trainrider47 Wrote:
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> Hi Greg,
>
> Remember, John's trips were run back in the good
> old days when the 12 hour rule was winked at,
> pricing was done on the back of an envelope and
> you could add a second loco to a train for $2,000!
> My guess is John got 5 days of steam for less
> than 1/4 of what it will cost us for 3 days.
> Once the pricing shakes out, we will have to see
> what the demand really will be. The Friends fall
> trip this year cost about $300 per day for 40
> people. We sold out, but it didn't happen over
> night, so I doubt if we could have sold many more
> spaces than that. By adding in more RGS elements,
> such as a Goose and the real 0400 caboose, the
> cost to run the event will go up so we will need
> to sell more tickets.
>
> Michael Allen
That's a cheap shot from a guy wasn't even there when the charter fees were negotiated. True, in the early 1980's we weren't under FRA jurisdiction concerning Hours of Service reporting and we did some over the top stuff, but by 1990 the FRA was regulating all tourist railroads, and we had to be in compliance. Occasionally something went wrong and we were out beyond our 12 hours, but it was never planned that way.
I had a complete schedule of fares to be charged for chartering trains. It was based on a couple of factors, mostly on how it impacted regular operations, and how much of a stress it put on getting the project done. The cheapest time of the year to charter a train was in the fall right after the season ended. I had all the crews on the railroad to work with, all the motive power was up and running, it was easy. My rates were based on figuring out what it cost the company to actually operate the charter, including switching the train out, inspecting the cars, hostling the locomotive, coal, oil, etc. Once I had that number, I doubled it or even tripled the figure and that was the charter fee. If you ran multiple days, you saved money because the train was already prepped and switched out. Chartering a train in the fall was big money. We were running at capacity most of the time and crew overtime was horrendous. I would not even talk to someone about chartering a train on a weekend day in the fall.
We did a tidy little business running charters. Our philosophy was it was better to make a little less money on each one, make it affordable to chartering party, and run more of them. Because of that policy, one year we grossed over $70,000 in charter and motion picture charters.
