West Somerset Railway General Discussion

But if most costs are fixed the why not operate daily as each extra train only needs a marginal revenue to exceed the marginal additional variable costs. I suspect in reality variable costs are more significant than people think otherwise why would so many lines have reduced services post covid?

 

The 3 Car Dmu ,Does anybody know if of what is wrong with it, , Was seen out today being hauled by the class 14 , in the afternoon one the power cars was left at Williton. Also Dmu 51887 in stone siding, Was due to be repaired, or scrapped ?

 

If you are using volunteers and are eking more out of assets already in use, absolutely. But if that means an additional locomotive in steam, it’s less clear - and implies a larger in service fleet, which means it’s harder to restrict fixed costs.


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I've heard the argument that you only make money when you're running trains many times. That to some extent is true but you only make money when those trains are profitable and, even when you only consider marginal costs, some days are loss making.

 

Which rather confirms there is variability in costs

 

Yes, but most of the savings will be consumed by inflation and the controllable and achievable savings are maybe 1/12 of the turnover and even then some will be lost because revenue opportunities are lost. It’s spectacularly difficult to reduce services on most lines without seeing some impact on visitors and therefore revenue, and quite difficult to reduce cost faster than that revenue loss.

Unless you have particular circumstances that allow you concentrate the same number of customers into the reduced number of trains, service cuts don’t help with the fundamental issue that most railways face. This issue is that however big their capex budgets are, they are almost certainly not big enough to fully cover all the infrastructure other costs that in some cases have been steadily accumulated over many years of having to do the affordable maximum, not the full job. The capex budget is often only 50% of what would be ideal. The trees still grow the paint still fade the tiles fall off the roofs and bridges get hit by trucks regardless of how many trains run.

If you need 15 coaches for your peak services you cannot reduce the number by 20% just because your running 20% fewer trains. And the annual inspections are still annual, and if you have to keep them outside they weather regardless of if they are moving or not. There is a cost of ownership that is not related to usage in service at all and is probably the biggest element. When I think of the main costs in a coach overhaul a good 50% are related to weathering.

I’d suggest that for a line with a turnover of £3m the wage bill is possibly 30% (I know that’s true in three cases I could name). That’s not reducible in line with the reduction of trains. You can’t reduce trains by 20%
and expect to save 20% of the one S&T employee or the marketing manager.

So yes there are variable costs, but the fixed costs are enormously bigger.

I don’t know if it helps illustrate the point, but during covid the monthly cost of one railway with a similar turnover to WSR, after furloughing all but 3 staff, stopping all engineering work and deferring rates and absolutely everything that could be…. Was still £30,000 per month. A massive achievement to get it down from nearly £300,000 per month, but still not chicken feed. And there were no trains and no revenue coming in and it still cost £30k per month just to have the railway.

You asked why not run daily. If you did, the staff costs would go up faster than the additional revenue. It takes at least 11 people just to run one service train on the MHR. Assuming you only needed half that to cover the gaps the volunteers couldn’t, that would increase costs by about £200k per year.

Heritage railways have to grow their income, but they actually cannot do that solely by running more trains, nor can they cut their way to financial security.

I’m not sure I have really done a good job explaining the conundrum, but maybe I will have another go when more awake.

@Lineisclear is right when he says the business model has broken for many heritage railways. I’d only add that the model was always slightly broken and we’ve found ways to muddle through. It’s just very difficult to do that at present. There are fewer options than there were.

 

As @Jamessquared pointed out a while ago there is the issue of keeping MK1 coaches in acceptable condition - in particular the ends which are all now 60 or so years old at least. And of course all the rest of the rolling stock and infrastructure is 50-60 years older than it was when most heritage railways started and with less if any residual life left in it

 

To take an example from the WSR accounts.

In 2013, staff costs (which are fixed) represented 26% of the company's turnover.

In 2023, they represented 34% of the turnover.

The service level is less now, but the impact is that the fixed staff costs now have to be spread across a smaller revenue base. That is absolutely not meant as an implied criticism of staff, but rather, as @21B notes, that "You can’t reduce trains by 20% and expect to save 20% of the one S&T employee or the marketing manager."

If you want to sum up the WSR dilemma in one comparison:

2013 - Fare income: £2.055million
2023 - Fare income: £1.751million

There are some compensating numbers; for example, the retail operations on the railway are much higher now than ten years ago. But for whatever reasons, in ten years the fare income has fallen by about 12% at a time when inflation has been rising on average by about 3% per year. Had fares risen in proportion to inflation over those ten years, you'd expect the 2023 number to be about £2.75million. So in effect, the railway is £1 million down year-on-year in fare revenue. One suspects that if that £1 million was available, things would look far rosier. Even allowing for needing to run a busier service to carry the extra passengers implied, there would be more surplus over and above direct costs that would be available for renewal.

Tom

 

Indeed so, and Mk1s are generally quite good at living outdoors. Yes we are seeing a lot of heavy overhauls now, and the door pillars, rigger plates and crash pillars are often needing to be partially of completely replaced - but that is after 60years of living outside. Wooden framed coaches do not do nearly so well, and to have any chance of survival at all careful and frequent attention to small leaks and roof covering damage is essential.

 

I wrote a piece for the WSRA Journal recently asking for people to consider volunteering to help with the many tasks a small band of volunteers seek to do to assist the railway. Some contributors to this thread seem to have relevant skills? Feel free to contact me.
The only contribution that makes any sense is from @Lineisclear, If you value any of our heritiage railways the time to step up and help is now.

I will now retreat into my cave.

 

Many contributors here already volunteer in the industry, hence we're all curious to see if the WSR has found some magic formula, if the previous claims of needing £1million a year extra to cover long term asset renewal costs was an overestimate, or it's storing up problems for the future.

 

What would be the point of anyone else offering to help?

 

Can any of the WSR's apologists identify a fourth possibility? If not, those three seem to be the only ones, and I would amend the second one ("overestimate") to "extreme overestimate, bordering on wilful deception".
AFAIK all of us on here wish the WSR well; but we don't all wish the present management well.

 

Again, what miserable reading this thread makes for!

 

Back on the railway, Summer Diesel Festival in full swing. Seems to have followed the Steam gala in terms of bringing people out, all trains today very well patronised and operationally everything going rather well. Certainly a few pennies in the fare box ready for reinvestment back into the various parts of the business.

We've a mixed traffic day tomorrow with a few of the guests out to play, but at standard fares for those who missed the main event.

Very proud to have been a cog in the machine for this event! Do come and join us for a ride if you can!

 

Can't beat a WSR gala when the sun is out!

 

Yes that’s obvious. My point wasn’t that all costs were variable but to challenge the point that reducing services doesn’t save costs because most costs are fixed. There must be some variability otherwise every additional train would generate revenue straight to the bottom line, which we know isn’t true either.

Put it another way if overall revenue is down but revenue per mile is up by more than costs per mile have risen then that should be OK. No idea if that is the case here but my point was it is simplistic just to look at overall revenue and draw a conclusion.

 

Amen to that, and bravo to all those involved in organising the recent events
The feedback from passengers, volunteers, reps etc. has been tremendous. More to come soon I hope ;-)

Away from this once again very dark corner of the internet, the reality is that the WSR has returned to the friendly, vibrant and bustling railway that it used to be; an absolute joy to witness. Well done to you guys who have so eloquently and accurately evidenced the true situation.

Nothing is ever perfect, but how lucky we are to have what we have. I regularly spare a thought (and a few pennies) for those railway's and their staff and volunteers that are seemingly on the brink. To think that whilst we can momentarily reflect on some recent levels of success in our little corner of Somerset, there are a STILL a small number of embittered people who would only be satisfied at seeing the railway fail, and purely for their own personal satisfaction because they haven't always gotten their own way in the past. What on earth would those folk do with their long, lonely evenings if there wasn't a WSR to 'bash' from afar.

Still, thank you to you and @ikcdab in particular for your recent and timely rays of sunshine; an appropriate pause to the usual proceedings of bitterness and holier-than-thou performances. They're getting a little bit stale and dull now.

Notifications going off. There is so much more to life than this nonsense.

 

I'm delighted it went well, and west Somerset is now so sunny. Just two questions:
1. What's the magic sauce
2. If it's so great, why the acid?