Steam & Excursion > 611 Ticket Sales

I wonder how ticket sales are going for all the 611 trips. I've noticed on Facebook they're having a lot of promotions trying to sell more tickets, which I get, but I don't remember this much promotion from previous years. Maybe the Virginia area is already being saturated with mainline steam trips? Maybe they're just starting to be more social media savvy.

There has been scuttlebutt that they are not selling well at all. I kinda thought they might reach a saturation point with confining 611's operations to such a relatively small area for 3 years running now. IMO, if they had focused on making sure they found more unique routes each year with less repetition, to give people in a greater number of cities and a larger variety of unique routes to ride, that they would have sustained higher ticket sales year to year.

TG

Just put some secured open door baggage cars near the front of the steam train for the passenger to stand in and listen to the locomotive. I rode the rear open gondola at 85 mph to and from Crewe and lived through it.

PlyWoody Wrote:
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> Just put some secured open door baggage cars near
> the front of the steam train for the passenger to
> stand in and listen to the locomotive. I rode the
> rear open gondola at 85 mph to and from Crewe and
> lived through it.

What he said.

Posted from iPhone

Buttons2013 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> PlyWoody Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > Just put some secured open door baggage cars
> near
> > the front of the steam train for the passenger
> to
> > stand in and listen to the locomotive. I rode
> the
> > rear open gondola at 85 mph to and from Crewe
> and
> > lived through it.
>
> What he said.
>
> Posted from iPhone
Liability issue, no open gondolas in this day and age. Bring any one of the Southern or Norfolk Southern Steam Engines up to the Baltimore area and tickets will sell so fast and the train will be packed. We are steam starved up here folks.
John

As we proved convincingly with the 614 program on NJTransit ( 1996-98) the serious steam lover crowd gets smaller and smaller with each passing year as those for whom steam was part of their growing up years become fewer and fewer. Even though we were operating dead center in a market of 15 million consumers by the 3rd. year we couldn't fill a train even at give away prices and that's offering a steam lovers dream ( no diesels, open windows, track speed ( 79mph vs. 40 mph) real runbys) or the " full Monty" that hadn't be available for 15 years prior nor since.

To be a successful product in today's reality you must combine uniqueness with something more than a train ride ( something compelling to do at the turn around point) and price it as low as possible.

The days of seeing a mainline steam excursion sell-out due to its appeal to the foamers are gone forever.

IMHO-Ross Rowland

HMMMM! Thomas at 79MPH?? Maybe they should paint 611 bright blue and put a smiley face on it?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/27/17 18:53 by trainsfireengine.

Seemed as though the sales were better on Saturday than on Sunday.

akpsteam Wrote:
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> Seemed as though the sales were better on Saturday
> than on Sunday.

Yes, and that applies to the next trips, May 6 and 7 Lynchburg to Petersburg, Virginia, and return, with a number of seats left on Sunday. The ticket website shows, car by car, what tickets remain.

http://fireup611.org/excursions/

It's the third year, mostly the same markets. Next year (hopefully there is a next year) some new destinations and incentives will be needed. Prices and costs will likely be higher next year too.

Sundays are always the slower sellers no matter what - even on trips that sell the fastest.

What's missing from this conversation is the fact that the host railroad has to approve where the 611 runs.

It doesn't matter if Buffalo or Fort Wayne or Cincinnati hasn't seen the J since the 1980s - all the big engines go where traffic, logistics and management will tolerate them.

PlyWoody Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Just put some secured open door baggage cars near
> the front of the steam train for the passenger to
> stand in and listen to the locomotive.

Something I think is interesting is they basically had a raffle to allow one couple to do this. You had to have already purchased tickets to be entered into the raffle but who cares, that's not a big deal. Even if they had to sign a waiver I'd be willing to do that. Heck, I'd especially be willing to pay the same price as a seat to have standing room only access to a baggage car.

We rode the first year 611 was back, we're riding again this year, and while it's still awesome in these completely sealed coaches it really does detract from the experience. Many people have said here that "people don't care what's pulling the train" but to those of us who do care if you can't hear or see the steam engine anyway then it might as well be pulled by a diesel.

And this is one of the reasons 1522 sits dead in the museum. When you have to run trips that may just make the break even point the money isn't there to go into the maintenance fund, insurance fund and rainy day fund.
We sold out our farewell trips because they were farewell trips. The NRHS chapter did nicely as did we. If each trip would have sold like that it would have been popular.
We sort of had the area market saturated.

With apologies to a farm in Iowa, you have to do more than build it for them to come. Museums are facing similar realities.

Mary McPherson
Dongola, IL
Diverging Clear Productions

The excusions operated out of Roanoke are the closest to where I live.  If a Roanoke - Bluefield trip was offered, I would have been interested.  The shorter morning and afternoon trips to Lynchburg and Walton/Radford are of less interest.  The fares are rather high in relation to the distances covered.  Combine this shortcoming with the lack of open vestibules and I decided to pass on this year's 611 trips in favor of other excursion (steam or diesel) opportunities.