Philadelphia, PA
May 31, 2005
In
response to questions regarding the rerouting of the inbound
special to the 2005 NRHS Convention, Greg Molloy, President
of the National Railway Historical Society, recently posted
the following message. This letter is reproduced with permission.
THIS IS NOT AN OFFICIAL NRHS STATEMENT. The
opinions expressed here are my own.
The inbound special from Emeryville to Portland
will be operated by Trains Unlimited Tours (TUT). The TUT
train is operating with the approval of the NRHS convention,
will provide some limited income to the convention, and
will bring in cars for use on one convention train. The
inbound special, however, is primarily a TUT operation.
TUT is responsible for the marketing and operating arrangements
and also assumes the financial risk. Tickets are sold separately
from the convention events. Many people riding the train
are not registered to attend the convention, and many people
attending the convention are not planning to ride the inbound
special.
First and foremost, I have no reason to believe
that Trains Unlimited Tours did not sincerely and reasonably
believe that they would be able to operate via Keddie wye.
TUT had what they believed to be written approval of the
route from the railroads involved. They had to announce
and advertise the trip before signing binding contracts
with the carriers involved. In that, they were no different
from almost any other rail tour operator or sponsor operating
in the USA during the last decade. Anyone who waited for
all the final approvals to be granted and the paperwork
to be signed before selling space would have gone out of
business years ago.
Second, I need to point out that when UP withdrew
their permission to operate via Keddie, TUT did not simply
fall back to their minimum legal backup position. They would
have fulfilled their stated obligations if they had simply
run the Starlight route, provided three box lunches and
included two nights hotel accommodations for those who purchased
them. Instead, they have been working hard to include extras
to make up for the lost freight-only mileage. Granted, some
people may already have the McCloud and the CO&P. But
if TUT were only interested in getting your money, they
wouldn’t have invested the time and effort it took
to arrange those alternates. For much less effort, they
could have simply given us four or six extra hours per day
to watch TV in our layover motel rooms.
It also doesn’t surprise me that TUT
is sticking with their published refund policy. Running
charter passenger trains, in either North or South America,
is a very uncertain business. For almost all of the railroads
involved, it is a sideline well removed from their core
business. Numerous things can, and occasionally do, go wrong.
A tour operator has to make heavy financial commitments
up front. Neither TUT nor any other tour operator can afford
to let customers walk away from their own financial commitment
to the tour whenever anything changes.
In short, I commend Trains Unlimited Tours
for undertaking a very ambitious project under adverse conditions.
I also commend them for developing a good backup package
when the original plans didn’t work out. As a mileage
collector, I will miss the Inside Gateway, but I will appreciate
adding some other lines I don’t have. As a photographer
and a train traveler, I’m looking forward to a very
enjoyable trip.
Greg Molloy
NRHS President
