Exhibit 1: https://www.railpictures.net/photo/779497/

Oh, wait.

There remains a difference between a multi-million-dollar "publicity stunt" with a "superlative" and long-term "preservation" and interest in railroad history.

(Not a slight upon UP for restoring a Big Boy, but one has to concede that without publicity scenes such as these, UP would never have underwritten such a project.)

How many of the tens of thousands, or more, of people who line the streets of a marathon become marathoners themselves?

Who knows, but this is how you get people into the top of the funnel.

4014 being restored was preservation. It's running now and looks/operates better than it did at any point since UP handed it over to the museum.
It doesn't matter if a Class I did the work or a bunch of Bubbas wearing Carharts with front end loaders and basic tools got it running.
Note the overweight guy standing right in the gauge with the UP employee trying to roust him from that spot. He's the first person I noticed when looking at this shot.
Most of these people probably aren't dedicate train fans. Most just wanted to see what it was, probably never saw a steam engine running before and heard on the news it was coming. Same type of folks who show up when a WW2 B-17 bomber lands on a rural airport for the first time in a long while.

The number of parents on the UP steam Facebook page asking for help in seeing, chasing, touring, meeting the crew of 4014 because their young child has gone Big Boy crazy is quite staggering. These are Moms who know nothing about trains that end up asking technical questions for their kids.

There is an entire new generation of steam/railfans being developed in the West. IMHO, if you are a museum, historical group, whatever, you should be dropping everything and running to set up a table/banner, even at the short stops in small towns.

Having re-read the "Worst rail excursion boo-boo, mishap, or disaster?" thread, I was struck by how many story tellers referenced their poor suffering parents taking them on or to trips. What an interesting parallel.

Bob

The thing that has really impressed me is that I have two non-railfan friends (both under the age of 45) and one non-railfan family member who shocked me when they posted pictures on social media of their encounter with 4014. The family member planned his family's vacation around seeing the engines at Ogden last year and recently I saw that he had purchased HO scale models of UP 844 and 4014. Never in a million years would I have ever expected my non-railfan acquaintances to pop up with pictures of a train chasing adventure.

I don't agree with everything UP has done with the steam program but I do have to give them credit for drawing out the general public. All it takes is a small fraction of those people to get "bitten by the bug" to keep it all alive. Who knows....maybe there is a future railroad CEO in that crowd who sees the PR value of steam. We can only hope.

I think the enthusiasm can be seen almost anywhere from people both young and old

It’s an interesting but promising time for rail preservation. Despite the “controversy” surrounding the big boy and it’s debate of preservation (if it even amounts to that) the amount of hype and enthusiasm surrounding it from all sides is enough for anyone in rail preservation to say “yes we can”.

Possibilities are limitless in this day and age, and the big boy is the defining symbol of what was thought to be the impossible being achieved. A project like the big boy has the power to make anyone young and old excited for the future.

Just think of how much has been achieved in the last decade and what will come in the near future. Or even what could happen beyond that with the success of something like the T1.

1) Note also the numerous crew members or RR personnel(?) in vests ALSO violating the "KEEP 25 FEET AWAY OR YOU'LL DIE!!!!!" edicts, only two of whom are obviously servicing the loco.
2) At two locations at which I saw 4014 stop in Arizona on its first tour, I witnessed UP personnel and police specifically set up a safety zone that allowed photographers to get a head-end shot in the gauge, on a "get in, get your shot, and keep moving out!" basis. You were NOT going to get the ever-in-demand shot of your kid (grinning, or scared and impatiently hollering "Mo-o-o-mm!?!") standing two feet from the pilot, but you COULD get a shot.
One UP police agent at Willcox, either taking a liking to me or mistaking me for a fellow railroader in my hi-viz vest, boots, and RR work attire, even offered to take my camera and get a closer, better composed shot than the crowds allowed. Then did the same for a few select others.

Being at Vinita, and several other stops that day, the non-railfan crowd probably outnumbered the railfan crowd more than 1000 to 1. I talked to quite a few folks waiting for the train and most admitted to this being the first time they ever came out to see a train. Several asked me where else they could go to see or ride a train - and I had some flyers. Even more saw UP 4014 as a TV channel out of Tulsa did a live-stream from their helicopter for much of the day.

Events like this bring out huge crowds, and provide a great opportunity to promote local rail attractions and preservation efforts.

I don't think rail preservation is dying. Things have changed over the years but there is interest out there. What is dying out are volunteers with skills. Lots of people interested, some volunteer but its rare to find someone who can do things in an efficient and competent way without constant supervision.

In an ever homogenized cookie cutter world, people are looking for experiences that are real. Trains offer that. There is nothing fake about the 4014 that is to be sure!

A fine topic. This is definitely "top of funnel" marketing.

When we operated the Joliet Rocket trips in Chicago, our surveys indicated only 35% of the 2,500+ passengers who rode the trains identified as "railfans, preservationists, or students of history." Customer satisfaction was 9 out of 10.

Hook the heart, the rest will follow.

What do you bet the 1% were railfans?

What do you bet the 1 out of 10 were railfans?

Decades ago back in my university Museum Studies courses of "special projects" analyzing the North American rail preservation scene, I was able to convincingly argue to my overseers the following:

*One out of a thousand North Americans (not just males) could be regarded as having some degree of railroad interest--they rode excursions, they knew the history of their commuter route and watched out the window or front of the cab instead of doing the crossword puzzle, they preferred Amtrak/the commuter train to driving just because it was rail, they had model trains, etc.
*Out of that 0.1%, ten percent of those could be considered "active railfans"--the type that would make trips just to ride certain lines or rare mileage, subscribe to a magazine, join the local NRHS or rail museum, take photos, etc.

I was able to back my hypothesis with such things as circulation numbers of the two major rail magazines, NRHS and museum membership, book publishing, library circulations, etc.

Today it would be harder to gauge--many formerly overt signs of "enthusiasm" such as magazine subscriptions and society memberships are all but rejected by the successive generations, who do everything from photography to networking to reading to listening to rail scanner feeds on a smartphone.

But I suspect that Mr. Lynch's suggestion of "9 out of ten" customer satisfaction is averaged ratings on a scale of one to ten, not percentage of people giving a positive rating.

It looks my kids in the front row in the picture Kelly posted. They enjoyed the trip very much.