CANCELLATION OF THE ALASKA 2008 RAIL TOUR

I am saddened to announce the cancellation of the Southern Appalachia Railway Museum's 2008 Alaska Rail Tour, scheduled for September. The Museum volunteers will begin issuing refund checks during the next week.

Planning for this event began in June, 2007, with a number of meetings with officials of the Alaska Railroad and several on-site inspections. When the tour was proposed publicly during late summer 2007, we received almost 150 confirmations of interest. Based upon this, both officials from the Museum and the Railroad spent a great deal of time, effort and expense in planning for the tour, designed for about 90 people, which would have been the first of its kind on the railroad.

Unfortunately, the concern with the US economy has greatly reduced the interest in the trip and has significantly increased the cost of the event. A number of other tours have also had to be cancelled or reduced. We attempted to work with several of these tours to combine them to make the plan work, but we still were unable to acquire anything near the number of tour participants needed to make the trip a go.

Those who regularly ride trips sponsored by SARM know that we seldom alter or cancel a trip, instead deciding to rely upon our riders to cover the costs of the event. However, although this was suggested by several in this case, we were still approximately $50,000 short of covering the growing costs and the Museum is in no position to risk such a loss. Furthermore, we do not feel that it would be fair to ask for additional funding for a trip that is already expensive by many trip standards.

As stated, we are very disappointed by our failure to obtain the number of riders needed for this event. We feel that this would have been a wonderful event and certainly a unique opportunity for the railfan community. We do want to thank the many officials at the Alaska Railroad, the Tanana Valley Railroad Museum in Fairbanks, and the management of the Talkeetna Alaskan Lodge for their assistance in the planning for the trip. A number of volunteers at the Southern Appalachia Railway Museum deserve a thanks since we put in close to 1000 hours in planning, advertising, and managing the event. Finally, we also want to thank those of you who signed up for the trip and put up with our delays as we attempted to make the trip a go.

One further note. As a part of the planning, a trip guide was prepared for the event. If you would like a copy, please let me know and I will e-mail you a copy of this very detailed guide about the Alaska Railroad.

Barton Jennings (b.jennings@mchsi.com)
Southern Appalachia Railway Museum

This page last revised: April 22, 2008