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Creative Thinking for Future Heritage Railway Schedules

Discussion in 'Heritage Railways & Centres in the UK' started by 21B, Dec 16, 2020.

  1. johnofwessex

    johnofwessex Resident of Nat Pres

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    Sorry, I realise why they did it but it seems rather attractive to me as a 'Post Covid' idea
     
  2. 21B

    21B Part of the furniture

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    Me too.

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  3. tor-cyan

    tor-cyan Well-Known Member

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    A couple of points.
    many comments so far have been made on the likes and dislikes from an enthusiasts point of view, fair enough as we are all enthusiasts, but has any railway conducted a survey on the percentage of paying customers who are genuine enthusiast, compared to those you would class as the general public? and if so have they conducted it over a period that covers general day to day running and various special events and galas? Do they know who are there core customers on any one day?
    Again as enthusiasts we seem to forget that to the general public preserved railways are a form of entertainment, and visiting one fundamentally is little different that going to say the theatre or a concert.
    you go to the box office or online and buy your ticket which guarantees you a seat for a certain performance.I fail to see why railways do not do the same. to me it has more positives than negatives as a ticketing system. you have a better idea of your passenger loadings which means you can tailor your motive power, coach numbers and staffing levels to suit and your punter knows they have guaranteed seat. And to cater for those that just want turn up and travel have one unreserved coach. years ago when I more active working on the GCR I suggested that to encourage more people to pre book tickets, they should offer an incentive, I suggested for every ticket bought you would get a voucher for a free tea, coffee or soft drink from the buffet, this was greeted with horror, it would lose us money. Management did not seem to understand that yes some people would just take the free drink and leave but how many more would buy a cake or a sandwich to go with there drink.
    I know several people have posted about the stress of arriving on time for your train, so how do you deal with it at the theater? if you are late for a performance they don't let you in and restart the show.
    in this respect railways have an advantage if you miss your booked train, it may be possible to accommodate you on the next service, in terms of customer relations, that's a win win for the railway a positive experience for the customer, and because of that they are more likely to return and tell their friends.
    I have spent nearly my whole working life in the entertainments industry and have visited most of the steam railways in the uk and many abroad and have been horrified by how many of them seem to look upon the general public as little more than a necessary nuisance. I believe that if railways are to survive and prosper in the coming decade they are going to have to fundermanterly change how they market themselves and deal with the general public and this epidemic has given them an opportunity to do so. and believe me many concert venues and theaters of all sizes are also having to reassess their future and how to survive how the public want to be entertained and in the short term given the economic hit of both Covid and Brexit the "pie" that is disposable income is going to be a lot smaller and everybody is going to have to up there game to grab a slice of it.

    Cheers
    Colin
     
  4. 21B

    21B Part of the furniture

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    Difficult to define enthusiast of course. Many people who visit heritage railways have a soft spot for and some knowledge of steam trains. If though we take as a definition someone who would be likely to read or contribute to this forum for example and further assume that these people are the ones which make up the majority of customers at a gala, let's say 90% of ticket sales, then my back of fag packet calculation suggests that enthusiasts are around 7.5% of passenger numbers. There is a huge margin for error there though.

    Other people in the industry have suggested to me numbers of up to 10%. I haven't heard anyone suggest it is more than that though.



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  5. Big Al

    Big Al Nat Pres stalwart Staff Member Moderator

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    Whilst the data for enthusiasts on heritage lines, especially galas, may be different from enthusiasts on main line charters - i.e. larger - I wouldn't expect the figures to be wildly at variance from each other. For example, ask any loco owning group what proportion of their membership travels behind their loco when it is on the main line and you'd probably be hard pushed to fill a handful of carriages.

    I have been impressed by the way that many heritage lines have adapted under COVID by moving their booking arrangements on-line and has already been said about the MHR gala, taken the locos to the passengers rather than expecting the passengers to chase the locos. It's hard to imagine that some of these practices don't remain when these railways return to more normal times. If nothing else it may mean that part of the train will be pre-bookable leaving just a carriage or two for 'turn up and go'.

    All we are talking about here is what happens on the national network. I fail to see why heritage railways should be any different especially if the customers are used to such practices.
     
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  6. 35B

    35B Nat Pres stalwart

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    That last paragraph is why I commented adversely on how the national network handles turn up & go. The reality of that experience for many is that the most expensive tickets have a habit of getting the worst customer service, frequently being expected to stand when those on very heavily discounted tickets get the best treatment in terms of seats, but who then lose out altogether if they don’t present on time.

    There are significant challenges to be dealt with there, and the “big railway” have done so poorly with significant blowback; blowback that a heritage line could ill afford.

    What would be interesting would be the experiences from both sides of the booking office counter in similar operations outside the UK, if they exist.


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  7. Jamessquared

    Jamessquared Nat Pres stalwart

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    I took @Big Al comment about the national network to be more in relation to steam charters than ordinary services. For those, you turn up for a pre-booked trip. I don't think there is much to learn from normal services; indeed, trying to run a a heritage railway in a traditional, clock face timetable way for turn up and go passengers is what I am suggesting leads to an excess of mileage relative to the passenger numbers.

    Since this started with the WSR, and that is a very long line, so I suspect hardly anyone outside real hardcore enthusiasts ever does more than a single round trip in a day, an interesting comparison might be with something like the Jacobite - which is of course pre-booked, reserved seating. (They do have the significant advantage of not being responsible for the infrastructure of course, just paying for access). So it doesn't seem completely off the wall to me to plan a service around one or more trains leaving BL in the morning (according to demand) and returning in the afternoon; the fill-in trip to Watchet I suggested was then to use an otherwise unused loco and set of carriages to offer a trip to a different market segment while your core market had their few hours on the beach. That model may not be what you would do at weekends, and certainly not at galas, but might be very attractive way of minimising mileage while maximising revenue for midweeks. Quite likely one or more carriages each day would be taken with coach parties.

    Tom
     
  8. 35B

    35B Nat Pres stalwart

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    My comment about the national network was a reflection on the way that ticketing for long distance journeys is now very heavily weighted to an airline model, with turn up and go charged at a premium, while advance purchase tickets are supposed to be "train only" and leaving punters delayed making their train having to pay full price on top of the ticket they can't use. Resolving those questions is something that the national network has done slowly, grudgingly and poorly, usually in response to bad press.

    While I'm not personally a fan, I agree that this is a view of the market that heritage railways need to consider carefully (though on the branch lines that predominate, the introduction of reservation only services is a further blow to concepts of historical authenticity!). What I'm commenting on here is that, without the constraints that Covid imposes on how any of us can do any of our normal leisure activities, there are costs and risks to moving in this direction which may well be being obscured by current circumstances.

    It doesn't take a lot to imagine a circumstance where a family book a trip on railway X on the 10:00 train to the pretty end, arrive late for whatever reason, miss the booked train, and find that the next train is fully booked (worse, if visiting NYMR and the ticket is for Whitby, fully booked and 2-3 hours off). How the railway handles that scenario (clue - the AVR's initial Facebook announcements about Santa trips are not a good pattern!) and leaves those customers happy will be critical - get any part of it wrong, down to the tone in which a harassed booking office volunteer talks to a harassed visitor with hacked off small children and spouse, and word will spread, almost certainly unfairly.
     
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  9. Big Al

    Big Al Nat Pres stalwart Staff Member Moderator

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    I was thinking of the mixed economy on the national network of pre-booked and turn up that is the norm. I agree that it can get messy with last minute folk finding that they will pay more and not always for a seat but that is a function of demand - a nice place to be in if you are a heritage railway.

    That said, I think all heritage railways allow party bookings. A while back 36 of us were pre-booked on the MHR. It isn't a particularly large step to set aside a carriage or two for seats pre-bookable on-line. You book a table of four for up to four people giving people the option of deciding how much space they want for their group of 2, 3 or 4.

    My general point is that it really is a 'no brainer' for heritage railways to allow people to pre-book their journey. It's happened of necessity during COVID and I don't see why it can't continue in 2021. It is probably unlikely that it will influence the length of train that is provided but it will give an early indication of demand on the day. That, in turn, would help with the analysis of passenger numbers and of course, the shape of the timetable.

    As has been said already, why run a train 'on spec'. It's wasting a resource.
     
  10. simon

    simon Resident of Nat Pres

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    Perhaps it is worth studying what railways in other countries do?

    I've been on two heritage lines in France, one now sadly closed, and both ran very limited train services which were seem to be sold out some time in advance.

    US lines also seem to run very limited services, I assume also with tickets sold mainly in advance ditto the few I know of in Canada.

    The Mollie in Germany also.

    They also seem less focused on preserving the past in terms of stations, gas lights, platform signs etc. And few seem to offer on station catering, with a number offering on train catering.
     
  11. Dunfanaghy Road

    Dunfanaghy Road Well-Known Member

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    The Mölli a heritage railway? I hadn't noticed! (The most boring of the lot, IMHO.)
    The German railways that I have visited generally restrict 'Heritage' to a museum; the railway is run in as up-to-date manner as possible. Might there be a regulatory reason? I don't know. A comment made to me on the Harz summed it up:'It is a modern railway that happens to use steam locomotives'. The Harz, of course, runs an intensive service on one line and a sparse one elsewhere. I assume they've crunched the numbers to write their TT.
    Pat
     
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  12. simon

    simon Resident of Nat Pres

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    Depends how you define heritage, I deliberately avoided the word preserved.
     
  13. martin1656

    martin1656 Nat Pres stalwart Friend

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    One thing that 2020 has taught us is this, you can not take anything for granted, you have to rethink things, for instance the MHR showed with the gala that its possible to change things , and come up with a better way to do things, pre booking and reserved seating means your guaranteed of a seat, and the railway, has money upfront, before the event, it helps to control over crowding as only one trainload can be at the station , at one time, pre booking meals etc, again that is a good idea, as the staff know what they have to prepare and for what arrival time, so many ideas work well once things return to as normal as they might be in future. The Train of lights, Now that has been very well supported at every railway that has tried it, and is something that can be expanded, its a second income stream at a time of year when railways need every last pound, to ensure survival till the next, and can be run post Christmas also, if the market is there. and the railway can operate. if you can add an element of lighting etc to the attraction, then anything is possible , for instance, could you re create the northern lights with a computor aided light show, as part of an polar express type set up?
     
  14. Steve

    Steve Resident of Nat Pres Friend

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    Things aren't necessarily as easy as you and others are making out. I can only take the NYMR as an example but it is worth considering. During Covid it has adopted a service which takes people from Pickering to Whitby and back as its core service. That concurs with Tom's proposal relative to tidal traffic. It has two trains/day doing this; an early morning one and a late morning (actually 12.00) one. Both trains end up at Whitby and there is an overlap between the second train arriving and the first train departing. that can happen because there are two platforms so that becomes a basic requirement. The likes of WSR have two platforms so that's Ok but not all railways have that luxury. There's also the consideration that your stock is sat there doing nothing for a significant part of the day and it costs little more to run extra trains in an attempt to increase your revenue stream. As long as that extra revenue exceeds the marginal costs of running the train it becomes justifiable so running a 7 coach train with only 50 passengers isn't a commercially daft decision.
    There's another consideration that hasn't been mentioned and that is the volunteering aspect. Trains to Whitby are laying over for about four hours. They need a crew to look after the steam loco so you have the prospect of volunteers having a turn which basically requires them to sit on a loco, doing absolutely nothing, for a long part of their day. Typically, 2¼ hours prep, 1½ hours driving/firing, 4 hours sitting around, 1½ hours driving/firing, 1 hour disposal. That's a 10¼ hour day for 48 miles. NYMR footplate crews have largely accepted this but don't enjoy it. The guard, at least, can leave his train and wander around town, looking at the sights. As long as it isn't raining. Even worse, though, is the signalman's lot. the NYMR has four signalboxes. Having despatched the two outgoing services in the morning they have to sit around, doing the crossword/reading/whatever, for anything up to six hours before the first of the returning trains arrive. They end up with a long shift of 10+ hours with only four short burst of activity. I'm glad I'm not a signalman; it's bad enough being a driver.
     
  15. pmh_74

    pmh_74 Well-Known Member

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    Another question about these 'tidal' timetables, to the seaside especially, is what happens when the weather is awful and the demand is from people already at the seaside to do something else for the day? And indeed, if your trains are all pre-booked with punters now going in the 'wrong' direction, not only are you failing to cater for the demand thrown at you by the day's weather, but you are forcing people who probably now don't really want to travel to have a miserable day out as well (since they've already paid for it). Probably not a recipe for happy customers.
     
  16. 35B

    35B Nat Pres stalwart

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    Won't that depend on the flow of demand more generally? Whitby is not particularly an outdoor destination - if wet, and prebooked, I'd be looking to take longer over my fish & chip meal, and spend more time in coffee shops.
     
  17. tor-cyan

    tor-cyan Well-Known Member

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    and the situation is no different for coach parties that do trips to the seaside or stately homes, if the weather is bad, its bad!! and unless the railway has invested in some hi-tech weather control device, I fail to see how they can be blamed for people having a miserable day out due to the wrong sort of weather on the line.
    Unfortunately this thread seems to be deveating in to "how to maintain the way it's always been done cause we fear change" I am not advocating change for the sake of change, Yes there will be problems, but doing nothing and just plowing on regardless, without at least exploring other methodologies, seem to me a downhill slope to failing.
    So here's an idea to run with. how difficult would it be to equip say a buffet car with usb ports at each table and a basic wi-fi system and adopted the system several of the large coffee chains employ. you buy a drink and you get a one time use code to access the internet via a dedicated railway page listing all the fun things you can do while on the railway.

    Cheers
    Colin
     
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  18. flying scotsman123

    flying scotsman123 Resident of Nat Pres

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    Or we could carry on giving them a leaflet divulging the same information, rather than all the expense and complication of mobile wi-fi systems, usbs and power etc. ;)

    I think some more prescriptive itineraries could have a place in the post Covid scene, but I'm really sceptical that trying to eliminate the turn up and go crowd is possible. We've found it doesn't go down well enough as it is even during the pandemic. The point @Steve makes about intereting diagrams for crews is true too, and we have comparable problems. At the moment everyone is willing to go along with it "To save the railway" etc. but that attitude won't last.
     
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  19. 35B

    35B Nat Pres stalwart

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    I'm interested in how this will turn out, but not convinced that the day out to a steam railway is the same market as the coach tour. The question, which I expect to see result in a range of attempts to answer, is how far railways can take advantage of the constraints their customers have been willing to abide by while Covid restrictions have been in force, once those restrictions are no longer a pre-requisite for a day out. Some, for example @21B and @Jamessquared put forward a case for a significant appetite for those restrictions. Others, including @Steve and @flying scotsman123, are less sure that this will be a genuine new normal - whether in connection with public opinion or volunteers' willingness to turn out.

    The next few years are going to be an interesting laboratory for various experiments in what does or does not work for different railways. Personally, I expect 2021 to see operations very similar to 2020 as railways look to establish their normality early rather than in emergency conditions, with freer choices becoming apparent through 2022 and 2023.

    But if I were going to bet, I'd put my money on the dust settling with a similar timetabling model to today, framed to support turn up and go traffic, but with much stronger marketing around fixed itineraries and railways needing to find the wherewithal to manage reservation systems.
     
  20. tor-cyan

    tor-cyan Well-Known Member

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    sigh!!!
    If local bus companies an offer usb and wifi service many of them for free, I fail to see why railways can not. Just because we are recreating the past why do we so readerly fail to embrace new technology. And as for leaflets how many just end up on the floor or in bins unread what a waste of expensive resources. next you will be suggesting that some staff should be infected with tuberculosis for that truly authentic railway experience.
    I do know of one preservation group that is looking in to fitting one of their vehicles with Usb ports. so there is some hope.

    Cheers

    Colin
     

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