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| Why Not Plandampf? | ||
| By John A. Craft | ||
| The debate over train riders versus chasing photographers is an old one, has never been solved, and may never be. Like the "what if" scenarios of dieselization ("What if steam turbines had worked?" "What if oil prices had been a lot higher in 1947?") or the Civil War ("What if Stonewall Jackson hadn't died?" "What if the Confederate Army had retreated from Gettysburg earlier?"), the hypothetical scenarios are often just so much oxygen consumption. Trip sponsors call chasers "freeloaders," and accuse them of moral lapse. Chasers counter that they take nothing away from the excursion operator - he's selling a ride, not a day of photos. Who's right? How can we all get along? | ||
| This comes to mind because in the last month I've had this conversation with two different people. One was musing aloud how to get the photographers that spend thousands on cameras and video equipment to chip in on restoration projects. The other had to do with a structured method for payments to tourist lines for chasing. | ||
| First: in my opinion, the trip - sponsor argument is fallacious. The cars of chasers aren't people who would otherwise ride your train, for three reasons: (a) quite often your excursion is sold out; (b) some of us just don't get any pleasure from boarding and excursion at 6:30am and getting off near Midnight; and (c) today's chaser may be tomorrow's rider, and vice versa. Chasers aren't chasing because they're cheap; they spend lots of money on cameras and travel expenses. They're chasing because you're not offering the product they want to buy. | ||
| Second: chasers who don't contribute should, especially if the trip sponsor is a non-profit organization. (For-profit tourist lines are an iron horse of a different color - they typically have more resources at their disposal, including better marketing heads who know how to separate the chasers from their money. Based on the chasers I see, it usually involves a T-shirt, hat or pin.) Should there be a structured way? There are already several "structured" ways. Buy a ticket and don't use it. Join the group at a sustaining level (you'll get a tax deduction as well). Make a donation to a particular restoration fund. | ||
| But the onus is on the organization to make it attractive to cough up some dosh. And the fabled "chaser's pass" never worked, because there's no incentive to buy it. It simply isn't reasonable for an organization to offer a train ride, sell it out, then complain that chasers don't bend over backwards to shower you with pennies from heaven. Rather than complaining, realize the obvious: they want to buy something you're not selling. It's not a new structure that's needed, it's incentive. | ||
| So why don't you offer it? | ||
| Case in point: on different occasions, in different locations, an organization has planned a special weekend aimed at riders, and video producer David Goodheart has offered a special photographer's train the following Monday. The photographers were paying around twenty times the going rate for a train ride ticket, and the organizations involved took home several thousand dollars between them. (When's the last time you sold a single person twenty tickets?) | ||
| Back in 1992 I offered a two-day freight charter on the Cumbres & Toltec Scenic Railroad that mushroomed into five days of heavy freights. Eighty-five people, from ten countries, spent about $100,000 in the area (almost a quarter of that went to the railway). To quote Earl Knoob, we extended the tourist season in Chama by a week. | ||
| In other words, the market, and the money, is there for the organization who can see the opportunity and offer the appropriate product. | ||
| So just what is a "Plandampf?" | ||
| "Plandampf" is a German "combi-word" meaning "Scheduled Steam," and was coined to describe the use of Deutsche Reichsbahn (in the former East Germany) steam locomotives on regularly-scheduled Deutsche Reichsbahn trains, both passenger and freight. The concept originated shortly after the fall of the Berlin Wall, when in late 1990 events were scheduled coincidentally by Robin Garn and Klaus Wilmsmeyer. | ||
| Plandampfs require payments to the railroad to offset the additional cost of moving, stabling, and running steam locomotives. The payment to the railroad is raised by disclosing schedules to rail enthusiasts who pay a "Participation Fee." If enough money to pay for the event is not collected, the event is either canceled or curtailed. If a surplus is collected, then additional locomotives and trains are scheduled. Schedules are released to participants shortly before the event so that the rider or photographer will be able to plan his movements. | ||
| These events get pretty big. In 1993 a five-day event featured twelve steam locomotives on dozens of trains. The last one I attended, in February 1998, drew 300 participants paying $100 per day to see three 2-10-0s on fast freights (two on the front, one on the rear) and Pacifics on passenger trains. | ||
| The appeal of a plandampf is very different from an excursion or a photo charter. After paying your fee, you may photograph from lineside; buy a ticket on a scheduled, steam-hauled passenger train; or just stand on a station platform and watch steam-powered trains pass all day. The thrill of chasing an excursion pales in comparison. | ||
| But a plandampf comes with a built-in dilemma for the photographer. Just as in steam days, there are multiple movements occurring simultaneously, and you have decisions to make. Do you shoot the passenger train moving westward, or the freight moving east at the same time? Photograph all trains from one great location, or move around? Is there time to get from location A to location B? | ||
| There's only one way to plan for the best balance of photos: pay the Participation Fee, get the day's timetable, and carefully plan your movements in advance. At German plandampfs, sitting in "headquarters" (usually a buffet car parked in an accessible location near the roundhouse) over a beer, getting tips on photo locations, and working out the options with newfound friends is part of the fun. | ||
| (So Craft knows about German railfans. Big deal - how does this apply to me?) | ||
| Use the concept - make it attractive to pay the fee. You're quite good at doing that for excursions, aren't you? You're not going to replace a brace of NS diesels on that unit coal train, but you can put together an authentic steam-powered consist. | ||
| Just don't try to do it yourself - remember, you've already demonstrated you don't know what they want. Get a chaser - the local guy who always has his pictures in the hobby magazines - to plan your event and run it. If he's not a member, make him a member for free this year - he'll probably join next time. If you're determined to go it alone, keep these guidelines in mind: | ||
| Risk and Reward. If too few people pay, the event is cancelled. For someone planning to spend $1000 on airfare, rental car, hotel and meals, the extra $200 becomes very palatable. He KNOWS your excursion is going to run whether he chases or not - but he can't be sure about your photo event without paying. On the other end of the spectrum, offer additional locomotives, trains or days if participation exceeds a threshold - your customers get more without paying more, and will encourage their friends to ante up. | ||
| Put on a rare, authentic event. Maybe you can't come up with a roundhouse full of 2-10-0s, or a long string of Pullmans. But make the most of what you've got. Texas State Railroad always draws a crowd when they turn out one of their locos in authentic livery on string of wooden freight cars (and they've done it with their T&P 4-6-0, and their Tremont & Gulf 2-8-2). North Carolina Transportation Museum drew a crowd of about 50 photographers in 1995 when they turned out Buffalo Creek & Gauley 2-8-0 No. 4 in correct livery for a day. Freights out of Chama draw more photographers when the engines are relettered "Rio Grande." Almost 100 of us paid $150 to see the first "Rio Grande" - painted K28 in decades last December. So paint those driver tires black, replace "Tourist Line Central" with the original livery, and come up with a consist of heavyweight Pullman-green coaches (with RPO and baggage) or old freight cars. | ||
| Scenery and exclusivity. Not every tourist line is blessed with steep, twisting trackage and craggy peaks in the distance. Even the least scenic operation probably sports a few locations to show off your train, but you may have to break out the implements of destruction. Get out there and cut the brush, remove all the trash, and set up a photo line on your property BEFORE the day's event. Have a member who's not a photographer guard each location for about an hour before the train is expected, to keep non-paying chasers out. | ||
| Low light. From October to April is the best time to run photo trains. Plan your operation to arrive at the first photo location just as the shadows recede. Make sure your train is running so that it's lit well (that's usually into the sun, but it doesn't have to be). If you have to run in June or July, plan a big gap in the schedule (stop at 11:00am, resume at 4:00pm) while the sun is too high in the sky to yield good photos. | ||
| Advertise. Don't try to keep the event a secret. It's counterproductive, and the grapevine is better than you. And there WILL be non-paying chasers - accept it and ignore them, it's not worth the hassle to do otherwise. What you CAN keep secret is the day's schedule. Don't release it until just before the event, and then only to paying photographers. Don't even tell the crew until 48 hours in advance - that way they can honestly tell their friends they don't know. And don't advertise it as a "one-time event" if you plan to repeat it next year. | ||
| Vary. You can run the same program twice, maybe three times - the second event's customers will be the ones who saw the pictures in the hobby magazines. (Besides, if your operation becomes easy to predict, the incentive to pay goes down.) But after that revamp the whole event, once again going back to your chasers for ideas. | ||
| If your group can put on an authentic photographer's event, don't leave all that money sitting on the table - offer the product that will put it in your bank account. | ||
| JAC | ||
| What's your reaction? Send your comments to mail@steamcentral.com. | ||
| From Gary Woodward: | ||
| "I'm affraid I disagree with keeping the so called non paying chasers out of a given area, the only way to do that is when the excursion cuts through private property, on private property, you have some control as to who enters, exits, whatever, but on public access property, its a whole nother story, even if privatly owned, I don't believe its right to chase someone off because they are non paying customers." | ||
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