Last time I was out here, I was asking Santa for better weather. Well, it certainly improved. Still somewhat cold and damp, but that's what we have to expect at this time of year. And so we had a great crowd of passengers, and everybody seemed to be having a good time. Tickets are selling extremely well, and extra runs have been added on several days. For details, see the IRM website, since plans may change further. On Saturday, basically every trip was sold out, so they weren't even taking walk-up customers.
Happy Holiday Railway is an increasingly important success story for the Museum, and I can't stress enough how much work is required on the part of our members to keep it going, and growing. Last week our esteemed President was shoveling snow, this week he was a trainman, as you'll see. At about 8pm, when I was done for the day, the cleanup crew were taking over to clean the cars and fix any problems. For instance, I reported a defective walkover seat to Nick Day, and he was ready to check it out. Some of the Diesel Dept. guys are there nearly every day for the duration. Our Santa and elves seem to be doing a good job, and most of our customers seemed to be very pleased with the service we're providing. Lots of laughing, singing, picture taking, and so on. We get a good number of large family groups, with cousins, aunts and uncles, and so on.
And I should point out that the dreary weather provides a very useful talking point for urging people to come back in July for Thomas. It's bound to be different!
I was too busy to take many pictures, and you really need better equipment for this situation, so here's a crew picture at least. Kevin Kriebs wasn't available, and Nick Espevik was using my camera. Thomas Slater was the conductor, and Norm and I were trainmen.
By the way, this time I asked Santa for an electric train. We'll just have to wait and see whether it arrives.
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