Even the railways themselves have curtailed or eliminated their own heritage runnings, such as CPKC's Royal Canadian Pacific and their 2818 trainset. It appears they stay pretty close to home out west.
Where these do happen, they are now carefully controlled by the C-suite, and require a meeting of minds between head honchos, especially those who mange corporate image, public relations, operations, risk and liability. Going ahead and asking forgiveness afterwards is generally not an option.
In the past, there was much more room for lower level management to say, hey the train is going to sit idle anyways, why not? And, in a day where passenger trains were more common, having one more out there for somebody's fall fair didn't seem like a big deal. There were fewer management information systems that placed approval and control with corporate office.
Having said that, these specials are a source of great pride and engagement for the workers involved. There are good reasons to run them, but on a very controlled and measured basis driven from the very top - they do not happen "on request" anymore.
It seems the ONR is a fairly regular host to the North American Railcar Operators Association ('speeders'/'jiggers'), which surprises me given the usual risk-averse nature of government agencies.
Speeder meets get to go some interesting places. They are a whole level of complexity simpler to manage than a train excursion, involve a much smaller number of potential accident claimants (who are generally knowledgeable and must meet specific qualification and safety awareness requirements) , and they don't draw the public to the tracks the way an excursion does. It's such a small and narrow focussed group that one wonders why the railways even bother, but great to see where they do.
- Paul
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