Meet Eleanor: Making Tracks in Train Travel
by Judy Jacobs /Eleanor Hardy’s focus on railway travel began when a press release announcing the cancellation of Amtrak’s Floridian service in the late 1970s, had her husband Owen searching for a magazine about modern day train travel.
There wasn’t one to be found, so he created the International Railway Traveler.
As the magazine gained in popularity, readers started asking Eleanor and Owen—both former newspaper reporters—to organize trips for them.
But it was the Girl Scouts that gave Eleanor the confidence to do so.
Great training
“About 20 years ago I was a very active Girl Scout leader,” said Hardy, who is now president of The Society of International Railway Travelers, a Virtuoso agency in Louisville, Ky.
“I took ten Girl Scouts and two other adults to Europe and did all the planning to take them to cities around the U.S.,” she said.
“The Girl Scouts don’t let you travel with girls without getting a tremendous amount of training.”
Starting out
In 1990, Hardy relied on that training to begin selling travel and now sells trips on some of the world’s most famous trains. Her husband serves as CEO and handles the publishing side of the business along with other duties.
To promote what she sells, the couple publishes IRT Extra, a weekly newsletter that has 8,000 subscribers, and an annual Best Loved Railway Journeys tour book, the latest incarnation of their original magazine.
Selling railway travel is not an easy task, and that’s why other agents book through her, said Hardy. She pays agents commissions.
Selling what you know—and trust
“A lot of people put clients on cruises they don’t know anything about, but with trains you have to have direct knowledge of the product,” Hardy said.
“We know which cabins to get and personally know the staff on these trains. I can contact the porter on the E&O Express, and he can give us a report on how our passengers are doing.”
And her company only sells trains they trust.
“If we haven’t experienced a product, or if it’s not one of our Virtuoso partners, then we don’t sell it,” she said.
“There are plenty of trains around the world that say they’re luxury trains, but we’re not going to put our clients on something that we haven’t personally evaluated.”
Branching out
Most of what Hardy books is FIT travel.
“Last year 20% of the passengers onboard the Paris Istanbul Venice Simplon-Orient-Express were ours,” she said.
Although 90% of what The Society of International Railway Travelers sells is rail, it’s getting more involved in cruises and continues to book pre- and post-land packages.
In addition to FITs, Hardy operates group tours both on trains and boats.
Challenges abound
Railway travel has proved to be a very successful niche for Hardy, but there are challenges.
Perhaps the biggest of these is dealing with “new clients who are switching from the largest suite on the Regent (Seven Seas Cruises) to the Golden Eagle, Trans-Siberian imperial suite, who may be surprised by the smaller size and the price,” she said.
It’s also necessary to vet the mobility of each client, Hardy added.
“Most of the trains we sell are not accessible for people in wheelchairs. They’re not appropriate for people who can’t walk or for really large people,” she said.
“I had one couple who were planning to go on a train trip but they were so large they wouldn’t have been able to get through the door to go to the bathroom.”
Fixing problems
Being proactive is also important, according to Hardy.
“I do everything I can do to fix things that are problems, and if something goes wrong I raise hell,” said Hardy.
After having clients on the E&O when it was nine hours late, she contacted the company ‘s representative and said it should give her clients a free trip.
The company her request with a daytrip on the British Pullman in England and her clients were delighted.
The future
Hardy has no plans to retire.
In fact she’s always looking for ways to expand the business.
“We hand out our cards everywhere we go and are always trying to encourage people to come into our industry,” she said. “We need more advisors. We need more staff to go and inspect trains.”
In spite of her efforts, however, she hasn’t been able to convince her two daughters to join their parents.
One is a post doctoral fellow in cultural anthropology and the other sells vintage clothing around the world. “She has, however, taken our model and applied it to her clothing business,” Hardy said.