The old gift shop stuff was not the right merchandise to try to sell, thus it probably never moved well.
However, the C&TS is missing boat on web sales for gift shop items. I realize they consign stuff to Stephen Flowers, but either he, or the railroad should have stuff for sale on the web site.
Heck I would be willing to work something out with my videos whereby we paid a commission for sales through their site, or something like that.
This is an area where the railroad can greatly improve as a revenue base without a lot of downside in my opinion. Maybe you should talk to Flowers and the other folks in charge of the railroad about this issue. With the nice web site, now is a great time to implement some form of on-line gift shop. This would be great for folks checking on reservations or ordering tickets to check out the gift shop, or those who rode the train in the past are just want to see whats new!!! All part of marketing!
Greg Scholl