I won't name where/when, but I took part in a train robbery once, when I was still into cowboy action shooting. I showed up with 1800s duds, a matched set of six shooters.
The rest of the people scared me. The guy playing the sherrif was okay, but they'd brought along people who weren't dressed the part at all and showed some downright frightening safety procedures. I was supposed to come back the next day but excused myself and never went back after the one day. I was never invited back and I suspect I got lumped in with the rest of them. I always wondered what the public thought about that as it looked like a random group of people jumping on their train with one armed guy from the 19th century...
Tweetsie has embraced the shtick of the whole train robbery/indian attack long ago. I wouldn't be shocked to find the TV antenna was put there on purpose for laughs.
A museum where all the rolling stock is restored or preserved is preservation. Once you slap the name of your railroad operation and not the original markings (much less altering the cars for passengers), haven't you already side-stepped preservation as a pure concept, train robberies or not?

I tend to agree with you. At very least, it's adaptive re-use (like a railroad depot restaurant) but sometimes it's the best you can do. I give Strasburg a pass because their shop does such nice work, which is available to both serious restorations and the hokey alike. Face it, few places can truly replicate the historical ride experience.

With all the gun violence in society today do you really have to do this?

So you'd rather have a train with mix-matched paint and lettering? I think the matching consists and lettering look quite classy at Strasburg. Since each coach is restored uniquely with various stenciling, frosted glass, etc. that is historic to each car, I feel like there is very very little to complain about.

I'm surprised this doesn't come up more often in general.
I've always been under the impression that people generally don't equate the wild west with 'gun violence' in a modern context.
Really, the west wasn't nearly as deadly as the movies make it out to be (Dodge City had fewer firearm murders than any other town it's size during its worst times) but people equate the wild west with a cartoon-like level of violence that doesn't seem to offend almost anyone. I guess they don't consider it 'real,' or maybe it's the fact that almost all Hollywood cowboys who get shot in the movies are middle aged white men?

Not complaining, just commenting. The coaches Strasburg has restored are quite nice, and authentic, except for the exterior paint scheme. However, several of the cars that were coaches or other have been adapted to other purposes;basically lounge or parlor service. And the cars that have been turned into open cars, well... Point is, as nicely as they have been done, they are not historic restorations, not that they were intended to be so.

The point being, tourist railroads sell an experience, but are not museums. Museums preserve equipment, but have difficulty providing a historically authentic experience, because of the mismatched equipment, short ride, lack of proper surroundings, etc. The only museum I know of that is trying to recreate the whole train experience is the Canadian Museum of Rail Travel in Cranbrook, BC, and they don't actually run the train. There is, unfortunately, at the present time no place in the US that rivals the British preservation railways where the whole package has been preserved.

Have you considered that it may be railfans sneaking into your shop at night to add ground faults to the unit, to keep the steam going? ;-)

Apparently no one is reading the "Bonnie & Clyde" part and automatically reading a western train robbery into this.

Unless you're magically getting an operational subsidy, you'll figure out a way to fill seats. Period. Enjoy.

But, this one can, however, actually be taken too far. A railroad that shall remain nameless (and now no longer offering tourist service) invited me up for the first 'press run' of their new train robbery event. Invited guests only, mostly tourism and press people, about 40 on board.

Typical run until the five horses and riders rode up. Yeah, been there, seen that. Train stopped, they boarded baggage car. Yawn. OK.... then 'BOOM' and debris shot out of the baggage car into the woods.... well, that's interesting, they actually blew something up, and two of the horses ran off.

Three came through the train in full western costume, carrying what looked like real guns, and carrying a pillowcase, demanding valuables. One had what looked like a sawed-off 12-gauge. When no amount of demanding produced anybody actually putting anything in the sack, 12-gauge guy pointed the shotgun at the inside roof of the coach and BLEW IT OFF INSIDE THE CAR, apparently with a blank, but a real 12-gauge. People screamed, some hit the floor, my ears were just ringing. People actually started to throw their wallets and money in the sack.....

After that, you had a very interesting population of costumed 'dance hall girls' join the train, with everything short of lap dances. Uh-huh.

To my knowledge, that was never put out to the public. But yes, touch off a live 12-gauge shotgun inside an occupied passenger car.

Exactly!

For some reason almost every heritage railway in Canada offers some sort of "train robbery", this has always struck me as weird considering historically there was only ever one train hijacking here, and in that case the passengers were never even aware anything was going on (the criminals took off with the engine and mail car).

There was an unfortunate episode at a railway I was working at about 20+ years ago. A family were onboard who were either tourists or immigrants from another culture, who possibly did not speak english well. When the "robbery" occurred they apparently had no idea what was going on, and the kids ended up screaming in terror. I doubt they've ever visited any heritage railway since.

It's a shame that a quality outfit like Strasburg feels the need to do this.

Pat Hosford
Volunteer
BC Forest Discovery Centre

With all the criticism of badly done train robbery experiences, I think it helpful to point out that there are many railroads that do it well. I can't speak for the training or vetting process of the robbery participants at Heber Valley, but having observed several of their performances from both inside and outside of the train, I was impressed and entertained. Firearms are only fired outside of the train, and once inside, the "robbers" are humorous and make it very clear that their hold up is entirely voluntary and that donations will go towards whatever charity/cause is up at the time before going around with the loot sack. Think of a western experience more along the lines of "My Name is Nobody" than "The Outlaw Jose Wales."

All of the "robbers" exercised careful firearm safety, even with the knowledge that they were dummy props or loaded blanks - pistols holstered when not in use, rifle always pointed upwards, and none fired at passengers, other "robbers" or "lawmen" but rather into the air or at props, such as the lock of the "strongbox" that they unloaded from the baggage/concession car for the passengers to watch through the car windows at Soldier Hollow platform.

When done correctly, it creates a memorable experience for the patrons and promotes repeat ticket sales.

When done incorrectly, well, there is ample testimony about that here already.

“It's a shame that a quality outfit like Strasburg feels the need to do this”.

Evidently you must know more about marketing than we do. Just in case no one has noticed, we haven’t run two trains at a time daily during the summer for several years. If there isn’t enough people wanting to pay to ride your trains, you have to cut trains. It’s simple economics. We are hauling roughly 150,000 less people per year than we did in the early 90s. Putting on special events is a lot of work. We would much prefer to just run “regular” trains like we have for 60 years, but that’s just not good enough anymore. As a private company, you have to adapt to the times in order to survive. People love special events and 1st class service and are willing to pay for it. If you have better ideas than we have, we’d love to hear from you.

Rick

I will discretely point out that another of the lines that people hold up as a shining example of railroad tourism or tourist railroads--the Grand Canyon Railway--also:

1) stages a "wild west shootout" on the platform of Williams Depot before departure; and

2) stages a "train robbery" as the train is returning to Williams from the Rim, complete with horses trailered in from their stable at Williams, and the trailer and "getaway van" (crew transport) well hidden from train view.

(Note: I point this out from firsthand experiences chasing them a couple years back; if they're not doing either anymore, I expect a certain GCRY chap to chime in with his comments. My firsthand experiences included my accidentally blundering upon the "robbers' hideout" while going well off the beaten path looking for photo locations, having to hide our Jeep out of sight with the trailers, and then using the train's "robbery" stop to get back ahead of the train.....
Also, to be fair, I think there are now 2-3 "shootouts" staged for tourists daily elsewhere in Williams during High Holy Tourist Season along Rt. 66, one of them darned close to the brewpub in town and outside what had been the original home of Grand Canyon Brewing.....)

I'm not on the side of gun-control advocates, but even I have to concede that this is going to be a valid consideration in 2018, especially in areas in or close to urban areas where gun violence and gun-control advocacy is a more prominent issue. In the real West, however, or even in West Va. or Pennsylvania, people hunt and shoot still, at least outside the big cities.

A warning that "political correctness" can be taken too far, even with this topic. One ethnic historical/cultural festival with which I worked enacted a policy change (when a founding board member went "PC") where historical re-enactors, a prominent part of the festival's attraction, were banned from bringing "weapons" of any sort, even replica or dummy,even just for display, never mind the old "skirmish" that used to offer in a field at 4 PM. Approximately half or more of the groups that previously attended promptly stopped showing up or participating, and not just folks that had weapons, either. It was viewed (rightfully so) as an attempt to "rewrite" or "whitewash" history. It was literally like having Civil War re-enactors without weapons, or Native Americans without their music or language--or, for that matter, tearing out slave quarters on old plantations. The festival died a couple years later, for a variety of reasons, but the decline in attendance and participation sure didn't help matters.

So, no problem with staging an occasional Wild West weekend, complete with the trappings, now and then, especially if you are IN the "wild West." But if they try it on the WW&F in Maine or the Ffestiniog in Wales.......

With all the press reports of military veterans and others who may suffer from post-traumatic stress situations when exposed to unexpected gunfire, are "train robberies" and other such "events" a good idea without warning the passengers in advance that they will occur, and that people who are disturbed by such events should not attend?

I don't mean to be "politically correct" or "rewriting history", but subjecting passengers to psychologically stressful situations without warning is a very bad idea.

Now you have me wondering if the legendary "Wolfman" that "chased" the trains at Clark's Trading Post away from his "unobtanium mine" with his "crazy car" mounted with an oversized machine gun ever "traumatized" any riders.

(I wasn't paying attention--I was too busy chucking logs into the Climax's firebox as a "guest fireman" that day!)

And I used "legendary" aptly:

http://www.clarkstradingpost.com/attractionsWolfman.php (Note the warning.)

https://www.boston.com/news/obituaries/ ... t-obituary
(The one listed here was at least the second "Wolfman"--he started in 1993, shortly after my 1990 rides.)