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SVR General Discussion

Discussion in 'Heritage Railways & Centres in the UK' started by threelinkdave, Aug 20, 2014.

  1. Spamcan81

    Spamcan81 Nat Pres stalwart

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    Some big engines do pull in the public. 60007, 60103 and 60163 being examples.
     
  2. Sidmouth

    Sidmouth Resident of Nat Pres Staff Member Moderator

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    The heritage movement has in part a decision . Are they selling a heritage experience , an opportunity to sample history as it was in the steam era or is it just a venue to host events , rail related or otherwise , where the train ride is just a means to an end and the stock and motive power has no influence or maybe interest for the intending passenger .

    I'm firmly on the former . The SVR has a massive opportunity with some joined up thinking to market the heritage aspects on ordinary service days . It was a few years ago but one post Christmas the toplights ran as part of a MK1 rake . Guess where everyone sat . Even the public appreciates vintage stock

    Are they closer to the likes of BCLM, Beamish, and Blists Hill or the drayton manor. alton towers end of the market ? Don't get me wrong there is scope for less railway themed events but not to the detriment of the core offering
     
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  3. Johnb

    Johnb Nat Pres stalwart

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    Apart from the large estates and the more labour intensive fruit and veg sector the average farm has very labour. The payroll is mostly done in house, a farmers wife being the unpaid farm secretary. One of my relatives used to have a soft fruit farm, he had a permanent staff of one and seasonal labour for picking, all dealt with by the business. The accountant was the only outside body he had to pay.
    H&S on farms has always been a concern, the industry has one of the highest injury and death rates in the country. If they have the right insurers they can get risk assessment advice from them. If you think that the average farm business can afford to pay for sn in house H&S official, you have a very poor understanding of the economics of farming. The NFU do provide a lot of help and advice but most small to medium size farms are loath to take on employees if they can avoid it
     
  4. Mrcow

    Mrcow Member

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    This was my point earlier in the thread. It's not a measurable or tangible thing, but attitude permeates through an organisation very quickly, even a large one.
     
  5. Mrcow

    Mrcow Member

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    I misread that as milked. I am 100% certain that would not be acceptable.
     
  6. 1472

    1472 Well-Known Member

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    The effect quickly wears off if they are rostered day after day. (Possible exception 60103).
    I very much doubt that, for example, rostering 34027 on the SVR or 35006 on the GWSR has any upward effect on the number of tickets sold on a routine service day.
     
  7. jamesd

    jamesd Member

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    It’s not the locos, it’s the marketing. FS, Tornado etc are all heavily marketed so people are aware of them whereas 34027, 35006 etc are just rostered as a “normal” loco.
     
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  8. Bikermike

    Bikermike Well-Known Member

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    The problem with all this is that we are all without the marketing info (which is unsurprising as no railway will divulge that).

    As enthusiasts we are all interested generally and look to fine-tune the interesting bits. But do we know if it works? (I slated Blists Hill elsewhere, as there is a lot less industrial stuff going on, the habadashery and chippie, and pub are all going strong. It may turn out these are the money-spinners).

    It may be that "free pie with every trip"[1] gets the punters in better than the best-curated theme day. If you've spent years restoring eg, a coach, you are bound to be invested in it, but if the marketing strategy says "pies", then you need to get with the pies to keep the railway going.

    [1] full disclosure. I like pies.
     
  9. Copper-capped

    Copper-capped Part of the furniture

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    34027 was heavily marketed in purple. Did that make the numbers bounce? (Honest question).
     
  10. Bikermike

    Bikermike Well-Known Member

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    And that is the million-dollar question isn't it. I suspect tracking it will be quite tricky, I doubt many people will have gone "oooh, purple train, let's go" but if it tips a few more people from "really ought to do that one daty" to "why don't we do that this weekend", then it's probably paid for it's paint very quickly.
     
  11. Kje7812

    Kje7812 Part of the furniture

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    I suspect there's too many factors to give a definite answer there. Certainly there was interest, how that translates to revenue/passenger number is harder to see.
     
  12. Flying Phil

    Flying Phil Part of the furniture

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    I think if you look back on the Spa Valley thread, there was a significant increase in customers as a result of getting a "Big" engine there. So much that they now have a second "Big" engine.
     
  13. Jamessquared

    Jamessquared Nat Pres stalwart

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    On big and famous locos like Flying Scotsman and Tornado: There clearly is an attraction when they visit a heritage railway, and there have been many events at which numbers have been clearly boosted, at various railways.

    That said - any individual railway is only getting them for a week or so, during which they get a boost. FS could visit 10 lines in a season and they'd all see a boost, but I think if you had it based permanently on one single line, that line would not sustain the same level of boost if permanently in a single location. I doubt there are any long-term resident locos on any heritage railway that you could say give a demonstrable boost in traffic over and above any other comparable steam loco.

    A loco re-entering traffic after a protracted spell out of use will cause a temporary boost, but I doubt much else. I can't see, for example, that having e.g. a Castle permanently based on a line would generate measurably more traffic than having a Manor or even 43xx based at the same line.

    (I think there is some small benefit amongst non-enthusiasts in having named locos - it makes recognition and sharing easier on social media - but the GWR seemed to have that pretty well wrapped up anyway, with an advantage over other lines).

    Tom
     
  14. Kje7812

    Kje7812 Part of the furniture

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    Plus any potential increase in passenger number by running a big named loco is likely to be offset by increased wear and tear on the infrastructure. These costs may not be immediately obvious but they will add up.
     
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  15. 35B

    35B Nat Pres stalwart

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    Which is why I talked about roles and not staff.


    Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
     
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  16. Sidmouth

    Sidmouth Resident of Nat Pres Staff Member Moderator

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    Lets turn it on its head , do people remember ordinary days when 34027 was out last year being advertised ? I Don't but equally I may have missed it or the algorhythm decided not to show it me and I didn't look . You can push marketing messages but equally customers in a way also need to look

    How much impact on passenger numbers did the hot weather and prolonged modern traction use have becomes an intriguing question , and give the fires plus the coal are Bridgnorth proactively looking at spark arresting improvements and can all railways learn from each other on what works . Anedoetal evidence suggests 9351 didn't seem to throw sparks in the way other engines did
     
  17. 80104

    80104 Member

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    Questions which are very challenging to answer.

    Regarding "sparks" I would suggest that you would need a very full data collection exercise and even then it may not provide anything conclusive but I would be collecting:
    type of loco, specific loco, crew, weather on the day (wind speed, direction, ambient air temperature, ground temperature, details of the last rain), location of fire (precise). There may be other factors too.
    Anecdotally I too have heard that specific locos seem to be more prone to be involved in lineside fires than others.

    To paraphrase a well known saying "marketing is for life, not just for christmas". IMHO too many organisations rely upon blitz marketing in the run up to an event or when there is a slow down in bookings / passenger numbers real or imaginary. Marketing needs to be an ongoing activity all the time, obviously more intense when there are events forthcoming but there needs to be an underlying level of activity all the time. Each "product" should have its own marketing plan: by product I mean "daily running", special events, the shop, catering (static), dining train (if applicable), volunteering, fund raising (donations, legacies) etc etc. The marketing needs to be product specific but with a common style that reinforces the name of the HR concerned. I hesitate to use the much overworked word "brand" but HRs do at least need some form of identity that sets them apart.
     
  18. goldfish

    goldfish Nat Pres stalwart

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    Sorry, but that's a very simplistic view. Farmers operate in a supply chain, where there's a ton of tasks that are beyond the farmer, their wife, the vet and accountant - transport, processing, distribution and retail are all part of the farmer's business, they're simply outsourced by all but the tiny band of folk selling only at the farmgate or local markets.

    @brennan 's comparison with agriculture ignores the fact that there's a lot more to running a railway than making trains run, just as there's more to producing and selling food than the farm. That's not to say that the skills to run a restore an engine or raise a calf aren't unique and valuable, just that without the ancillary roles necessary to turn a steam engine into a viable and sustainable operation (or a calf into a steak, sorry veggies), go far beyond engineering or animal husbandry.

    Simon
     
  19. Dead Sheep

    Dead Sheep Member

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    A good argument to restore Gordon then.
     
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  20. MikeParkin65

    MikeParkin65 Member Friend

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    Purely anecdotal but I know of two families with children with no previous interest in railways which visited solely because of the social media frenzy that painting 34027 purple generated. In fact one of those families hadnt even heard of the Severn Valley Railway before. In the same anecdotal vein my sister and family had a holiday in Whitby last year and planned to ride the NYMR but didnt because all they were running was a scruffy blue diesel.

    I'm an enthusiast but appreciate my interest is niche - the SVR very definitely needs to understand the holiday visitor and attract them, I suggest we enthusiasts arent the people to do this.
     
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