From a Facebook group I belong to. Sad but not entirely surprising considering how anti-excursion the class one’s have become. I wonder if they could have pulled it off under the auspices of Amtrak though?
I expect 2100 as AFT 250 should at least be able to run some excursions through the National Park on the Cuyahoga Valley Scenic Railroad if they can get them organized soon.
Definitely unfortunate. Thankfully, UP still runs their own engine(s).
It sounds like everything depended on Ross Rowland.
Talk about betting on the long shot.
Not sure how I feel about them keeping the money that was raised for the 250th thing. Unless it was clearly spelled out. Maybe it was.
I think it’s not so much anti-excursion as it is concerns over organization and financing. Remember the tracks of a class one are there to earn money. They can’t do that very well with a steam excursion training running late and joe public all over the right of way at various stops. It also represents a big financial liability and none of the excursion groups have deep pockets financially or are willing to pay for the insurance. Short lines can pull it off easier because most of them do not have big institutional investors to answer to when things go wrong. Short lines have a lot of excess track capacity and can easily hold trains for extended periods of time. Also, short lines tend to have closer ties to the community, in my view.
Huge crowds (Joe Public!) in western suburbs waiting for Big Boy. UP knows how to handle events such as this with lots of free publicity.
But that is because UP corporate handles operations and determines a company purpose for the trips.
Consider why 4449, with just as much “UP heritage”, is not only not ‘touring’ but is not allowed to run. (It’s not as lame as during the Steve Lee years, but the financial stakes are far, far higher as noted…) This is not quite the same deal as 819, but I haven’t seen any attempt for the Pine Bluff people to go forward with a coherent and properly-financed plan. Meanwhile the 576 group carefully arranged their funds in escrow before each ‘milestone’ started, and are now close to finishing with a guaranteed arrangement to run…
The stated reason 1522’s excursions stopped was inability to secure adequate insurance at any achievable price. You will note that from then until now there hasn’t been a peep about restoring 1522 to service.
Yes, it’s corporate of course but other railroads could also benefit as corporations with excursions for publicity. One problem they have is that a lot of Americans don’t know they still exist.
They have different views on the worth of corporate ‘steam’ prigrams. The NS history over the years is particularly instructive.
