At Sumpter Valley Railroad, svry.com, anyone, any age can join, and families are encouraged to bring everyone to our campsite to stay for the amount of time they would like to volunteer. Our President and Vice-President are both under 25, at present, and we have many other young people.
Sadly, our main volunteer work force is primarily 45 and older. The youngest engineers will be 50 this year, with people working their way up, mostly older. Many volunteers give up on working into positions that take a long time to learn, but we give volunteers lots of time to ride the train, and my favorite time was talking some of our most loyal volunteers through light engine moves in the yard as they tried out being engineer (with me right there), sort of as a reward for sticking around when others went home, and to burn up some bad fuel.
Our initial training weekend will be the first weekend in May, and will include steam engine training. This is only for volunteers that plan to work during the season this year. Volunteers must be members, but can join the day training starts.
Our community is FREE to join. To participate you must either login or register for an account.