We're looking for survival here. This is us we're talking about, we really need to turn this around. We need to let the rest of the world know about us. We've got to stand tall and talk about it.

This really worked out well. I've never seen this many people at the end of the night.

It is gratifying to see this many people all together. Hundreds help for Thomas the Tank and the Christmas trains...Throughout the year, about 250-300 people come from not only Boone but all over central Iowa to help.

This is just a portion of the people who volunteer throughout the year. They are so sincere about (volunteering). When we ran the Polar Express, we needed 35 people for each train to be fully staffed. We had 14 trains and never had any trouble getting volunteers.

I would rather be guilty of talking over a person's head than behind his back.

Anything that can give us a clue about survival is important. Like many other things of this kind, we hope it just opens the door to new research.