A couple of replies mentioned The East Broad Top RR. As a lifelong fan, rider and now longtime FEBT member I can tell you three things. First, part of the EBT decline was the lack of credit card acceptance until the final three years. On many visits in the 1990s and early 2000’s I witness people stop at the EBT and decide to ride only to find out they could not use their debit/credit card and then leave without spending a nickel. Sorry losing 100% of several ticket sales to save 5% is just plain stupid. Same problem exists for any attraction refusing credit cards these day.

Second, EBT quit actively marketing during the mid 1980s and never really got back on track. They let their Highway signage disappear. Quit advertising in tourism guides and never modernized their marketing. I had a brief discussion with Mr. Hall regarding marketing in the early 20OO’s. Basically the attitude was “Too expensive and time consuming.”

Third, the EBT ridership was on the upswing at the end because of a decent online
presence helped by the FEBTs online and social media posts . The railroad also accepted credit cards for the first time ever, a big help. The ongoing restorations of the EBT structures and adding a handicap accessible car helped too. Given a few more years and some improved regional marketing, The EBT would have seen steady ridership gains.

One thing I don’t understand, most of these heritage attractions miss the boat on the Penn Dot approved blue & white or for historic sites brown and white direction signs along the road! If small quilt shops, wineries, candy shops, etc. can get the blue & white signs at road intersections and even the tiniest museum or historic site can have the brown & white signs, why didn’t the EBT, Seldom Seen Mine and others get them? You have to make it easy for people to find you these days. Period.

Regulations about who gets such signage, and who pays for them, vary from state to state. In Vermont, for example, "billboards" are effectively banned (or were), and a tourist attraction is expected to go pay the state for the standardized signs to be erected--it supposedly "levels the playing field" and makes the state more attractive. But, yes, typically in ANY state, someone has to pay for their installation and upkeep. If your lobbyist group has enough clout (such as the state wineries association), you can end up with a partnership that helps pay for their installation as "promotion of agricultural products" or whatnot. And I'm told in some states you have to meet certain parameters to qualify--open a certain number of hours annually, registered as a non-profit or with the state historical agency, etc. And needless to say, states freely put up signs for state-government-operated attractions.

I know of at least two urban rail attractions whose official government-sanctioned directional signs got repeatedly defaced by stickers and graffiti, and when I suggested to both places that someone step up to address them, they both responded "We have no control or say whatsoever over those. We've complained several times; the city does nothing, and we can't even go and repaint them ourselves."

One of the notorious issues that led Steamtown to bail out of Vermont was signage. As I read in several places and experienced firsthand, Vermont--anti-billboard and anti-public signage--turned down Steamtown's repeated requests for even a simple "Burma-Shave-sized" directional sign for whatever reasons, which led to a characteristic many here may well remember: You drove north out of Bellows Falls looking for it, passed the entrance because it was unmarked, saw the steamers on the right, deduced that you just passed what "main entrance" there was, then pulled off and turned around to return (and the wide arced spot on the shoulder plainly showed this happened many, many times daily!).

In the case of the Seldom Scene Coal Mine -- we actually have an old story and its closing shouldn't come as a surprise.

A check of Guidestar indicates they haven't filed a 990 in a decade and even then they were down to about $10,000 in cash and weren't receiving anything in the way of donations or grants.

Bob H

That's really interesting... the 2016 numbers were 311,726 (source = https://www.atrrm.org/2018/03/heritage- ... ttendance/) so you are correct it would seem they did peak in 1991. What I find very interesting is the claim they are barely breaking even. They have more riders than Durango & Silverton. Durango has way more track to maintain, more steam locomotives in operation, etc. It doesn't take a railfan to tell that Strasburg spends more money on their restoration and upkeep, but still. With that many riders I would think they would be making money.

I think Linn meant barely breaking even in coach passengers. The last couple of times I've been there (Spring 2017 and Spring 2018 and not special event days), first class seating (parlor, office car and diner) were sold out or almost so; coaches were at maybe 1/3 capacity. The premium services do sell quite nicely.

Howard P.

Strasburg tickets are $15 to $20 for the regular train.

D&SNG starts at $70 (one way coach), most are at least $100 and you can easily reach $200 or so per person.

So, it's a minimum of 5 times the revenue per passenger, in my very quick and probably not overly scientific study. Both lines have plenty of special classes and events with premium fares so my quick and dirty comparison is only a very rough approximation. Even so, it's pretty clear that if you make 2 or 3 times the revenue per passenger, you can get by with a smaller passenger count.

I also wonder about the "breaking even" comment on Strasburg. Does that just mean the train ride? They certainly give every indication of being rather profitable. Maybe the revenue comes from the gift shop, restoration work, Thomas and whatever else they have going and the train itself isn't a huge money maker.

There's a good reason Disney does the "exit through the gift shop" routine at the parks.

Oh for sure it's not a direct comparison. But for Durango to get those numbers they have to run 3 or 4 trainsets per day during the busy season. Thats 3 or 4 locomotives, engine crew, and fuel. That fuel has to really add up pulling those long trains up those grades. Strasburg just runs the 1 train back and forth all day with 1 locomotive, 1 fuel cost, 1 locomotive crew. (Except for the summer weekends and events when they run a second train).

And as I said, it's clear Strasburg spends WAY more money on their equipment restorations.

Anyways.. good point about the quote being directed towards coach vs. premium cars. When I was up at Strasburg for the Pete Lerro charter Memorial Day weekend I noticed the dining, lounge, and parlor cars were VERY full. But when I rode in the coaches a few times they seemed plenty busy that's for sure.

So now let me hand-transcribe the REST of the quote from Moedinger:


Further down the article:

Once again, emphasis added by yours truly.

And this is from 2008. Not 2018.

I see people on Facebook, school classmates and the like, that openly profess their annual ritual of vacationing at Disney World. Once or twice a year, with the family--sometimes extended family. I'm torn between the libertarian recognition of "hey, whatever floats your mouse ears...." and my self-righteous impulse to smack these folks a bit and hijack them on a cross-country junket from sea to shining sea across the REAL America. Or maybe Britain, or Japan, or Australia, or...........

Seriously, you shouldn't even be remarking on this thread's themes without going back and reviewing that May 2008 article. I'm all but trying to goad the 3-4 members of the Strasburg administration that post here to update said article with additional commentary covering the past ten years.........

We don't take credit cards unless a volunteer with a smartphone, login and Square swiper is present. We lose a few gift shop sales. 99% of bookings are on the online ticketing system, which does take visa/mc obviously. Much of the marketing is Google, Twitter, Facebook. We could quintuple ridership; every train fills and the limiting factor is volunteers/Board being willing/able to run trains.

We close ticket sales 30m after the train leaves, and if our visa/mc is down, I have boarded people who bought their ticket online with their smartphone while we were underway.

This operating model has never been *tried* at EBT.

Is Schmidt talking about just his food concession business or the business of the entire railroad as a whole in the above quote?

Agree, it would be nice to have an updated perspective.