Swanage Railway General Discussion

I am sure this is so. One line I am aware of had a habit of making considerable losses on catering from time to time, although I understand things have been largely sorted now. Another line I am aware of nets around £100,000 per annum from catering consistently.

 

Even when the cost of the fares for a family of (say) four and parking at the departure station is much much higher than the cost of going by car?

BTW - you may have a very old car, but most these days have air conditioning so are not hot.

 

Not everyone is necessarily sensitive only to price. Not only that, if you have an annual season ticket (not necessarily in the area covering Wareham), you get a substantial discount on leisure tickets for you, your partner and children. For example, if one of the family had a season ticket (such as Southampton to London), the price for a family of four from Southampton - Wareham return at the weekend works out at £28.50(*). Which is reasonably competetive even on price relative to an 85 mile round trip drive; and far more pleasant.

That's not to say that everyone would wish to do that. But even if say 5% of journeys changed mode from car to train, that would be a significant number relative to those crowding in to Swanage each summer weekend.

I don't know to what extent a service of that type will ultimately work at Swanage. But I suspect of all the closed railways in the country, Swanage is probably the one where it has a better chance of success than any other: attractive destination; interchange station with frequent service from large centres of population; not excessively long journey once off the mainline; poor road network making other modes of visiting less attractive; support already in place from all the key stakeholders. I suspect that had the Swanage Railway managed to limp into the 1980s under BR ownership, it would still be open now as part of the mainline network, though no doubt basically an elongated siding and significantly different from the current heritage railway.

(*) Adults £11.05 each; children £3.20 each

If it works.

Tom

 

But that illustrates my point very well. If one has commit to using paid staff for catering, souvenir shops etc they have to be pad regardless of what the takings may be. The Fairbourne may be an extreme example but all heritage railways can be affected by external factors beyond their control - how often have we heard the complaint that unduly pessimistic weather forecasts have led to potential day trippers staying at home rather than risk going out in forecast bad weather that doesn't materialise. In my view, any railway that is dependent on secondary spend for its survival, as postulated by Paul Hitch, is on very shaky ground because margins are not that high in the first place.

 

This correspondence has been dragging on but it must be pointed out that poor weather can often be good for trade on leisure railways. It is not unusual to rely heavily on secondary spend to provide a large proportion of earnings at visitor attractions. Some years ago, I was surprised myself to learn that a prominent non-railway visitor attraction spent its entire gate money on publicity and relied on secondary spend for its net income.

 

I see from
https://www.swanagerailway.co.uk/events/detail/summersaturdayspecial
An adult return for the saturday service (when not affected by strikes) is £7 to Corfe castle from several SWR stations with children free, plus £10 for a steam ride to Swanage. Which seems quite reasonable for a day out.
But from https://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/south-western-railway-owners-consider-16402446
SWR is having trouble reaching it's usage target so offers like this, if succesful, will help encourage rail rather than car usage for other journeys.

 

At the risk of breaking that great NP tradition of unsubstantiated speculation, allow me to add a few facts to this thread.
The HRA annual statistical returns show that turnover of heritage railways is roughly 50% train fares, 15% catering and 10% sales. The remainder presumably being things like private hire (weddings etc) and engineering income.

 

Presumably these are gross income figures. Net figures would be more significant and, I suspect, very different.

 

Given the testimony from someone who should know, then I’m inclined to know who I’d recommend.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

When I was involved at Steamport Southport.
Our best days were a Sunny start to get people out of the Towns around and then about lunch time for it cloud over and keep them off the beach and go looking for something to do.
However the trouble with Steamport was that you did not want it to rain as it rained longer in the shed than outside.

 

As ever, its not usually quite so simple as poor weather being good for business. Yes, people who are in the area on holiday may well be inclined to brave the weather, but local folk who were thinking of having a day out may be deterred.

 

As you say, a non-railway attraction. Always a danger in comparing things that aren't similar in the first place. Secondary spend is icing on the cake. It isn't the cake. If you are relying on that, your business plan is flawed.

 

Multiple income streams are useful. A catering outlet may be of particular advantage if it has passing trade not related directly to the operating of trains. A good example I can think of is the Avon Valley with a cafe next to the cycle path. If you are relying on your passengers only to provide your secondary spend then you are at the mercy of the tourist market, weather etc.

Regards

Matt

 

The real danger lies in getting sniffy about where net revenue income comes from. Quite a few places had combined operating losses last year, some substantial.

 

I would hesitate to say a business plan is flawed because fare revenue does not cover the costs, rather it may reflect reality. Increasing fare revenue is probably the most difficult to pull of such levers as are available. These are the Talyllyn's figures for (effectively) calendar 2017.
T/O £000
Railway 466 (excluding grants)
Shop 155
Catering 323

Operating surplus (after allocation of overheads)
Railway -159 (loss)
Shop 27
Catering 59

The resulting overall loss is funded by membership donations. This arguably reflects the essence of what most preserved railways are - they exist because enthusiasts want them to exist, they open their doors to the public to try and cover as much of the costs as possible (within fairly arbitrary parameters of what can and cannot be done), and the membership has to put its hand in its pocket if that is not enough. If and when there are insufficient donations, then either the railway has to go cap in hand to the local authority (I don't think the Talyllyn gets any financial support from that source, but arguably provides most of the reason to visit Tywyn, other than those holidaymakers tied to their statics, and visits to Holgates for an ice cream in our case), or drastically changes its operation.

 

Multiple incomes are essential. Many heritage lines, as far as I can see, spread their facilities into different buildings which means that not everyone gets to see what is on offer. Equally, for some lines that originate in a busy town - such as the Dartmouth line from Paignton - quite a few prospective travellers check out the line and do not travel that day but return on another for their trip. Often they are too late that day for a rail and river experience so another day is what they chose. The advantage for the Paignton line seems to be that everything is in one long building, so the first place, on entry, are the booking kiosks then you have to walk through the books and gifts area and finally the cafeteria and platform are encountered. That theme should pay off well financially for the company; but they do have to stand on their own feet as there is no large volunteer or supporter group.

 

Absolutely.

 

From the Swanage perspective I guess it benefits from being a coastal destination but also suffers from this, because from the catering perspective as there is a large element of competition, a number of which people will have walked past to get to the seafront. The same also applies in Corfe which of course has one of the most photographed and painted (artwork) pubs in the country. It must make it very difficult to pitch your offering at the right level.
I would suggest that even the SVR has the potential for a greater catering catchment at both Kidderminster and Bridgnorth as folks are less likely to get off the train and go looking for somewhere to eat unless you have already decided to go up into the town at Bridgnorth. The same I am sure also applies at the Bluebell which the only close competition would be Sainsbury in East Grinstead (not even sure they have a restaurant), so I guess this why both have bigger catering outlets than Swanage.

 

The resulting overall loss is funded by membership donations. This arguably reflects the essence of what most preserved railways are - they exist because enthusiasts want them to exist, they open their doors to the public to try and cover as much of the costs as possible (within fairly arbitrary parameters of what can and cannot be done), and the membership has to put its hand in its pocket if that is not enough.

Which is more or less what I said at the outset. In this case, even though a surplus is being made on secondary spend it is insufficient to offset the cost of running the service, let alone act as "the thing which keeps "heritage" railways going".

 

Weddings are another good earner for any heritage line that has facilities for it. The DSR is fortunate in that it can do the 'whole package' i.e. provide the train and ceremony at a small station and the banquet aboard ship on the beautiful river Dart