SVR General Discussion

I have, as Responsible Officer for the day. Pretty stressful due to the "You can't tell me anything" attitude of a small minority of paying participants.

 

And my non-railway experience is that many (not all) volunteers are very interested in the value of their time for the organisation, measured as profit.

The ultimate issue is the balance between risk and reward, where risk is increasing but reward is not increasing to match.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

Are they intelligent adults, though? My experience of being involved in the running of photo charters is that, like society in general, they are a cross section of society and that will include those who don't really have any perception of what is sensible and safe. Many years ago I went with someone who was a high up civil servant to take photos at Bickershaw colliery. His actions and total lack of safety awareness frightened me. Was he intelligent? By most measures he would have been considered to be highly intelligent.

 

I don’t know what day you mean but that is unacceptable, a word with the organiser may have solved it.

 

I would suggest having a conservative timetable with a fewer number of trains / days, but with the option to increase if the year turns out better than expected, is more preferable than having to cut services mid season. That just attracts bad publicity and incurs unnecessary costs.

If trading conditions are better, there is nothing to prevent a railway introducing more running days or an extra train as an updated timetable for peak season. That would be a positive news story.

Nobody can predict this year and if they say they can they are lying.

 

I'd like to make a few comments as a relative outsider here. I won't touch on photo charters as I don't have the knowledge, and nor do I have the network of contacts that so many here do. So take these as just the blundering thoughts of someone who is in an awkward no man's land halfway between casual family visitor and hardcore enthusiast. I'm perfectly willing to have any misapprehension and unreasonableness pointed out.

If the SVR is going to provide less of a service at more of a price, and remember it was a 7 day a week operation as recently as summer 2019, then that is going to be a hard sell no matter what. It's going to be an even harder sell with disposable income squeezed as hard as it is now. My view is that means communications and discussions with the railway's paying customers (current *and* prospective) needs to be improved, and not just around the margins but including some things that won't be comfortable or cosy.

A few examples. I've mentioned in the past that I think more explanation needs to be given to visitors about the costs of maintenance, overhaul, etc. To be fair to the SVR, this has happened somewhat in recent years. But this needs to be extended. To the limit of what is possible legally/contractually and what is practical for the number of staff available, the big numbers need to be out there for people to look at with a minimum of hassle. Transparency is vital.

That's probably not very controversial, so how about this? If a star visitor at a gala is unexpectedly withdrawn or fails, paying customers deserve to know why. Or at least for the question to be promptly asked. I go to motor racing sometimes, and if a star Ferrari doesn't leave the pits, the usual response from commentators is "We don't know why, but we'll try to find out for you." Sure they don't always get a full answer, but they do ask. Informed speculation is also treated as normal, not as something to be warded off at all costs. Since the talk now is of railways having to change in very substantial ways, "This is how it's always been done" is no longer a good enough response.

Perhaps the SVR could do more to be seen as part of the community. Maybe this is less of an issue in Kidderminster which is hardly a tourist destination, but I've been by the riverside in Bewdley and overheard visitors who were genuinely startled to hear a whistle. They had no idea there was a heritage railway a few hundred yards away, because there is absolutely no advertising or promotion in the town centre. At least one I spoke to said he'd have taken his family there to see the trains and have a meal there had he known. Instead he spent nothing at the SVR.

Finally, although it's happily diminished these days, there can still be an occasional feeling from the SVR that it deserves support simply because it's the SVR. No. The more it operates as a business, the more it increases fares and other charges, then the more it has to accept that its customers will make hard-edged business calculations of their own that rely less on nostalgia and sentiment. As I've also said before, if Mr X used to support six railways financially and has come to the decision that he can only now afford to support four, the SVR and everyone else needs to *earn* that spot as one of the four.

That comes back to my earlier point: a railway that keeps people in the loop and is willing to be open and honest about difficult subjects won't do its case any harm there. A railway that doesn't want to talk about anything uncomfortable, that thinks a large slice of discussion should only be behind closed doors (as opposed to the smaller proportion that actually *needs* to be), that doesn't put people out there to explain decisions publicly and answer difficult questions from public and media alike... well. That railway will not be helping itself.

 

On the costs front of charters (not commenting about safety): On the Bluebell, all the charters are organised by one person, who also happens to be a volunteer. So although they obviously have to cover their costs, that doesn't have to cover a profit for the organiser as would be the case with, for example, an organiser such as Timeline who have photo events as their business. I'm not sure I'd fully agree that the main organiser needs to be costed at e.g. £150 per day - obviously I can't speak for him but I suspect, given their own interest in photography, is probably at least partly satisfied by the opportunity to take their own photos.

There are also potential opportunities to keep costs down. The back cover of the current issue of Bluebell News has a photo from a charter a few months back, at Giants of Steam. The event was held "on shed" after the main service had finished; as such all the locos were already in steam and just needed moving to suitable places for the shots planned. So the only real additional resource requirement was a night time crew to look after them and then berth them properly at the conclusion of the event. Obviously a "running charter" out on the line would cost more in direct costs (though I recall at least one that I fired using one of the day's service engines with a very early start before it was used in traffic later in the day - again, cutting the marginal cost.

There was a comment up thread about railways essentially having too many assets to look after relative to their earning ability. There has also been much talk about the fixed cost base of railways. One of the main assets is of course the railway itself. So if the mantra is to maximise the usage of our assets, that may well mean using the track - and the surrounding capability of signalling etc - for events when it isn't being used to run service trains. In that regard, if the railway isn't running a service, events such as a photo charter, a footplate course, a training event for staff on the big railway or a TV / film contract are all opportunities to generate cash - and cash flow - using a mechanism other than charging 250 people £25 each to ride up and down. 30 photographers paying £100 each for a photo charter is really very little different in cost / benefit than 4 people paying £750 each for a footplate course on an otherwise service-free day.

Tom

 

Thing is John, from an outsider's point of view, photo charters are a risk and to some railways they don't want to entertain them. That's understandable. 30-40 OAPS (because that's what a lot of charter attendees are) climbing up and down ladders on to ballast isn't going to be tolerated forever, even if they are all supervised by the organiser, RO, other volunteers, etc. There have already been incidents on charters that could've been potentially very serious, so it's entirely up to the railways involved if the commercial benefits outweigh the risks involved.

 

Interesting comment, some of those OAPs are the same ones who volunteer on the railways or with loco owners. Getting the safety police excited about age could lead somewhere we really don’t want to go. Everyone should know there limits and if I can walk half way up a mountain for a shot of the Jacobite I consider myself safe and fit enough to climb a ladder or up onto the footplate of a MN for that matter.

 

No I haven’t. I have however been the responsible person for a great many.

 

A plea to give the photographers' bit a rest now, please? @Johnb has given his views, @Sidmouth as organiser, @Glenmutchkin and @21B as responsible persons and @Jamessquared from another railway's perspective. There's little that hasn't been said on it and, as already mentioned, it will have next to no effect on the Severn Valley Railway's plans to meet the challenges that it expects to encounter.

 

For me it isn’t about sweating the assets at all. These are not businesses of that kind. We are custodians. The point though that I am trying to make is that the cost involved in being custodians is far greater than generally acknowledged. Greater too than many other heritage attractions relative to the number of visitors. When you start to look at what it really costs to do things it can be quite startling and there are some enthusiast’s misconceptions that need breaking up. Photo charters are often not truly profitable for example, though I wouldn’t advocate that the full cost be charged or that they shouldn’t happen at all. They are however a privilege and must be seen that way.

 

That horse has now left the stable though hasn’t it? Did anyone proof read any notes before they were published or stated? I believe this one of several reasons why some people feel ‘fobbed off’

Martin, I appreciate that you have a friendship between yourself and Ms Smith so I can understand yourself wanting to stick up for her.
If there’s been a statement that’s been put out that’s been poorly worded which that particular one was according to yourself then those who published it and have put their names to it must surely cop any Flak that comes their way. Board, GM, Cleaner or whoever it may be.

Honesty and transparency don’t cost much, but are worth quite a bit, not just from the GM, but by those on the board who appointed her.
Where does the buck stop?

 

^^^This. The days of running trains constantly is no longer feasible. The UK is the only country where heritage railways try to run a service. Go to America, Europe, Australia - all of them are the out/back excursions model offering a day out through nice scenery to an attractive destination. Now SVR might not have the length to replicate that model exactly, but there is scope within it to offer something.

Do all trains need to run full line? Can everyone afford an all day rover at £27.50?
What if 1x set ran two trips full length, and then were supplemented by a "local" set running 3/4x half trips at £14pp? Rather take £14 for half a day, than £0 from a full day? Provide something at the turn-back point to entice visitors - Exhibtions / stage shows / festivals / whatever. Mix it up and offer something customers want to pay for, which isnt necessarily just endless procession of trains.
The SVR manages to do this for 4 weeks of the year at Christmas, with BH - HY Enchanted Xp + Train of Lights, KR - AY Santas plus diners. Why couldn't a similar operation work the other 48 weeks of the year?

 

Elements of all of that in the FR, SVR and others approaches over the last couple of years. Not perhaps the extent of the shows during the summer. It might work, indeed it sort of does with the MHR Thomas events. The issue is doing something “big” enough to draw people in, that can be replicated daily and not overstretch resources. It is quite a shift and requires sustained investment in things which are not going to be regarded by many as “core”. Feasible, but a challenge.

The winter mix of events at the valley are a recent invention aren’t they?

 

Getting rid of the photo charters was the most stupid thing of Helen Smith's reign, and I've never been on a photo charter in my life. I couldn't believe then people were defending the decision saying the SVR run trains of different types everyday including out of season so there was no room for them anymore.

They could probably pay for the upgrade to Bridgnorth loco yard with a few charters with 4930! (Not being serious, but there would be a good income from it).

Agree that they seem to think people will support the SVR because it is the SVR.

 

To make such a statement without any explanation of why you think it was a stupid decision makes it look like you simply want to insult, not debate. We all get there are two opinions to an emotive subject, but whilst there have been several explanations of why the decision was made, nothing about why it shouldn’t have been other than “I don’t like it” and “others do them still”. So let’s have a reason and not insult please, or leave the subject alone.

 

Did you just ask, in other words, why less trains run on quieter days?

Most people will do the same mileage regardless of how many trains are running. Just like when it's a Sunday service on the national network.

NYMR offer peak tickets for school holiday periods etc charged at a few pound more, or at least did pre-covid. I can't think of any other railway doing so.