Bluebell Railway General Discussion

Great to see she's found a good home

Sent from my SM-A125F using Tapatalk

 

The vticket agency pages are seamlessly integrated into the Bluebell's web site, and they do charge the Bluebell for every sale, hence the booking fee. Certainly if booking a single ticket, it can be cheaper to buy it at the ticket office on the day. But the Bluebell still then has to cover credit card, or cash-banking, charges, but I think they are rather less than the online agent's fee.

 

The latest issue of The Bluebell Times is available here: https://www.bluebell-railway.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/issue-61.pdf

• Beachy Head is launched into public traffic to great acclaim
• "The Brighton Works" Gala event showcases 150 years of locomotive construction in Sussex
• Bluebell Railway to Celebrate 200 Years of Rail Travel
• The Stepney Club can rise again - with your help
• The Museum welcomes its 500,000th visitor - and acquires its largest artefact yet, a 1934 Morris Minor
• A bumper month for the Carriage Shop at Horsted Keynes enables it to donate £2,000 across four projects
• Michael Bishop joins the Board as the Railway’s commercial director

Tom

 

Many thanks Tom, I've glance read it and will read it in more detail later. But it looks to be full of very interesting info as usual.

Bryan B

 

It's my understanding that if you use a debit card, the railway will only pay a small fixed fee, typically noticeably less than the % fee for a credit card. But I'm never sure if a railways gets to keep more if I pay by cash or by debit card; I used to ask which they preferred but as the only answer I ever got was "either", I've pretty much stopped. But I'm sure there must be at least a small difference and I would really like more of my money to go to the railway and less to the bank.

Can anyone tell me which of the cash handling fee or the debit card fee is more likely to be lower when buying (for example) a £30ish rover ticket or equivalent? Or is it impossible to give a meaningful answer?

 

Anyone able to advise what’s running next Saturday at the beer festival please ?
The website roster appears to have forgotten that event apart from 73133 piloting the tour back to EG …

 

Its owners announced on their page that - 33111 is meant to be on one of the sets. It's last weekend in traffic prior to going to Barrow Hill for bodywork overhaul. As for the steam loco. I'm unsure.

 

The internal loco diagrams say 33111 all three days; 80151 Friday and Saturday; and 32424 Saturday and Sunday.

So looks like 80151 and 32424. I haven’t seen the working timetable yet though to know what they might be doing.

Tom

 

Thank you

 

Card fee likely to be lower all things considered

 

But it depends on who you're buying through. If you're buying off a market stall where they use Zettle or SumUp, then there's usually no difference in what goes through to the person you're buying from.

 

I thought we were talking about the Bluebell?

 

I read the question as being more general. For an organisation the size and negotiating power of Bluebell, I agree with you.

 

Assuming the situation for the Bluebell is similar to the SVR, debit card works out better for the railway.

Sent from my moto g(7) play using Tapatalk

 

Thanks for that Tom. I think it was all steam last year which I enjoyed a lot and, being teetotal was able to concentrate on!

I'll keep a look out for the details on the Bluebell roster website and if it stays with a diesel this Friday (the day I had pencilled in) I'll give it a miss this year. There is after all the G.O.S in October with 73082 and 34059 double-heading on Friday, and 32424 and 73082 double-heading on the Saturday and Sunday.

Bryan B

 

Beer Festival timetable has two train service 33111 and Beachy Head according to loco roster.
PTI page has Friday with 33111 on set A and Beachy Head on set B.

 

Paul, thanks for that. Yes, I did realise it was a two train service, but I hadn't planned my visit knowing one would be diesel hauled. I'm not that keen on spending my time at a Bluebell main event with only one steam loco in service, so I may hold back and wait for the G.O.S.

Bryan B.

 

Timetable below

 

Bit of a trio of traction on the line today. Although not able to run on Electric on Bluebell metals, the Class 73s on the UKRailtours charter to the line for the Beer Festival, captured around the Class 33 and 32424 Beachy Head working the service trains:

 

Thanks, I've been mostly using debit card rather than cash for this sort of thing, so I'll stick to that from now on.