Now that the CAHSR Road Trip videos have been completed, lets do some channel talk and channel stat geekery.
Channel talk first:
The drone has arrived! I still need to register it and get the FAA part 107 certification before I can use it for the channel, but I'm going to start on that shortly.
Stew's News is up next. This is usually a breather week for me as those require less production time than a typical video. This week, however, I am going use that time to gear up content for YT memberships, which I will activate at the beginning of July. First thing I want to make clear is that this move will not diminish the free-with-ads content. I'm not going to take anything I would normally put on the channel and put it behind a pay wall. The memberships will be for things that are relevant to the channel that I CAN'T put on the channel without recking algorithms. This is going to include longer form footage and renders that were cut in normal content. Generally these run about twice as long as they do in videos. They're still plenty interesting, they just didn't fit time-wise with the narrative of various scripts. I'm initially going to charge $5/month for the membership. Those will be for people that are REALLY into the channel's content or that would just like to support the mission financially. I want members to get their money's worth, so there will be additional exclusive, specially-made content. I'm currently thinking of shorter-form by-request renders that wouldn't fly on the public channel, like perhaps Omaha to Lincoln, Nebraska( just pulling that from thin air, totally not related to someone who has asked for it for about a year now.) or fun, wacky stuff just for the hell of it. I'm going to be looking for feedback and making sure members think its worth it, and I will adjust until that is the case. There are plenty of things I can do and still be able to put out the normal, public content.
Channel Stat Geekery:
CAHSR Road Trip Part 1 has moved into the #3 most viewed spot at 38,586 views
CAHSR Road Trip Part 2 is now at #4 with 37,221.
Should be interesting to see which Road Trip video ends up on top and if they can threaten CAHSR LA-SD for the #2 spot, currently at 50,695
Every other top 10 video moves down 2 spaces, of course.
The former Battle For Third between Extending the NEC to Richmond and CAHSR Merced-Sac is now the Battle For Fifth. As predicted, CAHSR Merced-Sac is getting a boost from the Road Trip videos. The gap is now less than 400 views, but Extending The NEC to Richmond still hanging on to #5 34,790 views to 34,392.
The rest of the top 10 is as follows:
#7 Stew's News June 2024 - 32,121
#8 Improving The NEC - 28,162
#9 Revenge of CAHSR - 26,486
#10 Chicago Hub Network - 24,731
Chicago Hub hanging in there despite being over a year old!
Stew's News May 2024 and Brightline West Cajon Pass Driving Tour both drop out of the top 10.
Also, let's hear it for HSR Phoenix to Las Vegas topping 10,000 views after nearly a year, inexplicably getting 1,500 views over the last week to put it at 10,231. No idea what happened there.
Coming milestones:
20k for What Would It Take For CAHSR To Be Completed in 5 Years? in about a week.
Third and final part of the CAHSR Road Trip now available.
Second of three parts of the CAHSR Road Trip is now available. If the first part is an indication, these are going to exceed my expectations of them. The hope was that the revenue would cover the cost of the trip, but early days its looking like it will cover that and all of the equipment purchased for road activities. The signal I'm consistently getting is that money back into the channel is a good investment and also stretches like this trip are greatly appreciated, so things like that will continue to occur. Next reinvestment is a drone, so I can capture aerial footage in addition to everything else. I will likely buy that today and start the certification process soon. Stay tuned!
Hey, we're over 11,000 subs, just in time for the 11,000 subs celebration video on Monday!! :D You know I can't resist channel stat geek time...
As predicted:
BLW in UE5(#1) over 80k views.(now 84,705). That is slowing down, but still rolling along at about 400 views/day. I thought the ceiling on this one would be 80k. 100k looks possible in the long term now. How long will it take? Any bets?
CAHSR LA-SD(#2) over 50k views(50,137)
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There is a battle going on for the #3 spot. CAHSR Merced-Sacramento(#4 33,497) has been slowing eating away at Extending NEC to Richmond's(34,510) lead after losing the #3 spot. CAHSR Merced-Sac not giving up! The CAHSR videos will probably also be getting a boost from the current series.
Stew's News June 2024 is the first Stew's News to crack 30k(30,939) and now in the #5 spot. Improving the NEC falling to #6 as a result(27,588)
Stew's News May 2024 settling into the #9 spot after passing 20k and BLW Cajon Pass Driving Tour with 22,785.
That will be short-lived with CAHSR Road Trip #1 roaring past 20k, 22,136 currently(#10), and averaging 3,500/day the last 2 days.
Looking pretty likely that Stew's News May 2024 will drop out of the top 10 after the Road Trip videos are done.
Also, Visualizing Chicago to Detroit made it into the 20k club! That now has 12 HSR members. (My best performing Dreams PS4 video is in there, too :D)
For those that don't know, my channel is 6 years old. I had nearly 200 videos under my belt before starting my HSR video journey. Those HSR videos have performed so consistently well that only 3 of my top 30 performing videos are non-HSR. That displacement occurred in only 18 months.
New video for you to celebrate 10,000 subscribers! To do something special, I drove the 500 mile Phase 1 route and grabbed as much footage as I could in 2 days. This is going to fill 3 videos, one each Monday for the next three weeks. Today? Anaheim to Bakersfield!
Hey, just now noticed that yesterday was a new single day viewership record! Stew's News is performing quite strongly of late. That means it's channel stat geek time!
Brightline West Rendered in UE5, at the #1 Most Viewed spot is set to cross 80,000 views in about a week.
CAHSR Phase 2 L.A. to San Diego, at #2, should cross 50,000 in about a week.
Improving The NEC moved past Revenge of CAHSR, into the #5 spot with 26,807 views.
Stew's News May 2024 was the first regular Stew's News to join the 20k club, now in the #8 spot with 22,443
Stew's News June 2024 will likely join the 20k club tomorrow in the #10 spot. We'll see where that ends up.
Visualizing HSR Chicago to Detroit looks to join the 20k club next week. That's cool because the visualization videos are probably my favorite to produce. Both of those have performed beyond expectations, so I know to do a lot more of that in the future.
Forgot yesterday. New Stew's News is up in case you missed it. 10k subs content coming soon. Next Monday, fingers crossed.
Got some exciting news for ya. I've talked to Brightline West media reps today as an introduction. I've agreed not to share details on the meeting, but it could lead to some interesting things happening in the future that coordinate with my future planned coverage of the Brightline West construction. We'll see where it goes from here!
The video I've been working on for the last week is not going to be ready tomorrow(5/24). I am going to table that for now. I need to make room for Stew's News on Monday(5/27), and after that will be 10k subs thanks content. Before I get back to the tabled video, I may do a response video to comments on the NEC video first, since I've been promising it "within a month" for about 3 months now. The renders for the video I'm tabling are complete, so I'll definitely be coming back to finish it up. Few things will come first.
I was hoping for Monday(5/20) on the next video. However, coming up with a fast process to add traffic with the traffic simulator I bought has taken some time. Production is progressing, but it's been something of a crawl to now. I am not sure yet when this will be available. I'm optimistically guessing Thursday(5/23) or Friday(5/24). I will update when I have a better idea.
High speed rail in the United States. I have 4 series in progress: 1) Stew's News. The U.S. HSR news of each month in one presentation. Uploaded the last Monday of each month. 2)FRA HSR Corridors. The Federal Railroad Administration has designated 10 HSR Corridors in the U.S. plus the Northeast Corridor(or NEC). I'm doing a video about each to see what a train averaging 140-160mph might look like in those corridors. 3) HSR City Pairs. This looks at U.S. pairs with metro populations of 1 million or more and no large city between, that could be connected by high speed rail. 4) Taking Back The Streets/Taking Back The Rails. Looks at more radical ideas of assuming freeway and freight right of way for HSR in slightly more practical terms with a tongue-in-cheek presentation.
Since I'm not far from the southern end of the proposed Brightline West route, I'll probably also provide regular updates on that once it gets started.