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West Somerset Railway General Discussion

Discussion in 'Heritage Railways & Centres in the UK' started by gwr4090, Nov 15, 2007.

  1. gwilialan

    gwilialan Well-Known Member

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    Yes, but most people just use Ferrets to catch 'em. Although I suppose a shell would have them skinned, roasted and delivered to the table by air mail...
     
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  2. Yorkshireman

    Yorkshireman Part of the furniture

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    Ferret armoured car? Bit over the top IMHO!:D:D:D
     
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  3. gwilialan

    gwilialan Well-Known Member

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    Well , if the bunnies are lobbing shells at the railway they will probably need them. :D
     
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  4. 34098

    34098 Member Account Suspended

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    Makes you think tbh, I've walked past that spot fewtimes in the last month or so, bit scary that if it was a bomb and not just some rusted metal
     
  5. Yorkshireman

    Yorkshireman Part of the furniture

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    For avoidance of doubt it subsequently became clear that it ended up beside rather than on the track. I just relayed what I, as a passenger, was told at the time. Inevitably news gets garbled in repetition. A very interesting experience that was well handled by the staff and in good humour by all concerned.
     
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  6. NUTSPLITTER2

    NUTSPLITTER2 New Member

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    2015 Annual Report and Financial Statements


    Interesting reading. In 2015 182,764 passengers were carried. This contrasts with the peak 226,000 carried in 2009 since when there has been a year on year reduction. Is this just a market balancing itself?
     
  7. flying scotsman123

    flying scotsman123 Resident of Nat Pres

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    That doesn't compare well. Was 2009 an anomalously good year or had numbers been steadily building up to that?

    I suppose its difficult for somewhere like the WSR as there's not a huge amount of public facing stuff that you can do that is "new". You've got museums, you've got a long line etc. etc. What we on the GWSR are doing is trying to introduce new small special events, that still use a normal timetable so no extra strain on staff, but encourage visitors who wouldn't normally visit, for example we've got our first food and drink fayre in October I think it is, standard timetable, but external traders invited and so on.
     
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  8. Paul Kibbey

    Paul Kibbey Well-Known Member

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    Must admit the GWSR gala I went to last year an extremely good pasty was supplied by a catering van that specialized in Cornish Pasties .
     
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  9. Ian Monkton

    Ian Monkton Member

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    The WSR does have events designed to bring more people in - just look at the official website and you'll see things like fish and chip specials and cheese and cider specials as well as family-friendly events with meet and greet events like Peppa Pig. The Dunster Castle Express is a very popular 'add on'.


    There is usually a Cornish Pastie van at Minehead at galas.
     
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  10. aldfort

    aldfort Well-Known Member

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    The passenger numbers are disappointing. This is indeed a trend and one that needs reversing ASAP. I've mentioned before that the whole railway family and the extended family represented via the PDG should be looking at this as a matter of some urgency. I know the plc already have some initiatives to gather data but once this exercise is completed the data needs to be taken seriously. We also need some comparative data (e.g. from Dunster Castle and other local attractions) to see if the trend is specific to the WSR or indicative of a more general drift of visitors away from the area.
     
  11. mvpeters

    mvpeters Member

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    There is some interesting reading here, particularly in Section 9.
    Note that much of the data is 'anecdotal', so open to interpretation.

    https://www.westsomersetonline.gov....t/Appendix-3---Minehead-Health-Check.pdf.aspx
     
  12. AnthonyTrains2017

    AnthonyTrains2017 Well-Known Member

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    Are there any diesels out on Saturday 28th May.
     
  13. Ian Monkton

    Ian Monkton Member

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    No locos - only the DMU.
     
  14. ihtm

    ihtm New Member

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  15. AnthonyTrains2017

    AnthonyTrains2017 Well-Known Member

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  16. Snifter

    Snifter Well-Known Member

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    Lets not forget that the passenger numbers are based on two very different baselines. A family used to be counted as 6 passengers. This has been corrected to a more realistic 4. A more reliable measure would be the takings at the booking office after adjusting for increases.
     
  17. aldfort

    aldfort Well-Known Member

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    This is a good point. Do you have restated figures for the last 5 years based on the new baseline? Also the post by @ mvpeters above contains a document which suggests a peak of 250,000 visitors to the railway. Again I can only presume a different baseline was used.
    Given fare increases and changes cash at the booking office is not a perfect measure either. We need good data on bums on seats all produced to the same baseline.
     
  18. Yorkshireman

    Yorkshireman Part of the furniture

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    Surely the real yardstick is the financial one. Not all passengers are paying ones, and the crude overall passenger numbers clearly don't tell the full story. That is not say that passenger numbers are unimportant.
     
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  19. Beckford

    Beckford Guest

    Whatever definition we put round passenger numbers we are told : "insufficient revenue was generated to cover costs". Aldfort's point is well made.
     
  20. aldfort

    aldfort Well-Known Member

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    In crude terms yes it is. Whatever measure is used needs to inform if we are doing better or doing worse than we did the year before. So to your points lots more passengers who travel at a discount may not be a good thing but failing to increase like for like sales year on year is not a good thing either.
     

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