An 'umbrella organisation' for mainline steam?

:hug:

 

To quote my industry...

The transfer of risk is always what services are about. That transfer incurs a cost related to ownership of that risk.
Steam rail tours are high risk in 2011.
The passenger currently owns part of that risk.
Transfer the risk from the passenger (customer) to the business (supplier) will incur an additional cost to the customer (unless everyone supplying the service works for free and is willing to pay the cost!) by return the quality of the service should increase, otherwise why are you doing it?

I sense an unwillingness to pay more, so the service offering is not as good as it could be and the passengers risk share (appetite) is higher, willingly so demonstrated by buying the ticket.

In short, no one forces the customer to buy a ticket, if they stop buying, the supplier needs to respond by improving the service, and hence cost to make it more attractive, or reduces the service quality thus reducing the price but increasing the passengers risk)... Outside our industry.. Compare ryanair to BA... You accept service degradation from Ryanair, but not BA, and prices reflect that.

If you want an example... Look at the GW 175 Bristolian, excellently executed, at a higher than average cost, but the service was spot on... and I suspect no complaints.