I know many railroad museums and heritage lines use the concept of Work Sessions to focus efforts on given projects on given days. For the ones I am thinking of, which are quite successful, the railroad is located rather remotely so it takes a fairly large effort for volunteers of bigger cities to come out to help.

Groups that use this tool include the Friends of the East Broad Top, the Wiscasset Waterville and Farmington, South Park Rail Society/Como Roundhouse, and Mid-Continent Railway Museum. I would like to know of others.

The granddaddy of them all, and perhaps the most remarkable, are the work sessions of the Cumbres and Toltec Scenic Railroad. They just published a website with a list of sessions and a good intro about how to get involved:
https://friendsofcumbrestoltec.org/work-session-volunteer-registration/

Might be easier (and quicker) to list railroads that don't have a volunteer program. There definitely are some, for example the Strasburg. But they're in the minority.

There is a major difference between a volunteer program and a volunteer event.

At the WW&F, we advertise our volunteer events right alongside our "train ride" offerings. We plan dates where we expect new people (and young people, and families) to come and work on the railroad. Food is always included and work trains are steam powered whenever possible. This system usually gets a specific job on that date, and we pick up some new long-term volunteers in the process.

In fact, we have one scheduled THIS SATURDAY (in February, in MAINE) to finish off some brush cutting we would like done before a photo event next weekend. We've run this same "event" for the last 3-4 weekends, and we've "indoctrinated" a few new folks, and gave a chance for other regulars who aren't as plugged into the day-to-day operation to come and spend some time.

I'm convinced that successful heritage railroading is achieved through partnerships and events. Volunteer recruitment and engagement is no different.

Not a stupid question. Geography plays a very importatnt role. When I was a teenager, participation at my museum workshop was possible because the location was within cycling distance. The museum had another workshop that was too far away, so I never volunteered there.

At my current museum, we also have two locations. Some members have made it clear that they have no interest in projects at the other location because of transport distance.

As our volunteer group enlarged in mid 2017, the Southern Forest Heritage Museum and the Red River and Gulf RR, started posting our sessions on the RR&G website. Prior to that time, the sessions were not well organized, and we had few volunteers. Since that time the group has grown by at least 4X and we usually average between 10 and 15, but sometimes as many as 20 volunteers. We plan our schedule at the beginning of the year, and post the dates for the entire year in advance so that people can plan. We also post our planned activities at least 2 weeks, and hopefully a month in advance for those dates. At the end of our sessions we then document the work, post pictures and showcase the volunteers and the work done.

https://redriverandgulf.net/RRG-WorkSessions.html

Many thanks to our volunteer coordinator, Tucker Baker, and our webmaster Jason Rose.

From what I've been involved with for decades, there are several strategies on work sessions.

First, many groups have very regular work sessions, generally one day a week or month. These are normally short events aimed at locals. I've seen everything from a train cleaning to brush cutting, to roofing the ticket office, etc.

Second, larger events require more planning because of the need for equipment, such as moving a rail car, changing wheels, etc. These are often announced when details are known and are aimed at the volunteers and staff with the proper talent.

The third type are those that can go on a calendar and are designed for folks traveling some distance. These can last several days to a week or more. The key is having a proper plan so that people with all levels of talent can play a role. We have done this in the past where windows are being changed in a coach, new seat covers are being installed in another car, some signs are being painted, grinding was taking place on a locomotive, tables were being installed in a car, etc. There were numerous projects and allowed people to work in different ways, and if not enough people showed up, something wasn't done. However, if more people showed up than expected, there were still projects available.

No matter the type, the key is to have enough activity for everyone, have the supplies and tools available, have it organized and promoted properly, etc.

Bart

The Engine 557 Restoration Company has volunteer work sessions four days each week, drawing anywhere from four to ten or more people. A full-time volunteer project manager arranges work or passes specific task to smaller teams to schedule and perform. Every Sunday an email is sent to all known volunteers to let them know generally what needs to be done during the next week and solicit participation. Except for a couple of holidays, work sessions are held, holiday or no. When the occasional major project requires us to bring an out-of-state contractor onto the job (e.g., flue installation) it's all-hands-on-deck seven days a week for a couple of weeks while the contractor is on site. The only non-volunteer regular work force we have is one local consultant/independent contractor who works a couple of days per week. To date I'd estimate volunteers have given in excess of 200,000 hours towards the locomotive's restoration. A lot of stars aligned to make this model so successful, but it's worked for us for the last 11 years.

And whatever you do, make sure the flood is plentiful.

What do people find is the ideal work hours? Start at 8, hour lunch, go home at 5? Less then 8? More then 8?

If I took vacation, and was staying in the bunk car, it would be 8 to 5 or 6, with an hour for lunch. Invariably, someone at lunch would say "we're burning daylight" and we would drag on back. If I were driving out for the day during the week, a 110 mile round trip, and wanted to avoid the rush hours, it would be 10 to 2 or sometimes staying till 5. Skipping lunch and grabbing something on the way home. Once in awhile, if it was a large group on a preseason Saturday, the guy that organized it, would grill hamburgers. And it would be 9 to 4. Everybody just wanted to work with that guy on projects, he made it so much fun.

Having been through several with our organization, I can't stress how much I disagree...

</sarcasm - I know what you meant :) >

But that big cleanup day in the wake of the flood.... Look out!

Okay, folks, he meant FOOD.

FOOD.

This IS critical to keeping a large work party productive.

I have seen several successful strategies, and they all depend on location.

*Someone pays for, and brings, a bunch of food, the big BBQ grills, etc., and someone (wives, relatives, etc.) keeps the food cooking and coming.

*Someone subsidizes a caterer to come in, preferably with a food truck/trailer, to do all the food work for 2-3 days. In one case, I saw a benefactor underwrite the food truck cost, and set up two boxes: Tips for the cooking crew, and paying for the food truck. I was told the donations for the food truck almost paid for it, but then the benefactor paid the cost and made the donations go to the track fund.

*Some museum locations across the nation have wisely built, then expanded, food prep facilities for volunteers in the back shops, especially when the location is remote from other reasonable food options, and it's well known that certain spouses or members volunteer their services for buffet-style food prep for volunteer work parties, or even just staying overnight at the site. (One location, which I won't name because they may be violating some laws, found the kitchen in the one "camp car" heavyweight Pullman was still fully functional when electric and propane was hooked up, and set it up to cook terrific meals both for volunteer work parties and regular membership "dinner meetings" at their museum.)

I can testify from personal experience that if you know for certain an adequate meal is waiting for you at noon, sundown, and even possibly breakfast in the morning, it dramatically increases your motivation to come in the first place, to keep working, saves you the considerable time "wasted" otherwise trying to hunt down a good meal in "the middle of nowhere," etc.

We even have a museum member that hosts semi-annual luncheons for regular library volunteers at the Md. Rail Heritage Library at the Baltimore Streetcar Museum, and occasionally I've run up the road to bring down a phoned-in pizza order for lunch for the crew.................

One of the things that I miss about volunteering at RGVRRM is that one of the members would coordinate lunch orders with a local restaurant in town. He'd take orders and payment in the morning, and the restaurant would deliver the food just ahead of lunchtime and everyone knew lunch would be there at noon.

While we did have to pay for it, it was great having the food there ready for you at chow time. This took the burden off of us of having to drive into town and find something to eat, and helped keep momentum as it was at least a 15 minute drive to go anywhere for chow, then another 15 minutes back to the depot.

Oh, the stove in the depot was always hot at lunchtime as well so we had a nice warm place to eat.

Thanks for the many posts on this topic. I am OK if this thread drifts into the realm of "regular workdays" and "project oriented work sessions" as I have been involved with both of those, and there is overlap with the major efforts for the long distance crowd. It is the work sessions that are multi-day, at places far from civilization, where I am trying to seek info. I guess the metric of far from civilization varies, as anywhere beyond 20 minutes travel for a Bostonian is a serious travel consideration, more like a 2 or three hour trip for a Nevadan.

When I volunteered at a museum in the Midwest, several volunteers made arrangements to crash in a caboose or sleeping car on the property, which was generally a personally managed and unfussy affair. Some of these volunteers traveled 3 hours, and would do so regularly. But these were regular volunteers attending regular work days. Since then, a few weekdays were added to the days you could expect others to be there. On some occasions, for special projects, there was some organizing and support with food and focused effort on a given project. In pre-internet days, this was just word of mouth and not a solicitation for the general public to get involved, and usually just involved the support of a sponsor and a few friends who volunteered.

Here is the volunteering website for the WW&F. https://wwfry.org/all-activities/volunteer/

This is more along the lines what I was thinking, under "Organized Work Parties"