Whether you think it’s massively impressive, massively overrated, or just massive, there is no denying that Big Boy’s Eastern US tour has captured public attention for steam railroading in ways that haven’t been seen in decades, if ever. But how can we channel that enthusiasm into rail preservation moving forward? Photo by Fan Railer. FULL TRANSCRIPT Welcome to Nick’s Train of Thought, part of The Roundhouse Podcast. Whether you think it’s massively impressive, massively overrated, or just massive, there is no denying that Big Boy’s Eastern US tour has captured public attention for steam railroading in ways that haven’t been seen in decades, if ever. Scranton got to experience the Taylor Swift effect of having its local economy boosted by $16 million. Countless reporters, public officials, and influencers have shared their experiences with the locomotive. Even for me, Facebook keeps recommending posts from small business owners having “watch parties” next to the line. This was a herculean effort. And with the trip coming to an end, it seems to have paid off not just in the smiles of railfans but the delight of the public at large. While the focus is on a single locomotive owned by one company, it’s worth recognizing that even Union Pacific needed to work beyond its offices in Omaha to pull this off. Yes, the UP Steam Crew put in a ton of effort to ensure that the logistics of the trip would work, but let’s acknowledge that a Fortune 500 company needed to collaborate for this tour to happen as it did. Norfolk Southern, Reading and Northern, and the National Parks Service provided venues for people to connect with the locomotive. Fire departments provided water. Police departments kept the roads around the train safe. Local news outlets built up the excitement. And many other people and entities played equally valuable roles. A big thing happened because a lot of people collaborated to make it happen. I was talking with Rob Davis, one of the founders of the Ahead of the Torch forum on Facebook about this phenomenon. He posed the following question that has been ringing in my ears for the past month: how does heritage railroading take this level of interest in trains and try to use it as a springboard for our field at large? With my company Streamliner Media, something I almost always say to clients is “meet your audience where they are”. Understand the audience and what their knowledge on a subject is. Then, find ways to relate to what they know while introducing them to new ideas or information. Right now, our audience, the general public, is captivated by the story of this huge locomotive traveling through the Eastern states. The Altoona Curve Baseball Facebook page posted a “man on the street” style video where they asked stadium attendees questions about Big Boy and trains in general. That video in a few days racked up almost 20 thousand views within two days. Major news outlets like CBS Mornings and NPR run their own stories on the trip. It’s not every year that hundreds of thousands of Americans are talking about one single steam locomotive-centered event. Where is our audience at this moment? Talking about trains! So how can we carry that forward? Sure, as individual organizations, we can put out a social media post that ties in with Big Boy, but that is just the start. Much more can be accomplished if we create events that are driven by multiple organizations working together. If we make the most of combined strength, skillset, and resources, what doors does that unlock? When we look at the landscape of tourist railroads, museums, and historical nonprofits, there are so many ways in which combining our resources can yield events and opportunities that otherwise might be unthinkable. One event from the past that I like to cite as an example of this is the Joliet Rocket, a collaboration between Fort Wayne Railroad Historical Society (owners of Nickel Plate 765), Metra, and various other partners. Four round trips over two days accommodated 2,500 people and brought a sense of prestige due to the glamor element of train travel being a prominent selling point. Then there was Train Festival 2009, a gathering of locomotives and vendors from around the country. Estimates are that 40,000 people came to Owosso Michigan over the course of four summer days. The time has never been better for us to find those ways to take this renewed interest in trains and channel it into ridership, attendance, donations, volunteers, and even careers in the field of heritage railroading. That’s my train of thought, but what is yours? How could you see rail organizations collaborating on larger messaging and events in practical sustainable ways that makes the most of this opportunity? The post Big Boy Happened. Now What? (Nick’s Train of Thought #1) appeared first on The Roundhouse Podcast.
