Creative Thinking for Future Heritage Railway Schedules

In practice, less of a problem than might be anticipated. It's another of the benefits of early online booking methods. These tend to spread loadings throughout the day. It will be interesting to see how many changes introduced to cope with COVID 19 are retained afterwards

 

I think this is something that might be a bit trial and error. You could maybe model it but you'd need to have good information on passenger flows, number of visitors (how many are single, couples, 4, 4+ groups), how many want to book in advance and how many want to turn up and go.

Would for example a couple who are turn up and go more likely to be willing to sit in a TSO than a family of 3 who have booked in advance.

Do you say 4 coach train, a,b,c are pre book, d is turn up. If c is not fully pre-booked then can take possible overflow if there is an upswing in turn up and go. If you have more pre-book then you move into D and you have no turn up and go.

Do you say 'pre-book up to an hour before departure' effectively meaning that even turn up and go is pre-booked?

Do have accurate real time information available to tell people that the 10.00 is fully booked but that the 11.00 has spaces so someone checking the website on their phone in the accommodation knows what is available and what is not.

I know that the SMR is not everyone's cup of tea but hasn't that always been pre-book rather than turn up and go? (I might be imagining that).

I wonder if the new normal will be more pre-book and this will be the way it will be, while I don't want to stretch the comparison, post 9/11 people got used to changes in the way you travelled, and that you have to check in 2 hours before etc, etc, so maybe more people will be happy to pre-book in the security that they know they won't have to share, won't need to worry about over-crowding etc.

 

In the future pre-booking and having to allocate seats at the time of booking will be the default option , I'm not saying that you don't allow turn up on the day, but it should always be on the grounds that only if seats are available and with modern systems, you can pre book the night before, so why take a chance? Weather forecasts are also a lot more accurate today than they were, so you have a very good idea on the weather anyway. Plus by booking in advance, often you can pay slightly less, or get extras thrown in, such as a free drink etc.

 

I'm not sure pre-booking of compartments is quite as simple as people are making out - it does at least depend on the railway. (And I am considering this primarily in a post-covid world, i.e. where preventing groups mixing is a matter of passenger / railway choice rather than operational necessity).

The issue to consider is what people do on the railway as part of their visit. For example, on somewhere like the IoWSR, the core journey is a Havenstreet - Havenstreet round trip. In that context, pre-booking a compartment makes sense, or at least fits in with the major journey. Either before or after their trip, passengers can enjoy the other static attractions at Havenstreet while another group of passengers uses the next service.

However - consider a railway like the SVR, with a key attraction mid way along the line. In that scenario, a group may wish to do a whole round trip, but broken mid way in one or the other direction. At which point, "their compartment" (in reality, the whole train) either has to lay over (wasteful of assets); or else it continues without them, at which point the compartment is empty and the passengers aren't guaranteed their own compartment when they choose to catch a later service. On a line like the KESR or NYMR with a key (off-railway) attraction at the far end of the line from the major embarkation point, a pre-booked compartment might work for the outward journey, but passengers may prefer the flexibility of having several possible return options.

So it is not a one-size fits all; and the more a line goes to the "String of pearls" operational model with attractions at numerous places along the line, the less possible pre-booking becomes. Even on a very short line with compartment stock, such as Tanfield, my hunch is that the core journey for many people is Andrews House - Andrews House round trip, but with an extended break at Causey Arch.

The fact that some lines have successfully been able to run a service over the summer utilising compartment stock, pre-booking and reserved compartments, shouldn't mean that everyone piles in to thinking that is inevitably right for the future. At most, I suspect that for lines that have a complicated pattern of attractions, it only works if run in conjunction with curated / itinerised visits, which then need to be somehow integrated into the regular traffic.

Tom

 

At the SVR. The current operation of a 3/ 4 train, fixed day out type of operation has been very well received. Being able to leave belongings on the train rather than carry them around has also been warmly welcomed. From what I gather from my normal position of underneath a carriage fixing battery boxes. We are continiuing the current operation but also looking ay how we expand on it. Possibly with bringing the 2 obbos out.

t has completely changed what coaches we can nip into the paintshop. Even last year we were very hesitant to bring in a TSO unless it was in dire need of attention. Where as yesterday we shunted in our earliest MK1 in 4345 for a small amount of bodywork and a paintjob. Previously it would have only come in for it overhaul.

We are investigating how we can operate a walk on walk off service but yet again, things will hang on what Boris says post christmas.

 

I don't think this has been mentioned before but here is a short video from the F&WHR with their General Manager Paul Lewin. In it he mentions some of their thinking about how their services might look going forward. It's an interesting watch given that here is someone at the sharp end talking about their situation and how to respond.



Steve B

 

I agree with this - any successful railway should be adapting to their own markets but more importantly be adapting to any given time, or to use a rather ugly phrase: "smell what sells".

At the North Norfolk we did very well converting to a pre book Sheringham round trip only service offering private compartments in the high summer. This was undoubtedly what was needed at the time but very quickly it was realised that those wanting to park at one end of the line and ride the train to the beach were missing out big time. Going out and back on the same booked train wasn't what they wanted.

As confidence running Covid secure trains built, it quickly evolved to separately bookable out and backs which catered for the "head to the beach in the morning, head out on the afternoon" market.

Having said all that the public, in holiday areas at least, are still quite fickle and I would wager that once things return to closer than normality, in our area we would be foolish to go pre book only. We have always gained huge amounts of extra trade from gathering up lost tourists running away from the beach when an unforecasted rain shower hits Sheringham!

I believe that attitudes will return somewhat closer to what they were, but with a proportion of people with permanently changed attitudes who may demand pre booking. For lines such as NNR, and this is me just speculating, a solution going forwards may be to offer a proportion of the train for pre booked, reserved seating, whilst also retaining the rest for the "hop on hop off" others.

This would be a half way house between the "everything has changed, move to 100% pre book" and "we need to go back to how we were in 2019" camps.



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In the Weekly Walkabout features by the Talyllyn's GM he reported that pre-booking seemed to have led to a more even spread of passengers throughout the day, rather than have the first train full and the rest only part loaded. He also reports a much enhanced level of secondary spend per person, which could prove very useful.
Pat

 

Besides the differences between one railway and another, there is an important difference between what is worth trying while the pandemic continues to rage and what will be appropriate when very few new infections are occurring. It is not always clear which situation posts on this thread are addressing.

 

Nor, at the risk of repeating myself, how far what worked this year would also work without Covid.


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This reflects comments in a similar vein from Mr Lewin, up the coast a ways.

 

The problem is that we don't know when the former will end and the latter will begin.

We know that there is vaccination programmes are taking place but when that will be that everyone is vaccinated is harder to tell. What impact that may have on volunteers and visitors (older vaccinated, younger not) we don't know.

We could get to august and there maybe a group of people who have been vaccinated and for whom things are 'back to normal' and there maybe another group that has not yet been vaccinated and may want to continue to social distance.

I think as with this year, the watchword is going to be flexibility and adapting to circumstances, if a window opens up to make money then you jump through it because it can close with very little warning.

What I found interesting in Paul Lewin's comments about flexibility and adding trains interesting, because in many ways the line has gone full circle back to the 60s and 70s when extra trains were added in as needed.

 

I think it would be extremely optimistic to assume that things will be back to 'normal' in the Summer. If we are depending on all (or the vast majority) of the population being vaccinated before 'normal' can be resumed, I think it is very realistic to expect this will not be the case until the end of 2021. Consider that on Christmas Eve there had been 600,000 people vaccinated over a 2 week period, and the UK has a population of around 68 million. So 2 weeks of vaccination and less than 1 percent of the population had received the first of their jabs. Recent health advice has been that we need to be aiming for a million jabs a week, but that still means the entire adult population (about 75% of the total UK population) will take nearly a year to be done. And that's even before you consider issues such as the practical limits on production of jabs that get approved, the fact that every other country in the world is going to be wanting a share of these jabs, so we're only ever going to get a proportion of the jabs that get made, and then the infrastructure, administration, staff and logistical network needed to get to a point of being able to stick a needle in somebody's arm. Also, on a practical level, if 1 million people are being vaccinated every week, we need to be capabale of giving 2 million jabs a week because every vaccine requires a second dose a few weeks after the first. Depending on what happens with this new variant (and any others that might flare up), we may continue to experience a cycle of relaxing and tightening restrictions as the government tries to get the balance right between ensuring the population isn't killed off and that the economy isn't killed off.
I can see every heritage railway having to adapt and be flexible, the exact way in which they have to do that will depend on the railway in question. We'll probably see similar adaptations to those which have taken place this year. Some railways will be able to run a 'normal' service but with pre-booking, allocated seats, prioritising compartment stock and longer wait times at termini to allow cleaning of carriages, others will have to run with adapted schedules and timetables.
I would argue that we, as enthusiasts, have a duty to continue doing what we can to support our beloved heritage railways. That means going for trips on them when we can, even if we can't have the day we would want in an ideal world. Perhaps purchasing food and drinks from catering sources on the railway more than we would normally. Making extra donations to appeals and the like (I am sure many of us have already done this in 2020, but now is certainly not the time to stop). Also, constructive feedback to these railways which are constantly trying to adapt to changing conditions, brought on both by the virus and by the government. Tell them directly what works, and where there is room for improvement. That way they can refine their services so that those who have less of a vested interest than us, and may be less forgiving, are more inclined to spread positive reviews.
Much of that may have already been said, so apologies for any duplications, but there. That's my 2 cents worth

 

I think your calculations re a little pessimistic. We mustn't forget that nature is helping out. Infection rates are climbing and a significant proportion of those getting infected are likely to be those likely to receive the vaccine well down the pecking order. Those who are or have infected and have survived/recovered seem to be relatively immune to a second bout of the disease, so actually the immune population is actually building at a much greater rate than by the vaccine rollout alone.

 

Something else to add, I think lines will need to be more proactive on social media. As people are going to be navigating new or different rules for different places, people are going to have questions etc, but also in terms of out reach and using it to engage with other people who would not normally follow a railway twitter feed. I appreciate that twitter/facebook etc are not everyones bag, but lines will I think have to be creative.

One account I enjoy reading is https://twitter.com/TheMERL which is the Museum of English Rural life in Reading, not exactly a topic to set the heart racing but by using the what they have and engaging they have a lot of followers (and have reached a lot more people than they would have otherwise). By point of comparison - MERL has 157,000 followers, the NYMR (a big line taken at random) has 20K.

 

I’ve mentioned the Mid Hants’s YouTube channel on here before but that’s worth checking out Will who fronts it has put some cracking videos out the past year and by trying to put something out every Friday at 10am it’s given some people like myself something to look forward too on a weekly basis.

 

From The Museum of English Rural Life, might be an idea for the catering drpt, a 29.5L Tea Pot!

https://merl.reading.ac.uk/collections/ceramics/giant-teapot/

 

Is that big enough though?