I'm going to chime in on this one, since I have been involved in a few charters recently on Grand Canyon Railway (including the upcoming TRAINS sponsored Charter this October). For starters, that $100 ticket in 1988 would be $225 today with inflation.
Our local NRHS Chapter used to sponsor an annual photographers special back in the late 1990's. Tickets were around $100-$120, and we could take around 120 photographers. I don't think it ever completely sold out, but at those numbers would generate about $15,000 in revenue. This included a night photo session, full day photo charter, evening reception, and shop tour. With that large of group there were some restrictions on where you could fit a photo line, but GCR has plenty of good locations with open spaces and we still got great shots. Of course, the company pretty much ran the charter at cost so the NRHS Chapter could make a few bucks. When we did the NRHS convention and had 400 people on the train, we were only able to do 2 runby locations due to the lack of good locations for that size of crowd and the time needed to get people on and off the train.
Now the company is different and they are willing to do Charters, but only if they are at a profit. Pete Lerro has done 2 over the years. His are exclusive to only 40 people and offer 2 full days, which require 2 crews per locomotive per day. When you start adding up labor cost and fuel costs for the day, plus a little for wear and tear on equipment, it really adds up fast. The previously mentioned number of $10,000 per locomotive per day is definitely in the ballpark, and we charge a bit more than that. (Remember that labor costs are not $15-$20 per hour for a corporation, but $50 per hour when you factor benefits and other overhead.)
For the upcoming TRAINS Charter, we tried to find a happy medium between the general mass and exclusive event. We capped at 70 people, and worked out to a $600 ticket for 2 days. I expect 10-12 runby options during the event. Happily, the event has nearly sold out in 3 weeks, and we will start taking names for a waiting list on a possibly additional event.
Eric Hadder
