GALESBURG, Ill. — The Railroad Days Council chairman said Wednesday planning the annual festival is “no longer business as usual,” the Peoria Journal Star reported.
The committee met to discuss liability concerns of the Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railroad, and whether Galesburg’s annual festival can continue to call itself Railroad Days.
Jamie Bjorkland, council chairman, said the committee should consider changing the festival’s name, because it would be inappropriate to advertise the festival without a sizable amount of railroad exhibits.
“For the first time in 26 years, it is no longer business as usual,” Chairman Jaime Bjorkland said. “We could continue to call it almost Railroad Days or Railroad Days sorta.”
BNSF officials notified the council that it would be scaling back its involvement because of liability concerns.
Bjorkland said the company is concerned about non-employees touring the rail yards. The company also is concerned about insuring memorabilia such as the Nebraska Zephyr, a 1950s rail car that traveled between Chicago and Nebraska, that is brought to Galesburg every year.
Bjorkland said he doesn’t know why the BNSF has now raised liability concerns about a festival it has been involved in for more than 20 years.
“It’s a sign of the times,” Bjorkland said. “We’ve had an excellent relationship with the railroad. There are no bad feeling with the railroad. I understand their position.”
Other committee members thought they should wait before removing Railroad Day’s from the event’s title.
“The whole thing is built around bringing the railroad to Galesburg,” Jim Woods said. “Galesburg would not be the city it is today without the railroad.”
Harry Grossman said the event coordinators also would be alienating the event’s core group – railroad buffs.
“For 25 years, we have been marketing to railroad buffs,” Grossman said. “Changing the festival’s name would be throwing that marketing right down the sewer.”
Grossman also said BNSF has been reducing involvement in other railroad festivals around the country.
The committee also considered ways to include the railroad aspect of the festival without the support of BNSF.
The group is considering placing watch towers around the city were railroad enthusiasts can watch trains roll through Galesburg.
“We don’t need the BNSF to be a railroad event,” Woods said. “I think they will come back to it.”