I'm with a railway museum that operates a heritage railroad. Over the last several years, we operated a very popular christmas train. The event was completely put on by volunteer labor.

Unfortunately, we had lost a lot of the key players involved in putting together that massive event and we certainly don't have the man power to put it on this year

Do any of you have suggestions on what we can do to keep the event going? How do other railroad museums put together their Christmas Trains?

Decorate the railcar with Christmas lights, get Santa on board to hand out "Christmas spirit" bells, and go on with your normal train rides? You have them scheduled every weekend from now through the first weekend in October...

Why did those key people leave?

Do you have the funds to pay people to work the event?

Can you look to a temporary employment agency?

Partner with another civic group that wants to have a big Christmas event and has a lot of volunteers but no exciting venue.

What do you need help with? If you have crew for the train and other operations are you mostly needing entertainment on the train?

Who exactly did you lose? Are the missing key individuals your volunteer labor or those who managed the event? If you lost so many volunteers since last Christmas that an annual event is in jeopardy you may have organizational issues that need to be addressed before planning anything major. If it's the event managers you lost then you just need to find someone to fill that roll.

I've seen Christmas trains that are nothing more than a train ride at Christmas time. No decorations, no Santa, nothing.

I'm sure Christmas Trains don't have a long term life span considering the general opinions and beliefs of the population of the Earth. They make money now, but they won't much longer.

I'm pessimistic in my political outlook, but I'm not that pessimistic.

There were Winter Festivals long before various organized religions added their liturgy to the mix.

There are plenty of family social gathering occasions in the (small h) holidays.

Brian

Agreed. I send Holiday or Solstice / Seasonal greetings to those I correspond with in the winter as a best wishes, not dead yet sort of thing. Trying to match multiple people with their specific choice so as to not offend the reactive ones...... well, what's a rational but well meaning person to do?

That said, I think the less faith based and more mercantile aspects of "Christmas" will keep it afloat and worth pursuing for a long time to come. Same for Halloween, and every other possible basis for a marketable special event you can produce and sell - it keeps your brand in the public eye, ties you to your community multiple times per year, and helps the balance sheet as well.

You can keep it secular by offering Holiday rides with Santa, e.g. When you speak of losing volunteers are you talking only about the people in your organization who run the trains?

Volunteers can be from the community as well. If you're in a town or village that has service organizations like chambers of commerce or Lions Clubs or VFWs etc. , they could be a source of help. Especially if you agree to split part of the proceeds with the organization as an incentive.

It all requires reaching out.

Something to point out:

For some excursion operations and museums, "Christmas time" means just a reason to put up a Christmas tree and some decorations.

For some operations, that time of year can be half or more of their annual ridership/visitation in one month--and that includes some of the largest operations out there, ones you would think "don't need the money."

I was told that about half of the Grand Canyon Railway's annual ridership (passenger numbers, not revenue) comes from both "Pumpkin Patch" and "Polar Express" trains, short out-and-back trips with the old SP open-window stock out of Williams that are targeted to locals and people in the region who might otherwise not have reason to ride the railroad--the Grand Canyon is a day trip for them, after all. And this is on a railroad that operates year-round, unlike most of our operations.

Yes, Alexander - many operations make up LOTS of money from the Holiday train rides. There is a reason Durango & Silverton built an entire wye just for their Polar Express trains and they even re-letter their locomotives each year for "Polar Express" - it's the real deal when it comes to bringing in the cash.