Hi Kevin, all,
I've been a charter regular for about the last 10 years and have probably attended as many of them as anyone. I enjoy having a nice selection of events like this to attend. But for the first time, I am starting to get concerned that perhaps there can be too much of a good thing. As you well know, there are A LOT of events competing for rail enthusiast's dollars in 2019. There are Lerro's Michigan charters in January. There are the Nevada Northern Photo Shoot weekends in February. Then, lots of us will be going back to Oregon in March to get to see what we hoped we would see in last October. Then there are Lerro's charters in Texas in April and the SP 18 charter in May. Recently the Friends announced a Flanger Trip on the C&TS in March. None of the above events are $200-$300 deals. In fact, in the last 10 years, the cost of a 2-day charter has virtually doubled and is regularly running $800 or more.
Here's the problem.... How many people can afford to drop $800 on a railroad charter? As a one-shot deal, probably more than enough to sell out a charter. But then, how many people can afford to do it, twice, three times or say five times between January and June of 2019? I think that number is a whole lot smaller. Maybe I'm wrong, but I keep seeing the same faces on every charter I do. The cadre of serious railroad photogs is not that big.
And then there is my problem: vacation. I only have so much.
The military has a scary term they call "fratricide". That's what they call it when two friendly units unintentionally end up taking each other out due to a lack of communication/situational awareness. I'm starting to get concerned about charter fratricide. Even if I can keep writing the big checks, I have a real fear that some of these events I'm already signed up for won't happen, because there are too many events competing for too few customers.
Just my $.02.
/Kevin Madore
