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Orrville Railroad Heritage Society to offer Wheeling & Lake Erie excursions
I have taken the trip several times over the years. Well done and well worth the money.
It is too bad that they cannot run the Pittsburgh,PA trips anymore. Those where very enjoyable trips over the old P&WV. Also, I agree with John. The Medina Loop Trips are well done and worth the money.
A excursion on old Western Maryland Railway between Baltimore and Cumberland?
Charles from Michigan:
Last summer I took the Cuyahoga Valley Scenic trip from Canton to the Fitzwater Maintenance Facility and back to Canton. Our car attendant and his lovely wife were also volunteers for the ORHS. I asked him if ORHS was going to run the Orrville-Pittsburgh trip. He said that probably not. The Wheeling & Lake Erie uses the Genesee & Wyoming former Pennsy line from Bowerston to Jewett, Ohio. The G&W bought this line a few years ago from Jerry Jacobson’s Ohio Central Railroad. The attendant said that G&W did not want excursion traffic for liability reasons. He said that the insurance premiums would be so high that ORHS would have to charge exorbitant ticket prices. ORHS felt that they could better use their resources running the Medina Loop twice.
However, I did notice last Christmas that the Santa Train operated from Dennison to New Comerstown and back on the G&W.
Kudos to W&LE for supporting fan excursions and supporting ORHS.
One of my favorite memories is an ORHS trip twenty-five or so years ago with my late father and my children on the W&LE (may have been NS then) from Brewster to Bellevue and back behind NKP 765.
I took a spring trip to Bellevue and back a few years ago. The train was nowhere near sold out, and had 2 coaches that were completely empty. Maybe if they would lower the ticket prices a bit, they could increase overall revenue.
Lowering ticket prices “a bit” could well result in operating even a sold-out trip at break-even (with no funds set aside for future equipment maintenance) or at a loss. The public has little idea how costly trips are for excursion operators.