We are having a discussion at our museum on the cost of steam vs diesel. Several board members believe that the cost of steam simply cannot be covered by income. Does anyone have the actual cost of operation for various steam engines?
Other portions of the argument are:
Saturated steam vs modern locomotives
Initial attendacne vs repeat visits
Cost of operation, including maintainence, testing (i.e. water, structure, and crews), insurance, government regulations and damage to track.
At this time, we are using Alco and GE power on Class 1 jointed and CWR.
It is my beliefe that a 2-6-2 wouldd be viable in this situation.
I'm really surprised no-one's gotten back to you yet on this. Are there no rail museum steam veterans checking out this site?
Well, free advice is worth the cost as they say, so let me pass on my insights as someone who's on the outside looking in:
Saturated steam vs. modern? Depends on what speeds you're planning on running. 15mph or less it probably wouldn't make much difference, as a matter of fact a "soak" might just be a bit cheaper to run, i.e. no specialized lubricants needed and no high-pressure wear and tear on the boiler.
Initial attendance vs. repeat visits? Put on a good show and folks will come back, and nothing puts on a show like a steam engine. By the way, by a "good show" I don't mean silly staged train robberys or Indian attacks, but a collaboration with local Civil War re-enactors (if any in your area) for a "Civil War Weekend" for example would bring the people in, or a " World War Two Weekend," or a" Classic Car Weekend." The more family fun and photo-ops you can provide the better. Nothing goes better with the above than a steam locomotive. And of course you can't beat the sheer drama of a steam engine in operation. Remember, in a very real sense you're not just in the museum biz, you're in show biz.
Damage to track? If you keep the speed conservative it's probably nothing to worry about. The pounding and track damage you've heard of from steam engines usually occurred from very high speed running with poorly balanced running gear. Just keep the speed down. People want the ride to last anyway.
And a 2-6-2 is a good choice on your part, as a matter of fact "Trains" ran an article about a year or so ago saying six-coupled locomotives were usually the best all-around engines for museum or tourist 'roads, not too big, not too small, and fairly economical to operate. 2-6-2, 2-6-0, or 0-6-0, it doesn't really matter. As a matter of fact, historically the "Mogul" type locomotive, the 2-6-0, really found its niche in branch line operations which were pretty close to todays museum type operations, some lasting right up to the end of steam. A thought here: if you can find an oil-fired steam engine so much the better. Turn yourself into waste oil recycling center. Gas stations, auto repair shops, and home mechanics will probably GIVE you all the fuel you need just to get rid of it. That's what the old Morris County Central did in New Jersey. Nothing like free fuel!
Hope this helps, but you may want to consult the latest Kalmbach book on museum and tourist 'roads and contact some of them for advice and insights.
Good luck!
FWIW, OERM's steamer is a 2-6-2. The trailing truck was for better tracking when operated in reverse.
The Colorado Railroad Museum operates various equipment throughout the year and Steam Engines are a big pull for visitors...
Darren (BLHS & CRRM Lifetime Member)
Delaware and Hudson Virtual Museum (DHVM), Railroad Adventures (RRAdventures)
My Blog
I hate to have a Heretical view, but outside of railfans, motive power isn't always that important. Often times the casual rider/visitor doesn't care about the engine up front. Especially if they don't have memories of regular working steam engines, which is more and more of the population. (The train ride itself is enough of an anachronism to grab their attention.) They just don't have the attachment to steam.
Steam costs are more than for diesel operations. In casual conversations with those at the Boone & Scenic Valley, a lot more but I coulnd't give an exact amount. I do know that over the years they have reduced the amount of steam operation, but I do think there are other considerations in play. I know they have had problems in the past with getting enough volunteers to work the steam crew. Not the operation part, but the preparation for the day's operation. Many on those crews didn't want to have to arrive at 5 or 6AM to have the engine properly fired up (from a "cold" status) and ready for the 10AM train.
I'm not against steam, but just because there are other musuems/tourist railroads that one couldn't imagine without steam doesn't mean it will always be right for all. I hope you get the info you need and it does work out.
Jeff
Mr. Jeff's no heretic, and he does make some valid points. However I would point out that even if Mom and Dad don't care what pulls the train, the kids probably do. Remember "Thomas"? A big ol' black steamer may not be "Thomas", but it's as close as those kids are going to get to him. At any rate, the mission of rail museums, if you want to call it that, is to tell the railroad story, to make sure the public knows a train is more than that pain in the butt that holds them up at grade crossings, and a steam engine's a pretty good attention getter to begin the story with.
As for the Boone & Scenic Valley having problems with the volunteers, the question I'd ask is are they getting any throttle time on the steam engine? Is the reward for the hard prep work just a pat on the back and nothing more? I remember reading in "Trains" a while back of a rail museum director who's ironclad policy is to get the young volunteers up in the cab and on the throttle as soon as possible. Not for him is the old policy of "Well OK newbie, first you'll cut the grass around here, take out the garbage, clean the restrooms, paint the depot, and after you've been here ten years and we know and like you then MAYBE, just MAYBE, we'll let you pull the whistle cord on Old 97!" His belief was that attitude was going to be certain death in the long run for the rail preservation movement. You've got to hook 'em quick and hook 'em hard, or you'll lose them to someone or something else. Unfortunately, I don't remember his name or the museum but he's got a VERY good point. You can't have the "Old Guard" using the steamer as their own personal toy to the exclusion of everyone else. Oh, and at that aforementioned museum EVERYBODY shares in the grunt work, not just the new volunteers.
Again, I wish I could remember who it was. He's a great man for certain!
Clearly your railroad museum has to live within its income, Fred. Right now you are doing that and having some success with your diesels. So why go beyond that comfortable state of affairs?
The reason is that a steam engine might attract more visitors and increase both your contribution to the community and your income.
If I were in your shoes I certainly would be doing what you are doing to find out about the costs of a steam engine. But I would also contact other railroad museums to see what their experience has been with the use of steam engines, both from a cost perspective and also building the number of museum goers.
Some do a little of both. The museum operation in "The Depot" in Duluth Minnesota runs the North Shore Scenic Railroad between Duluth and Two Harbors, about 26 miles along Lake Superior's shoreline. They normally use diesel power (RDCs) for the everyday trains, but once or twice a year have special trips with steam.
Firelock76 Mr. Jeff's no heretic, and he does make some valid points. However I would point out that even if Mom and Dad don't care what pulls the train, the kids probably do. Remember "Thomas"? A big ol' black steamer may not be "Thomas", but it's as close as those kids are going to get to him. At any rate, the mission of rail museums, if you want to call it that, is to tell the railroad story, to make sure the public knows a train is more than that pain in the butt that holds them up at grade crossings, and a steam engine's a pretty good attention getter to begin the story with. As for the Boone & Scenic Valley having problems with the volunteers, the question I'd ask is are they getting any throttle time on the steam engine? Is the reward for the hard prep work just a pat on the back and nothing more? I remember reading in "Trains" a while back of a rail museum director who's ironclad policy is to get the young volunteers up in the cab and on the throttle as soon as possible. Not for him is the old policy of "Well OK newbie, first you'll cut the grass around here, take out the garbage, clean the restrooms, paint the depot, and after you've been here ten years and we know and like you then MAYBE, just MAYBE, we'll let you pull the whistle cord on Old 97!" His belief was that attitude was going to be certain death in the long run for the rail preservation movement. You've got to hook 'em quick and hook 'em hard, or you'll lose them to someone or something else. Unfortunately, I don't remember his name or the museum but he's got a VERY good point. You can't have the "Old Guard" using the steamer as their own personal toy to the exclusion of everyone else. Oh, and at that aforementioned museum EVERYBODY shares in the grunt work, not just the new volunteers. Again, I wish I could remember who it was. He's a great man for certain!
I'll add a double-amen to that. I had a similar situation with my local 1:87 club but that's a different story.
I'll add my $.02 as a potential new customer to one of the three museums around my area (not yours, sorry). I know that one (the farthest) has steam once or twice a year. It's drawback is that it's a 4ish hour drive away, thus - I've been once every 3 years roughly. One (the closest) doesn't have steam nor does it seem to intend on getting it, thus I haven't ever been there and likely won't go. The last one has steam (and seems like they will be restoring a loco I that have a connection to from you youth) and because of that (likelihood of having AND restoring a loco) I would choose to go there and even join. I would probably go just because they seem to have an interest in steam.
My wife doesn't like trains like I do. When she was offered the chance to go with other folks like her to these three places she ended up making the same decision I did but because steam is different than riding a Metra or an AMTRAK. It was more historical and seemed more appealing than "just an old diesel".
Good luck on your decision.
Dan
Steam is more expensive in general but steam has many advantages. Steam can pull in 10 times more people. Steam is generally more powerful than what ever diesel locomotives the museum has. I know the Georgetown loop was limited to only about 4 or 5 cars with the diesel they had. With the shay it could pull 13 cars easy. I know some other museums that went from steam to diesel and they had to have two diesel locomotives to pull cars up the grade.
Steam can actually be run quite cheaply if you have very skilled volunteers. The Southern pacific 4449 is a excellent example. The 4449 runs several excursions every year despite having no funding source or income coming in (until recently with the new location). All the labor is done by volunteers. It does make money pulling excursions but it is essentially running with no projected income. The Colorado railroad museum is another good example. The steam locomotive is overhauled and maintained with volunteers. All you are paying for is coal and water which is plenty cheap in Colorado.
Many people do not realize it but running excursions is a big business. Dinner trains, private trains, and special excursion trains can make millions a year for a company. I know the Royal gorge train ride is so successful I have counted 18 cars the last time I rode it. It now operates almost year round. Even spending a half a million to overhaul a steam locomotive is becoming something that most CEO's wont even question anymore.
Thomas the tank train has become a huge cash cow for the museums. I was talking to one museum and he told me they make more money in the two weeks Thomas the tank train is there, then they make the entire year.
Diesels are nice but steam (although more expensive) is almost guaranteed to triple your profits.
I'll second Thomas9011's comment about the "Thomas the Tank Engine" days at rail museums. The Strasburgs Thomas engine pulls in so many people on their "Day Out with Thomas" days they call him "Thomas the BANK Engine"!
Diue to the very high fee for Thomas, the board has already rejected that idea. They just don' truct that we could regain the expense.
Have you looked into inviting a traveling loco come and visit? I went out to the SC Railroad Museum www.scrm.org a few weeks ago and rode behind Lehigh Valley Coal 126 www.haveenginewilltravel.com with my 5 yr old daughter and we had a great time! The Locomotive was being run by museum members, with the whistle off the mueseum's own static locomotive. It's an event they say they plan to do every year. I watched three trips run (including our trip,) and they seemed to have a real good turnout. It might be a good way for your group to get your toes wet with steam operations.
I do not have the data with me, but for the Sacramemnto Southern RR (California State Railroad Museum) our graphsof ridership show signicantly lower ridership in years when we did not not steam.
The clear headed and rational part of me says that my favorite railroad museums would all be better advised to use their scant resources towards putting all of their collections under cover and at least stop the constant deterioration -- and that includes even the fairly mundane items such as old MOW rolling stock -- rather than spending it on steam. If it was worth saving it is worth protecting, if not preserving. Or stated another way, railroad museums need to start acting like museums.
Having said that I stopped going to the Mid Continent Railroad Museum's (North Freedom WI) annual "Snow Train" when they stopped using steam and am unlikely to return unless and until the steam does.
So apparently rationality has its limits when it comes to me and steam locomotives!
Dave Nelson
Yes, a 2-6-2 would probably be viable. But you need to look at more than just 'diesel vs. steam'...
Fred Boyer Saturated steam vs modern locomotives
Look at some of the discussions that SLM/DLM has made over the years. People like Roger Waller have looked carefully into saturated vs. superheat for different purposes and services. The better economy provided by a superheated locomotive may be overkill... or statistically insignificant compared to other costs... for usual 'museum' type service. On the other hand, absent good (and expensive!) water treatment, I'd expect a much greater risk of priming, water and salts carryover into the pistons, perhaps even hydraulic lock in operation. If you are going to service your own superheaters, be very careful what you do!
Initial attendance vs repeat visits
Big piece of this is your organization's effectiveness at developing something that will have ongoing appeal and 'customer loyalty' -- and then marketing that 'something' well. This may involve some time to build. Be certain you have the ability to RUN steam when you say you will.
Cost of operation, including maintenance, testing (i.e. water, structure, and crews), insurance, government regulations and damage to track.
There you hit what is likely the #1 steam expense: the 1472-day inspection. Even with volunteers this is likely to be large, and has technical details your volunteers may not know. There are people like Wasatch (Wahsatch? ;-}) that can handle this for you, but at a price. Establish some method of assuring you have the money before the boiler time runs out!
Water treatment and testing on a tourist railroad is probably trivial, and while the chemicals are expensive they aren't a major proportional operating cost. Likewise the 'right' kind of lubricants (for example, steam cylinder oil).
At the speed you are going to be running, there shouldn't be 'much' more track damage than with typical switcher trucks, albeit in different ways. The very significant thing to do is check the balance of the engine regularly, and keep it optimal. Here enters a problem: the balancing of a steam engine is a compromise, between augment (vertical pounding) and nosing (lateral oscillation), which are mutually opposed -- fixing one aggravates the other. There are limits to how much lateral control you can put on a 2-6-2, at either end, and that in turn affects how much overbalance you can afford to eliminate for smoother riding. Note that we're talking inertial forces here, and they go up proportional to the square of the speed. So keeping things slow helps.
You'll have to do some amount of track lining and surfacing due to the longer rigid wheelbase, especially if you don't or can't leave some play in the rod and bearing clearances to allow better cross-articulation (in the 4x4 sense of the word) in the driver suspension. This is nothing that can't be done with normal tools and, say, a couple of leveling lasers from Home Depot... but budget the time, planning, and effort both to check it and to maintain it. Same with checking that your curves don't have kinks or weird cross-level sag that would cause derailment for steam but not for diesel. Helps that you have Class I standards for the track... the rail and perhaps ties ought to be fine, just watch the alignment...
The crew training is likely to be the critical thing here. Very different skills are involved in running, firing, and servicing steam. These can be learned -- be sure to learn them RIGHT and then have very good printed documentation and procedures (in addition to whatever the FRA or state might require) that you institutionalize. Likewise, a very wide range of 'volunteer' skills that work on diesel power might be deadly if applied to steam -- welding, for example, or attempting to work the locomotive too soon after initial firing. This is all stuff that proper procedure and training, and I don't mean expensive fancy documentation or high-dollar schools, can and should cover -- my point is that it all SHOULD be in place, reviewed by competent steam people, and carefully enforced before you try running steam.
Probably important to mention exactly what power this is. Big difference between a 44-tonner and a B-trucked dash-7, for example, or an S-1 vs. an RS-3 or Century. Critical thing to watch here is starting. Diesel power is comparatively forgiving about how it starts a train (with some consideration about not operating at high amperage and slow speed). The 2-6-2 will almost certainly be slipperier with long consists and show worse surge with short ones. Your crew training will have to account for this.
It is my belief that a 2-6-2 would be viable in this situation.
I would certainly attempt it if running revenue is a goal. The point that was made regarding not ignoring your other 'missions' is a good one, however; only you and your board can decide if you can do it properly (without ignoring other things of importance). There is little question that steam is a better 'draw' than diesel -- but only if you have the necessary traffic and timing to justify the long fire-up time, relative loss of heat between trips, etc. that made the diesel-electric so significant in this sort of service.
'Outsourcing' the power and perhaps much of the maintenance and repair is an interesting idea. The big catch is likely to be liability insurance; a secondary one will be who gets what share of the net. (As with movies, don't base anything on the gross...) Or who has to shoulder any losses or failures...
I greatly agree with the comment regarding giving volunteers engine time. Perhaps not throttle time right away, but remember that the historic way that men learned about steam was by doing. And that applies to the safety aspects of steam perhaps more than the operating aspects...
RME
RME neatly caps the pros and cons. Add one more essential consideration: insurance coverage. With any active steam operations your museum will be dealing with a whole new fiscal obligations that go hand-in-hand with safety training and the unfortunate nature of fate.
Even with a very vigilant overhaul maintenance program, accidents involving very hot water and metals can and do happen; it's the nature of the beast and be prepared for that. I don't wish to sound alarmist, but your Board would be very wise to reach out and directly talk with outfits like the Nevada Northern Railway unit of the Nevada State Railroad Museum. They (especially) my be riding on state-provided "self" insurance policies -- which is what California State Railroad Museum does with the Sacramento Southern and Sierra Railway operations at Railtown 1897 State Historic Park. But a small independent non-profit museum has to accept that litigation might occur in a worst-case scenario, so if your insurance won't properly cover that or you're just not sure, find out! Before, not after.
This is even more important if you decide to go ahead with a steam program and aim to try offering "an hour at the throttle" sort of program as a special fund-raiser. The person buying throttle time for fun may have to sign a release not to sue if something happens, but you must think of every consideration well in advance.
Naturally, if you haven't already done so with other operations using diesels or rolling stock, a "boiler plate" "We reserve the right to substitute locomotives and other equipment as operational considerations require" in your museum tickets and other literature so as not to too badly disappoint folks if a balky injector or failed driving axle bearing causes a problem du jour.
KVB
In the nearby small city of Tavares, Florida, a steam train has revitalized the tourist industry of the town. There have been many other tourist trains pulled by diesels in the Mount Dora/Eustis/Tavares triangle, but nothing has managed to survive. The Orange Blossom Cannonball (how's that for a mixed image?) is a roaring success.
It's three or four vintage cars pulled by a 1907 2-6-0 that has a strong history in movies. The owners run it as entertainment for the public, not specifically rail fans. That and excellent support from the city government have been the keys. The route itself is not spectacular, but Tavares is a pretty, lakefront town with a waterfront park, seaplanes and restaurants. The conductor and crew are entertainers and educators, some with backgrounds from nearby Disney. When the loco uncouples and runs around the cars for the return, they demonstrate and narrate signaling and other skills. It's a truly neat trip.
Interesting to note that they converted the loco from oil back to wood because it was much cheaper to run that way. It gives a "Green" element as a renewable resource that visitors appreciate, too.
-- Tom
In a way, a very big way, burning wood in the Tavares Eustis and Gulf 2-6-0 makes a lot of sense. There's no coal in Florida, it would have to be brought in at quite a bit of expense. Fuel oil could be used but that would be expensive too, unless they burn waste oil. Wood's cheap and all over the place, indeed it burns cleanly without cinders to erode the flues or be removed and the ash is light and no hassle at all to get rid of. Of course, wood doesn't have the BTU's of coal or oil but you can't have everything, so they say.
If you search You Tube Tavares Eustis and Gulf you can see some PennRail videos of the train in operation. I'll tell you, the fireman knows his business, in a lot of the run-bys there's little to no smoke.
I think that operation with its "antique-ie" locomotive and passenger consist is a great spot for a "Civil War Weekend." I'll bet you that would bring people in! YAH-HOOOOO!
well there is an engineer on a certtain northern nh tourist railway , hes been in railroading since the 40's & he as told me time & time again " steam brings in the money " & has pushed to get 2 steam locos to rotate year round.
& he has been proven rite thru recipts,& yes they get mobbed during thomas the bank weekends
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