The philosopher Wrote:
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> I totally agree, that is my point. But this is
> where it gets complicated. In this day and age
> when steam charters are so expensive, organizers
> struggle to keep group size manageable, and the
> price affordable. In most cases organizers
> struggle to breakeven much less make a profit. So
> anyone other than crew riding for free either
> inflates the group size or forces a price
> increase. For small organizations with only a few
> volunteers that probably is manageable, but what
> about the Friends of the C&TS that has literally
> hundreds of folks volunteering to work on the
> equipment used in charters.

Then you run a special train as a thank you to your volunteers. The Pacific Locomotive Association, operators of the Niles Canyon Railway, operates a members only Train of Lights at the beginning of the yearly Train of Lights schedule. Members are given tickets based on the number of hours they logged. There is also the Harvest Moon train and 4th of July trains run for the members. This is an example of a good operation that acknowledges and does things for their volunteers. The BOD of a smart operation should define an hourly value of the labor the volunteers put in and multiply it by the number of volunteer hours worked. You would be surprised at what the total value of that labor equals.

Be nice to your volunteers. When you do it's amazing what you can accomplish.