of physical patronage as we do not depend on paid admission or gift shop sales to generate any significant income.

That said, we were working on building a permanent location for our gift shop at our main campus-that work is suspended for now. As we have not had a working website for a couple of years (or membership newsletter either), recruitment for those positions is a necessity as the museum needs an on line presence.

Our museum is fortunate that, to our knowledge, only one of our volunteers has tested positive for COVID-19. He was likely infected while overseas in Europe and required temporary hospitalization but has since recovered. He did not present an exposure risk to Museum volunteers or guests, as our facilities have been closed to the public and all volunteers since the end of March.

Virginia & Truckee Railway (the Carson city to Virginia City Train) has cancelled their entire 2020 steam train season.

Cuyahoga Valley Scenic has cancelled all train rides through September 30.

The Office of Road and Rail here in the UK have just issued this document...
https://orr.gov.uk/__data/assets/pdf_fi ... vid-19.pdf
Stating what they will be looking for preserved lines to be doing in the course of re-opening (which is still several weeks away here as yet)

Access to McDonald's "... Re-opening Playbook" can be found at Crain's Chicago Business.

https://www.chicagobusiness.com/restaur ... -operators

John

The Great Central here in the UK has reached the stage of running some test trains to ensure that the track and signalling systems are functioning after their enforced break.
This was shot by someone yesterday (Sun 31st May)...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pl105pYt4Hw&t=1s
They did announce it beforehand and opened up a parking area by one of their stations for people to view from, though everything else remained closed to the public.

An insider has reported to me that the Verde Canyon RR in Arizona is scheduling a return to excursion operation July 1st.

The big question is whether they will have sufficient customers to cover their operating costs. The economy is in a deep recession-lots of folks no longer have discretionary money and a lot of the folks that do have discretionary money have no intention of traveling this year.

Grand Canyon Railway: Monday, June 15th.

An article in the Durango Herald alluded to that in AHR's need to have 75% of their trains loaded.

https://durangoherald.com/articles/326293

The article doesn't seem to be behind a paywall for those who didn't see it.

This goes back to the whole Facebook good, bad, and ugly thread. I saw the article on my feed otherwise I would have need seen it not living in the greater "Four Corners" area.

A wrinkle has arisen for the reopening of another museum, the Baltimore Streetcar Museum.

It turns out that Baltimore City took the slow period to jump-start work on a critical infrastructure project through the summer of 2021 for "sanitary sewer collection system improvements in the Jones Falls sewershed"--city drainage and sewer lines which happen to run underneath Falls Road, the road that leads to the BSM and parallels the Museum's operating trackage.

This happens to be a "Consent Decree Project"--meaning it is part of a larger project imposed upon the city to satisfy legal judgements for repeated past EPA violations related to overflow of inadequate drainage during heavy rainstorms.

Although the Jones Falls bike trail has been detoured over the parking spaces for the Museum, access to the various BSM properties, including the Car Barn, Visitors Center, and shop complex in the old Ma & Pa freight shed, is now severely limited.

The IRM posted the notice below, still unsure of an opening date, and canceling all events through Sep. 15th. So no Thomas this year.
Volunteers can return to the most part, following Illinois guidelines on distance, groups of less than 10, masks etc. At our age I will probably still be safe and plan to work outside, or alone for awhile. May be share some stimulus $$$ to the general fund to help the budget out.
You can too.
https://www.irm.org/fundraising/


Statement issued by the Illinois Railway Museum 5/30/2020http://www.rypn.org/forums/posting.php?mode=reply&f=1&t=44397#
May 30, 2020
Due to the great deal of uncertainty surrounding opening and operating our Museum campus consistent with public policy and health recommendations, the Illinois Railway Museum remains closed to the public until further notice and has elected to proactively cancel all previously-announced special events scheduled through September 15, 2020.
The Museum does not take this action lightly, but it is the most prudent action to take to preserve the health and safety of our volunteers, staff and many valued friends. There currently is not enough official guidance to permit us to predict when the Museum can safely reopen to the public in any manner, let alone our traditional large special events.
We will continue to make every reasonable effort to welcome guests back to the Museum and will make announcements on our website and in social media should the opportunity to open the campus or hold any special events present itself.
The Museum thanks all of our members and supporters for their understanding and is grateful for the support we have been given in this most difficult time.

The Georgetown loop is officially open starting today, and running daily trains until Fall.

Nevada State Railroad Museum, Boulder City has opened its outdoor displays... with social distancing, with cleaning and disinfecting proticals in place

As of 6/5/2020 we are allowing our Rail Explorers rail bike program to reopen under Nevada Phase 2 rules, 50 person groups (44 seats maximum, social distance assured)

We expect to restart public train rides under phase 3 (100 person groups) when the govenor announces that mile stone.

Staff and voluntters must wear face masks... guest are requested to wear face masks...

So far so good...