Friends,

While the possibility of mainline steam operation is often heralded as being inbetween a rock and a hard place (a stigma happily broken by organizations like 4449 and 261 to name only a few), I'm driven to wonder by what means people can or will be able to support mainline steam once it does happen, especially when you factor in high gas prices.

If say, the 765 were to run a big, mainline excursion and haul a dozen passenger cars, offer photo runbys and the like, and were to run for a sustained amount of time (maybe two weekends) in the fall or summer months (and maybe in an area where chasing is impracticable) what would dissuade you from riding? What would inspire you to go? What other factors must you, the railfan, the photographer, the historian, the crew member, the general public consider?

The bottom line is how much we can recoup from ticket sales and gift shop items to break even (let alone, make some actual money) so it's important to know, would you ride?

(This is in no way an official poll that will make or break any decisions, but a general inquiry.)

Thanks for your feedback.

-Kelly Lynch

Lots of variables apart from distance.

I probably won't go far to ride through cornfields to nowhere, but the New River Gorge would definitely get a ride from me, depending on timing, cost, and a few other factors.

I'd ride a saddle tanker on an interesting trip, not interested in a 4-8-4 on a boring run.

BTW, I'd rather have open cars than enclosed, and don't care much about photography, rather remember the experience than the F stop settings.

dave

Kelly, I'll be glad to share with you back channel as much detail as you'd like from our experience with the Hoboken-Pt.JervisNY mainline program with C&O614 which we operated from 1996-98. We ran a total of 25 excursions,carried approx. 23,000 people and very fortunatly had no reportable injuries or claims.
Suffice it to say that somewhere in the vicinity of 85-90% of our passengers were daisy pickers and the balance railfans of all stripes. This program reaffirmed graphically that a steam program must have the support of the daisy pickers or it has zero chance of succeeding. We also learned that even in a major metropolitan market such as greater NYCity(pop. within 100 miles of Hoboken approx. 15 million) you can't keep repeating the same trip and expect continued sell-outs. Remember for a fare of $65 we were selling an all day(9:15am-6:30pm),200 mile r.t., no diesels in the consist, 79mph running, choice of o.w.or a/c coach plus luxury 1st. class seating, plenty to do at the turn around point, multiple run-bys, cab rides and a nearly 100% on time track record and still by the 3rd. year we'd worn out the market! That should tell you volumnes about the realities of marketing mainline steam. By the 3rd. season I'd say the make-up of the passengers was nearly 100% daisy pickers.
Please write back channel if you'd like further info.
Ross Rowland

My thoughts are similar to Dave's, with the exception of replacing "boring" with non-authentic. Being from the Chicago area, anything within 400 miles is going to be boring by definition, scenery wise. What it takes to grab me is some sort of connection to "the way it was." A locomotive lettered for the railroad that really owned it, pulling a period train of matched, OPEN WINDOW cars, and hopefully doing something that lets me experience a bit of history. Conversely, a T-1 with a red stripe pulling a bunch of worn out double deck sealed window commuter cars wouldn't get me to cross the street, much less pay to ride it. Trains of mis-matched junk with lots of "foamers" hanging out the dutch doors don't do much for me either.

Best ride experience I've had in recent years was on little Laona & Northern, when I talked my way onto the last trip up to the village to pick up the visitors at closing time. "Ya know, sonny, we won't have a train robbery this trip" they told me, as if I cared, but riding in the caboose with the old timers on the crew, the breeze wafting in the end door as we backed up the line, it was easy to imagine that I was on a mixed backing up some branch to work the local elevator. On the other hand, most the mainline trips I've seen in recent years remind me of circus trains, and come complete with clowns.

Well, in a sense I've already traveled 4,000 miles one-way for 80+ mph Pacifics. And incorporated a trip to my wife's family into a Grand Canyon RR visit........

But let's cast aside any finances and assume you gave me a willing lottery ticket. In that case, quote Edna St. Vincent Millay: "Yet there isn't a train I wouldn't take, No matter where it's going...."

But my preference has been for the railfan charters, Carl Franz style. I think the last "big steam" I was on was 261's spectacular winter charter at Steamtown in 1996.

Take that as a hint. Do something for the railfans and get them the heck out of the way, then run the rest of the trips for the daisy-pickers. Railfans are gluttons for punishment, not so for daisypickers. We want Dutch doors and open baggage doors, and you can re-sell my seat to the rare-mileage freaks in First Class. Maybe if a cooperative railroad can be found, try the "Plandampf" model and get contributions towards a positioning special with revenue freight?

I have traveled to China 3 times for big steam. Only down-under would have been a longer trip. But seriously, I think assuming that railfans are going to fill any steam powered train is a bad assumption. You need to give the general public a trip they will enjoy to make a go of anything.

While we do benefit a lot on the public's "steam and awe" factor associated with locomotives (i.e. "Wow, it's so big! How old is this! The wheels are taller than me!") there's much more knowledge and interest to be cultivated.

You gents make extremely important points. It's the general public, the people that don't know a Thomas from a Big Boy, that should be appealed to more often, if not most of all. It's my belief that the GP has to be given a good, historical (and human!) context to learn from, enjoy, and experience or what they're experiencing is merely a mish-mash of history thrown together (sounds kinda gimmicky, does it not?) and that lessens their appreciation. Too many people figure the work groups do is every day, run of the mill ("A train is a train.") That is not to say odd passenger cars being pulled by out-of-place locomotives is not without merit, but the more we can make history genuinely alive, true-to-form, and "the way it was," the more we can make history matter, at least in one sense.

Keep the thoughts coming.

Kelly Lynch

I think you're asking the wrong question, and addressing the wrong crowd. The question presumes that a person's default position is, "I want to ride a train." Which may be true of this board's readers (even though it's not mine), but we are 5%-10% of the excursion market.

The default position of the other 95% is "train? Why on earth would I find sitting on a train for 10 hours fun? Why would I consider trains interesting?"

You're also limiting your revenue stream to ticket and merchandise sales.


The question is "What will PERSUADE you to give me your money?"

Want to have a successful program? Put together a group of parents from local schools. Include a few fathers, but mostly mothers. Ask them to bring their kids. Fill a room with white boards and markers. Give them as little information as possible, other than (a) you have a steam locomotive and cars, (b) you want to operate the locomotive, and (c) it costs $X per mile (or hour, or day) to operate. Don't say anything about how long the ride "should" be, or where the train "should" run, or any other "shoulds."

Then walk out of the room. Come back when they're done.

I'm willing to bet the answers will be completely different than what a fan would suggest. But you'll have a better idea of how to address the 95%.

And any marketing expert can tell you it's more profitable to appeal to the 95% than to the 5%.

JA

JA, your observations bring us to a point of interest in recent presentations by the Flying Yankee Preservation Group (yeah, I know its a diesel, or at least it used to be one, I am just using it for discussion), where they indicate that the restoration of the train will be historically correct "except" for the installation of LCD screens in the cars so they can take school childern on rides and teach them all about the railroad industy.

Think there's gold in them there schools?

MX

Indeed, I was assuming that railfan=ticket buyer, but only for illustration. While steam does not necessarily equal ticket buyers, I'm wondering if you wanted to ride, what would prevent you, and as John pointed out: "What will persuade them to give us money?"

You make the good point of the general public versus railfan. I would assume, however, that there would always be some railfan support en masse (how big that support is will always, always waiver...) but only in part to my experience at places like Steamtown's grand opening, TrainFest 2004, and the FWRHS' Open House, and even the 765's unpublicized break-in runs that brought out the entire town of Van Wert, Ohio. It's instances like Van Wert's outpouring of interest that need to be really explored. I'd say the majority of railfans that day were chasing, and the town just wanted to look and learn where this monster came from (and one dutiful member saw the opportunity to take to the crowd selling t-shirts.)

So, perhaps with every public excursion or museum event a program should be specifically set forth to evangelize to the general public (and get rid of the public notion that we are "train nuts with big toys.") If the general public is entertained and believe their time onboard or trackside is a worthy investment, then we can find out where the "persuasion" for handing over money is and how successful it is. Of course, this require much planning and more infastructure.

What other programs (like the Flying Yankee) are out there? I know the 3751 has their education outreach program (also catered to schools), which makes specific excursions into learning experiences--what about others?

While experiences like the New River Gorge offer a unique trip through gorgeous scenery for railfan and general public alike, as well as photo runbys, are operations that lack what the New River trips had in need of programs to make the overall experience better/more appealing/more profitable?

Kelly Lynch

I'd certainly question the concept of the "all day survial trip" model as the best to market to the GP. I think mom and dad and their 2.7 kids in the SUV are about done in after a couple hours, and ready for a snack and some souveniers and to GO HOME.

If you can provide trips that have some entertaining content apart from just the ride (interpretive stuff, singalongs, whatever) that are impulse time and money commitments, within reasonable distance of a SMSA, it might not be an everyday forever trip, but could support several differently themed events per year.

I tried to sell the concept of a season ticket statewide dinner train tour series without success in Georgia. The concept was regional cuisine using all seasonal fresh ingredients, Georgia wines and microbrews, which would take place on seperate regional shortlines on a roughly bimonthly schedule. Instead of selling each dinner seperately, you sell the entire years worth of 6 at once. Get the state agricultural department and DOT (who owns a bunch of track in GA) on as supporting partners. Market to upper income women who want to have a nice date with their husbands several times a year.

Anybody wanting to take this ball and run please do. Kelly, probably Indy could support it on a local basis, and there may be shortline partners a couple hundred miles away you can tap to keep the equipment busy and productive most of the time.

dave

Ross and John have hit it on the head, as Dave did for the general public. A west coast resident, I have travelled all the way across the US for the New River experience, which was certainly worth it, and again for Steamtown's Grand Opening. I would do it again if it weren't for the idiots in the airport security system today. I don't need to be strip searched because I have a scanner and digital camera. We are all different as railfans. I'm a self admitted steam nut. I wanted to go to OC this year for the NRHS convention but see above. Now, having said all that, I have to make a bold faced commercial presentation for the upcoming 4449 excursion from Portland, OR to Bend in September. This is a wonderful trip. It looks pricey (insurance and everything else) but consider that the price includes two full days on the train, overnight lodging in Bend, transportation to and from that lodging, all meals served at their normal times on the train--not bad. Check it out at www.sp4449.com.

This discussion is more about some people justifying why they won't ride as it about what it takes to get them to ride. It is no longer 1960 and 1960 is not going to return, ever. You might as well complain about candy bars being $0.75 for a piece of chocolate that used to cost a nickle. There isn't an operator in this country who wouldn't love to field an all-matched consist of "home-road" equipment to run behind their locomotive on a mountain railroad or rare mileage once a month. Class One carriers' general disinterest or disdain for privately owned locomotives have caused the few remaining operators to embrace Amtrak so they can run and attempt to generate revenue to continue to maintain their locomotive. While Amtrak solves the problem of access and insurance, it brings along with it the need to have a diesel in the consist and limits the accepted (certified) equipment.

I won't pretend to tell someone how to spend their hard-earned money so I will not address why a steam fan should or shouldn't support any trip. If you don't like the circumstances or think that today's trips are a circus (I presume that is why to term "clown" was used in one of the posts), so be it.

Steam operators have had to evolve to keep running. Whereas excursions operated during the railroad-sponsored era and during the "first revival" era (Jensen, Steam Tours, High Iron, SR and UP) were exclusively coach-only with an open baggage car and a basic food service car, today's trips provide as many as three classes of service. This trend is part of a smart operator's business plan to appeal to as many potential riders as possible. One size does not fit all anymore. The rider looking for a more upscale ride with more room and additional amenities might travel first class or premium or dome class. There is still coach for those who might be more interested in the locomotive or who have a limited budget and who do not require fancier food service, at-your-seat service and other choices. The growth of the market for other-than-coach is a powerful indication of the change in demographics of today's mainline steam excursion riders. So, it is not as much of a question of how far a steam fan will travel or how much money they will spend to ride a trip but how far the operators will go to provide an experience that will fill their train.

Don C.

Kelly, I think Ross had the right formula (Big steam, choice of seating, mainline running etc), but he was right about the market. There are areas which have been starved for big steam for years that might be a captive audience for a couple of trips. The problem is getting class ones to play ball. Recently the St. Thomas Ontario group had Essex Terminal #9 out for runs on several different railroads, and the trips were well patronised. In fact I couldn't get a ticket for the run to Guelph on the ex CN trackage. Could you find a way to run some excursions in areas that haven't seen steam since NS cancelled their program..like Buffalo?