Good to hear, Ross.
I think the difference between my observations from the locals and yours speaks to what was going on in each timeframe.
When I was there, the people I talked with said the EBT didn't help the locals much, or at all. It'd been there as a tourist operation for over 30 years at that point (this was in 1998).
When you went, there was hope for the area, for an operation that had gone nowhere in so long I bet the locals had already assumed it was going to be pulled up before they heard the good news about a reborn EBT.
With the way things are now with most news media telling us a recession is either right around the corner or already here, any good news for the future would be warmly received. Hope springs eternal, indeed.

As noted in another comment in this thread, this would have been somewhere between 30 and almost 40 years after the EBT had come back as a tourist operation.

I think a common thing is you take what's in your back yard for granted and don't pay attention to it. If there was a boost in business, it may have been back in 1960; it had been boosting business to some extent all that time, but it had gone on so long nobody took note of it.

Some people didn't even like it. I was talking to someone there on a visit before the shutdown--I think he was from Friends of the EBT, I'm pretty certain he wasn't an employee--and he said there were complaints about smoke and noise, including what are (to us) some of the prettiest whistles on steam (except the 17's screecher!) He said the complaints about the whistles sort of stopped when the road started running a diesel with an obnoxious sounding honker for a horn.

Then the EBT went away, and it's likely that suddenly, so did a lot of business.

So often you don't realize what you had until it goes away.

I would even bet that a lot of people found out they missed the whistles, too.

EDIT: I think the fact that Ross was there after the shutdown and on the eve of the road's reopening was also a factor in the responses he got. He was there after people found out what they had, what they had lost--and what they might get back again.
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At the risk of offending some "capitalist" advocates here, I'll add that I'm a former auditor and dealt with business owners daily for 36 years. What I found over that time was that most were pretty good people, some were pretty smart people, but probably half of them were lousy business people who had no business in business.

In short, business owners are pretty average, really. They aren't the miracle people or super people some "free market" advocates seem to paint them as.

They are just like the rest of us, sometimes they struggle more than most, sometimes they are more visionary than most, and some are just as dumb as most--including me!

I'm super happy that EBT is coming back to life. I'm retired now, but live live within a three hour drive (one way) from there. Yup, I've been to Everitt RR.

Before EBT shut down the last time, I took my kids there. Back them there were TONS of cheapish chain motels within striking distance of Orbisonia. Do you really feel the need to walk out your motel door and into the resort entertainment - like - perhaps at Disney World?

When there is sufficient Economic Justification for Tourist Support right next door it will come to pass.

It's been a pet Peeve of mine that folks are able to walk thousands of feet from their parking spot to a store in a Typical Suburban Shopping Mall, but Damn, if they can't park directly from the store door in Center City - ARRRRRRRGGGGHHH.

I don't have a clue why this list is so pessimistic. Todd from a certain Train Orders website is no longer getting my ~ annual $40 because he doesn't seem to understand the Paradox of Tolerance. Literally millions of daily riders arriving safely in an urban transit system is nothing compared to the crime statistics of a less than 50,000 rural area. There needs to be Zero Crime in the rural area for decades to match - yet - - - - - - - Sorry - Not Sorry.


Brian

Between them, these two quotes bring up something personal for me and my wife, Dolly.

Now Dolly likes trains, but she isn't the foaming nut that I am.

But something about that changed during one of the Fall Spectaculars.

I was wanting to see the trains leave for the night run, but Dolly was tired and wanted to go home. I finally said, "OK, let me pick up some brochures and things in the station before we leave."

I went into the station, which was crowded, packed, difficult to move in. It took a while to get what I was after.

While I was in there, Dolly was out in the car, in the parking lot just north of the station. One of the engines came up--it was after dark at this time--and it was just there for a while. It was still there, panting, generator whining, lights on, smoke and steam rising into the night sky, when I got back to the car.

I said, "Well, now we can go home."

Dolly replied, "I want to stay."

Me: "WHAT?!"

Somehow sitting out there, watching the people, and the arrival of that living machine that is a steam locomotive, something got to Dolly.

We'd already done our riding for the day, so we just paced the night train, observing the lights, the way the fire would light up the smoke above the train when the tallowpot put in some coal, the always beautiful whistles. . .and we waited at the roundhouse as the engines were put away. Dolly would later remark, in another year, how it seemed a steam engine was "going to sleep, it's closing its eye" when the dynamo was shut off and the headlight gradually got dimmer and went out as the turbine spun down.

Later, when we were almost home in Martinsburg, W.Va., we were looking at the usual plastic signs for McDonald's, Motel 6, Long John Silver's, and so on, and the traffic lights, and the traffic, and Dolly said, "It's not right, we should be hearing those whistles."

I think I live in the wrong time, at least as far as railroads are concerned, and now Dolly feels the same way.

"... how it seemed a steam engine was "going to sleep, it's closing its eye" when the dynamo was shut off and the headlight gradually got dimmer and went out as the turbine spun down. "

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A steam locomotive is the closest manmade thing to a humanbeing.

I recall decades ago walking beside a steam engine resting in the quiet and reduced lighting inside the roundhouse and walking close by it as a young call boy and sensing that it was indeed live.

I would think that a large factor to why people believed they didn’t see an uptick in business may be the fact that the original tourist EBT operation (and even the tourist operation today) wasn’t an attraction that could keep people for more than just a part of a day. Especially that it’s a very locally supported attraction, so many people riding the train might not be unfamiliar to shop owners.

Even today, if you check on the EBT’s website, a train ride to Colgate grove and back is advertised as being just an hour long. Even if you add time spent at the picnic grove, waiting to catch the next train back, that’s maybe two hours tops. If I live 2 hours away, that isn’t that attractive compared to something that can be a full day’s attraction like the Strasburg/RRMoPA complex.

Restoring the EBT south in my opinion can only be a positive, in not only adding more time spent but adding potentially new experiences, and in my opinion, would add enough that it might take 2-3 day trips to do everything.

Steamguy, I think you missed that the EBT isn't just a train ride, you can also do the paid shops tour, and you can just wander around the place too, that eats up most of the good time of a day. Yes, more track will be better, as will more steam engines, but one step at a time!

Ja-314's post reminded me of when we took trips on the Steamboat Delta Queen. On one trip we had been on the river quite a few days (yes, with stops in small towns along the way) and we were coming into a Big City, maybe it was Chatanooga, and the river came alongside an interstate highway; it was dusk and all those lights and noise was just mind-boggling. We just weren't used to all that hustle and bustle after some 6 days of relative quiet (well, the Calliope wasn't quiet, nor was the main steam whistle, but that's "noise" of a different nature!). It really was mind-jarring, and like your Wife, I thought, "Gee, we should go back and listen to the river and the paddlewheel."

The EBT is trying very hard to extend visitors' time in Orbisonia (Rockhill Furnace). For the first time in memory there is joint ticketing with the adjacent trolley museum. Returning trains now stop on the first leg of the wye where passengers can easily walk over to waiting trolleys. There have also been joint programs. This effectively adds another hour to the visitation and adds to the experience.

To be fair, a few individuals from the "Kovalchick's Playground" era didn't take railroading seriously, and treated it as a big amusement park ride. You can't expect to professionally run a railroad and ignore some cardinal, common sense rules. IMO, it's probably a good thing that they stepped back. They were an accident waiting to happen.

The current regime of the powers-that-be are from professional railroad backgrounds, and are competent in what they do. Those that don't like it? Well, that's their problem.

Just my 2 cents.

Reminds me of one line in particular in the description of Jake Holman during his first look around the engine room of the USS San Pablo late one night in Richard McKenna's book The Sand Pabbles. "Holman sat on the workbench, careless of oil on his dress whites. The spell of the engine was on him.
It was a fine handsome old engine, much older than Jake Holman himself. He looked at it, massive, dully gleaming brass and steel..."

I have had steam engines cast a spell on me many, many times over the years.

Did the original operation offer regular shop tours? I know the FEBT only started to restore the complex in 2002, I can’t imagine regular shop tours were a thing until the very end of that era.

The did give tours during the original Winter Spectaculars, I took one during the '76 weekend. If you had a weekend pass it was included in that. Six of us shared one pass that weekend. Couldn't get away with that today, but I was a poor college freshman.

It's easy for us steam lovers to find ourselves enthralled with the rebirth of # 16 and the promise of the new EBTF to eventually restore to service all 6 of the locomotives that have sat silently in the original roundhouse for many, many years, and thus not be mindful of what makes this project one of major national significance.

The rebirth of the East Broad Top is far more than JUST the return of steam locomotive powered tourist rides.

The EBT is the sole surviving intact ng railroad east of the Mississippi including the extensive steam powered shop complex at Rockhill that allowed it to be a self contained enterprise capable of internally manufacturing nearly every part and piece needed to keep the railroad running smoothly and hauling its life blood coal the 31 miles from Robertsdale to Mt. Union where it was given to the PRR for delivery to the end users.

The Rockhill complex has miraculously survived completely intact and when fully back in operation will be an invaluable teaching tool for students studying American industrial history and those in the many STEM programs. It will also be a real life exhibition of what a steam powered complex was like at the height of the American led industrial revolution that transformed life throughout the world.

Yes, being able to ride behind steam for the full 31 miles will certainly draw steam lovers from across the land as will the chance to ride behind steam for the steep climb up the Joller branch to the summit and take in the 50 mile vistas there. The whole package will also draw folks from far and wide to be able to be transported back to 1910 and absorb the sights,sounds and smells of a steam powered industrial enterprise that supplied millions of tons of power in the form of soft coal to American industry.

My WAG is that once the whole property is back up and fully functioning the folks who come for the full package will vastly out number us serious steam lovers who come primarily for the thrill we get from sitting back and enjoying our ride behind steam.

Time will tell. Ross Rowland

I have come across this at Wright Patterson when visiting the Air FDorce Museum when the restoration shop was open to tours, since it is an active base, and this summer at Pearl Harbor, there were areas that no pictures were allowed...but just what do they have at EBT? ICBMs?