So said the train robber on his first day on the job... No, Frank, it's "Don't mess with me, this is a stick up!"

However, the reason for this post isn't bad jokes. It's a question about how many railroad still do "train robberies". The Northern Central still does them apparently, based on an ad they're running on Facebook.

I thought they'd pretty much gone out of style along with John Wayne movies. I know a few places still do them, Dollywood for example, and the Grand Canyon used to, is that still the case?

Are they still common, or have they pretty much faded out like the bright orange on the fake balloon stacks from the classic tourist railroads?

Back in the early 80's, the Mount Rainier Scenic did a "Civil War Weekend" on the regular runs.
A local reenactor group pitched the idea and they said "Sure, why not?" This was pre-internet, so there was no easy way to set up a special weekend and sell tickets etc. So they just did it on a regular weekend run. Riding today? You get a free gun battle. Well, um, that wasn't all that well thought out. This is Seattle and they're not all that big on guns. Or cannons, especially if they have a baby along. Being conductor on those runs was not fun. Lots of refunds given and we never made that mistake again. They did a few more over the years, but they made it so you had to specifically buy tickets for that event, and knew exactly what was involved. (As it should be)

Dollywood does not perform the roberries anymore but on my last visit to Silver Dollar City they were still doing them (a few years ago).

Of course the Tweetsie Railroad in North Carolina still does the full on train robbery and “Indian Attack” - politically correct hasn’t quite reached that part of North Carolina yet ;)

The most memorable I ever saw - on a railroad I choose not to mention (and they are no longer operating) was a last-ditch effort to 'restart' the excursion program with a bang.

Ridership had been poor, to be polite, so a special run was planned as an invite-only to regional tourism and press reps with about 50 present, with the 'new program' and I was invited to show and see it. It was an old-west theme on a railroad that was anything but, but hey. It was obvious from the start that the train robbery theme was the plan given the characters (including 'ladies of the evening' in 1880's garb). On the return leg, the train slowed, and yeah, here comes riders on horseback. Been there, done that.... Train stops, presumably to let bandits on board.

BOOOOOM!!!! loud explosion coming from the combine, and a big dust and debris cloud comes out of the right side. The 'conductor' playing his role, comes into the car yelling 'STAY CALM THEY JUST BLEW THE SAFE!) OK,....

Then two 'robbers' enter the coach, with masks, pillowcases. and start yelling at people to hand over their valuables and wallets... and those are rather real-looking guns, in fact, one really looks like a sawed-off double-barrel 12-gauge. People are watching them with mild amusement, and acting or not, they at least are not amused....'I SAID TURN OVER YOUR VALUABLES! The 12 gauge is raised to the ceiling and HE SHOT IT OFF--- the noise was deafining, my ears were ringing, and people started screaming and hit the floor. They actually started emptying their pockets into the bag.... It was blanks, but shooting off a shotgun inside a sealed steel coach is not an experience I'd recommend.

After that little show, the 'ladies' started sitting, unsolicited, in male passenger laps....

Well, that was quite a trip. After multiple complaints, return of property, and as you can imagine, appropriate accusations of incredibly poor judgement, the 'new program' never saw the light of day to the public, and the excursion operation closed later that year.

I would suggest that what little is left of the entire "Wild West" marketing shtick, a holdover from the days of vastly "politically incorrect" Western movies and TV shows, is likely on it deathbed, even out here in the West. From people recoiling at the horrors of the mere existence of guns to the enlightened perspective of mistreatment of the "Indigenous" tribes/Nations to any variety of other "politically correct" activism and education, the old "Wild West" motif is an almost impossible sell today. Take a drive through, say, Tombstone, Arizona today--nice town, has a brewpub, RV parks, a Harley-Davidson dealership, a book shop, etc.--but what's left of the "Wild West" theme looks exactly like a fifty-year-old tourist trap holdover--especially the O.K. Corral and the "famed" Boot Hill Cemetery.

As far as I know, any cancellations or changes from COVID aside, Grand Canyon Railway still has a "train robbery" en route back from the South Rim. The "robbers" truck themselves and their horses out of Williams to a road-accessible location where the horse trailer can be conveniently hidden. These are, of course, the same characters that engage(d) in a "shootout" at the Williams depot a half-hour or so before train departures. There is usually another "shootout" staged downtown by another group around 6 PM in the evenings.

The Wilmington & Western in Delaware long had a volunteer whose "job" was to organize such events. It started from an occasional, 1-2 times-a-year "Wild West" event (with train robberies), and evolved into many other such re-enactor events, including the Civil War, WW2, and other such events. I know the lead volunteer/organizer, who strongly took the initiative to make the events "professional" with real actors and re-enactors instead of just random volunteers dressing up, was one of the great many that stormed off the RR in protest of a major faux-pas by the BOD a short while ago, and I'm uncertain of the current status there.

The Walkersville Southern Railroad still does them. From the website:

http://www.wsrr.org/ws/specev.htm
We have visits from Jesse James and his gang several times each season, and the Civil War reenactors are also popular with our riders each year.

I haven't been on one of those trains myself but people seem to like them.

Check out Madison Cawthorne to see the kind of madness we're dealing with here. I fondly remember when NC was actually a pretty friendly and welcoming place......

I haven't been there in at least 50 years, but in addition to a train robbery, the Knott's Berry Farm passenger cars had several arrows stuck into their sides.

I think part of the decline is that many people with disposable income are not amused by "cowboy mythology" anymore.

It was a decently long lived pop culture fad that has fallen out of favor and been placed with a greater interest in "authentic" experiences.

My gut feeling is that that's a cultural trend rebelling against the artificiality that has become pervasive in our culture and commercial lives.

Look at the popularity of shows like "No Reservations" and "Somebody Feed Phil". Those aren't about visiting the famous locations in exotic locations, but about finding the stuff that "the locals eat".

It's a real opportunity for heritage operations, but this type of stuff doesn't really fit in.

That said, being a commercially successful operation requires serving the broadest market possible, so it makes sense to have these events but not make them the centerpiece of your operation.

I was asked to take part in a cowboy holdup at Chelatchie Prairie a few years back. I was the only person who had anything close to 1800s duds on (I was a cowboy action shooter back then),and they got a bunch of horse folks to take part. I've never been that scared for safety than I was then. One grabbed my six shooter out of the holster after we were done, ran toward a open top passenger coach full of people and dry fired it with the barrel pointing close to some people from a couple feet away, my running behind him yelling that I hadn't cleared it yet, and the same guy had placed a double-barrel shotgun loaded with dog training blanks (which are not good for these things), lying next to a tree, and anyone could have grabbed it!
I made my excuses for not coming back the next day, left and I think the railroad realized they needed to get better folks next time.
I still shudder at what could have happened had that pistol had a live blank in it (by luck, it's the one pistol I'd 'fan fired' against the Sherriff but he didn't know that), or if a kid had grabbed that shotgun...
I just don't get the cowboy robbery thing anyway, even though the public seems to love it. The times I rode the Grand Canyon, I would just ask them what brand blanks they use or who made their pistols...

Do REAL train robberies count ?? We had that kind in Guatemala, so we carried a private soldier (security guard as they're known in Yankeeland) with an Uzi, and another with a sawed off shotgun. All our tour guides and trainmen carried sidearms, and the engineer and I each had a machete under our seatboxes (I still have mine). The trips I was on never got down to bloodshed, so these defenses must have been sufficient. The last excursion ran about 15 years ago, so no, those aren't happening anymore...

On my second visit to Lackland AFB in San Antonio, a real robbery of the train at Breckenridge Park (15 inch gauge?) a few months before was was still a topic of discussion.

https://www.tpr.org/arts-culture/2020-0 ... an-antonio

Kind of like the Boy Scout pow-wows versus genuine article, which is actually more fun. Having the right regalia on the right people (unless they’re heyokas, not that I’d know anything about that) is not only more educational, but also more entertaining, and the food is better and more varied. We outgrew the fake stuff, the way little kids get stuck on McDonalds’ chicken nuggets till they accidentally taste real home cooking.

We used to do a lot of things that didn’t quite make sense. Paper bag Thanksgiving vests for Pilgrims and Natives alike, train robberies where the real article happened and was durn scary, settler festivals where nobody even thought about the other side.

Around here, some activists were going to ask the Fort Henry folks to ask, but they got here and found the crew was doing their best to get it right, which was a whole lot more absurd and sometimes poignant than the fakes. (Except maybe a couple years back when the Saturday battle got canceled because the passing hurricane had left the grounds too slick. Alan came up the hill in full battle gear and apologized for not having the fight because it was too dangerous.)

Being honest about where we used to be, not as a “poor, poor us” but as a “this is how it was, and here’s where we derailed and need to get set back on” is the only way we’re going to get anywhere and have a good time.

After the recent eff-up on what was supposed to be a major hollywood production, and the tense atmosphere of the world, I would say if you choose to do a robbery train, you are absolutely completely negligent and deserve all the hell you catch, if you incorporate any kind of firearm remotely capable of releasing any projectiles under ANY possible intentional or unintentional mode of operation. I don't know what's actually available but I'm thinking something along the lines of a obviously orange tipped cap gun, much quieter then a real firearm, mistake proof. Hopefully reasonably realistic in appearance. I'm pretty sure if some asshole popped even a blank shotgun off in a closed coach, I would of knocked his teeth out with it. That's loud enough to cause permanent hearing damage!

Not a "done deal" yet, but this is the way the wind is starting to blow, so to speak:

https://www.cbsnews.com/losangeles/news ... r-support/

TV shows aren't mentioned--yet................

At least some of the analysis of these bills suggests 1) the state knuckled under to the powerful movie industry, and 2) the bills were nothing more than politicians seizing on a story that creates shocking headlines and scrambling to look like they are “doing something,” as the bill mandated regulations already largely in place.

I rode the Little River train in Coldwater Michigan in 2013. They had a train robbery which was about as unauthentic as you can imagine. It didn't add anything to the trip and actually scared a few small children.
I was on the ride strictly for the steam engine that pulled the train. Their current schedule makes no mention of a train robbery ride.