Cortland-Binghamton Passenger Train Study

[kemay59]

The Department of Recreation, Parks, and Leisure Studies at SUNY College at Cortland has posted the Cortland-Binghamton passenger train study final report at http://www.cortland.edu/rec/2008.Train% ... Report.pdf . Cortland State was awarded a $50,000 member item from New York State Senator Tom Libous of Binghamton in 2007 for "development of a study about uses of passenger rail for tourism between Binghamton and Cortland, and operational aid for operating tourism trains." In 2008, the college was awarded another $50,000 member item from Senator Libous to continue the study and operational aid.

Sources: SUNY Cortland and State Senator Tom Libous websites

[henry6]

This is a very interseting piece of work. Although it reccomends a "tourist" train service, it does so seemingly reservedly. Just a cursory read through now, but have to get into some of the minutea in the appendix. But as enthusiastic as I am about railroads and trains, I am not sure it is viable. I could see a sightseeing ride from say, Cheango Bridge to Cortland as that is the most scenic portion of the line; from Binghamton only because of its centrality. But beyond the scenery there is little to reccommend and support ridership. There are lines in nearby Wellsboro, PA and Steamtown an hour away in Scranton; The Delaware and Ulster Railride in Arville is very scenic in a heavily touristed area and the Cooperstown and Charlotte Valley in Milford is well established with a firm tourst base at Cooperstown. So just to run a train to see the same scenery you can see from Rts 11 or 81 means a very agressive marketing project to say the least. Like I said about the Utica side there has to be a "hook", a uniqueness, a draw, a reason, a destination in the form of a major touris attraction and there isn't one in Bingahmton, Whitney Point, Marathon, or Cortland. Also like I suggested for the Utica idea, there is no significant DL&W historical equipment avaialbe...two extant steam locomotives so far gone there isn't really enough money to get either of them in shape to be just pulled along much less ever pull anything. So that leaves you with the same thing the other guys have: common place diesels, former commuter coaches. Plus, I haven't even taken into consideration the needs of NYSW to make it happen...they do have a traffic load which has to be considered...no, not a major mainline, but a traffic pattern vs track capacity that would have to be dealt with. Plus, as is noted in the report, NYSW has disposed or is in the process of disposing of thier cars which means, at least, they don't have the available equipment, and at most, they are not interested in such a project. Ya see, I'm not all in favor of runnin' trains for the sake of runnin' trains but have to have a reason for the train to run. To get a return on investment. More later, I'm sure.

[Otto Vondrak]

If I read the report correctly, they praise the 2008 NYSW Maple Fest operation as an example of "best practices" but they give no indication that 2008 was the final year for such operations.

-otto-

[RailBus63]

I think a modest tourist operation could be successful using the Maple Fest trains to start with and then running the occasional 'Blues & Brews' train and holiday-themed runs, similar to what the Finger Lakes Railway has been running. I don't think there's enough demand for a regularly-scheduled operation, though.

[henry6]

I think a modest tourist operation could be successful using the Maple Fest trains to start with and then running the occasional 'Blues & Brews' train and holiday-themed runs, similar to what the Finger Lakes Railway has been running. I don't think there's enough demand for a regularly-scheduled operation, though.

That's one I missed, the Finger Lakes RR excursions! Beyond that, right, Otto, there was no indication that the Maple Festival trains are finished due to lack of equipment (and desire to operate). But also, buying or renting equipment as suggested for one or two or even six occasions a year is costly and it may not be available either. It is not like there is a huge rail yard warehousing hundreds of cars for demand use. No, the only way such an operation can even be thought about is there to be a major tourist attraction from which to draw patronage. Otherwise there is no draw! Or in otherwords, a tourist train operation in itself is not enough of a draw.

[lvrr325]

Seems to me that further operations have already lost $100,000 in two years doing studies on things anyone with any common sense who's been paying attention could have come up with - that the Maple Fest and a few other occasional excursions would do reasonably well, but regular service would compete with too many other things. For the same money they could have outright paid for a used locomotive (okay, not a great one if you want money left over, but one that does run) and a couple of coaches and run trips already.

Welcome to New York State, thanks for spending my money for me.

[cjvrr]

These students pay their tuition to the college and then the college obtains a grant to perform a study using student (free) labor.

The college is getting paid on both ends.

Man I have to start a college....

[kemay59]

According to the Cortland State study, the NYS&W received $37,815 of the $50,000 grant from 2007 to cover their loss from the 2008 Marathon Maple Festival trains. The study did not break down the operating costs in detail. Does $61,000 for eight round trips between Cortland and Marathon in two days sound right?

Ridership and Financial Data from the Maple Fest Train (Page 23)

On April 5 and 6, 2008, the Central New York Maple Festival Train boarded the
most passengers it has carried in the Festival’s recent years: 3,698 passengers.
The breakdown by day included 1,750 on Saturday and 1,948 on Sunday. Although
exact data on types of tickets purchased are not known, the majority of users
purchased round trip tickets, and passengers were of all ages (adults, children,
and children under 3). More detailed information may be available by contacting
the New York, Susquenhanna, and Western Railway Corporation.

Costs to operate the tourism train totaled $61,634.25. Ticket sales covered
$23,819.25 of these costs, with the balance ($37,815.00) being covered by the
operational aid portion of this project’s grant.

[todnielson]

If two days of operation really cost that much, no tourist railroad could afford to exist. Fuel cost was certainly a factor. The only other thing I can think of that would drive the cost up like that is if it includes the cost to reschedule or re-route trains that would have normally used that rail.

[lvrr325]

So 3698 people paid an average of just over $6 to ride all weekend? if you multiply $6 even it nets you $22,188. Does anyone have the flyer with ticket prices on it? That seems low.

I don't have as much of an issue with the study if it's actually paying for trains to run, but $62,000 in expenses sounds rather high, especially considering there was no equipment rental involved. (they ran with the bilevel cars and the O&W NW2 if I remember right, plus probably another engine on the other end).

That's what, 16 trips back and forth for about ... for the sake of argument since I don't have a timetable handy, 25 miles, making a total of 400 miles for the weekend. How many gallons of fuel, not including overnight idling? Even if you used an entire 3000 gallon tank in the weekend, which is unlikely, that's in the $15,000 range. I'd bet more around half a tank. ( The only thing I can think of to compare to is the Erie Lackawanna's units with 5000-gallon tanks that could run Chicago-NYC on the tank if there were no big delays. If you figure that's 1000 miles, then figure half that for the weekend gets you 1250 gallons for about $6250 at $5 per gallon ). Most of the train staff were volunteers, you had a qualified engineer at two days pay, probably a qualified conductor at two days pay, and I'd suspect people to sell tickets on each end. That's another $1000 anyhow. Then you have some expenses for electricity and heat at Cortland and electricity at Marathon and other incedentals.

So far, though, by my fuzzy math my expenses are in the $7500-$8500 range. What am I missing? Liability insurance, I think, is it. I don't know what those costs are. There's other smaller things like fueling the generators in the passenger cars (or whatever the power source was for the lights and heat), too. Maybe someone paid to sell snacks on the train.

Edit: Or is my math wrong, if it's 16 round trips, that's twice the distance, so it would be twice the fuel, $12,500. A lot, but with the other expenses you get to maybe $15,000 or so. The comparison here is rough anyways, a small engine with 3 or 4 cars probably doesn't use the fuel a 20-cylinder SDP45 hauling 75 cars at speeds up to 65 mph does.


It's been too long since I was at a board meeting where the figures from a CNY NRHS excursion were discussed to remember what kind of expenses they had. But that $8500 number rings some bells in my head the more I think about it.

kemay59, you're involved with the LVRRHS over in Shortsville, right? You don't have to share it here if it's not public info, but maybe you could compare with the costs of one of their excursions. I'm sure they use more volunteers to keep costs down, but the costs for using the equipment and engineer should be similar.

As far as rescheduling or rerouting trains, NYS&W only runs one train a day to Syracuse. I'm not sure how they currently handle the local work in Cortland and elsewhere on the line. But that train normally comes up in the mid-late afternoon. Delaying it until 6 PM might be long enough to need to use a second crew on the train, but it would still make Syracuse and interchange to CSX before midnight.

[ricebrianrice]

I can add that the round trip from Binghamton to Marathon, was $20 per person. To expensive for my family of 5, considering it is only a 1/2 hour drive.

Brian

[todnielson]

As far as rescheduling or rerouting trains, NYS&W only runs one train a day to Syracuse. I'm not sure how they currently handle the local work in Cortland and elsewhere on the line. But that train normally comes up in the mid-late afternoon. Delaying it until 6 PM might be long enough to need to use a second crew on the train, but it would still make Syracuse and interchange to CSX before midnight.

I don't think that is quite right. I haven't kept particular track, but I regularly see one early afternoon (it ties me up trying to get home for lunch sometimes) and hear the horn of at least one in the evening. This is a change since traffic was stopped on the Utica branch. I have seen a trash train regularly, and they seem to be moving a lot of asphalt out of Suit-Cote these days.

[umtrr-author]

It wouldn't surprise me to learn that liability insurance was a non-trivial amount of the expenses reported.

Another wild card would have to be the future of the NYS&W, and how friendly to tourist excursions it might or might not be post-Walter Rich.

[lvrr325]

As far as rescheduling or rerouting trains, NYS&W only runs one train a day to Syracuse. I'm not sure how they currently handle the local work in Cortland and elsewhere on the line. But that train normally comes up in the mid-late afternoon. Delaying it until 6 PM might be long enough to need to use a second crew on the train, but it would still make Syracuse and interchange to CSX before midnight.

I don't think that is quite right. I haven't kept particular track, but I regularly see one early afternoon (it ties me up trying to get home for lunch sometimes) and hear the horn of at least one in the evening. This is a change since traffic was stopped on the Utica branch. I have seen a trash train regularly, and they seem to be moving a lot of asphalt out of Suit-Cote these days.

Train runs up, interchange is done in Solvay, a drop, a pickup, air test, and go home; it's not unrealistic that a train could arrive in Syraucse at 3:00 PM and leave by 4:00 PM or so. The only wild card is local work and local cars, I don't know if the road train handles it or a second crew on a local handles it. The train always seemed to go up in the late afternoon, but someone figured out it would be faster and easier to do the interchange up there and not have them run into Dewitt.

What am I missing? Liability insurance, I think, is it. I don't know what those costs are. There's other smaller things like fueling the generators in the passenger cars (or whatever the power source was for the lights and heat), too. Maybe someone paid to sell snacks on the train.

I'm sure it's not cheap, but it shouldn't be that hard to find out what a reasonable price for that is.