Have things changed?

As we came out of Covid, various leading lights in the movement were saying that the world was changing and heritage railways would have to adapt to a new norm. Advance booking would be almost essential and the days of simply running trains and expecting people to turn up and travel would be no more. Hugely increased coal and other prices would mean many railways would no longer be able to cope.

In my, albeit limited, experience of heritage railways over the last few months I've seen and heard little to show that to be true in reality. I've heard tales of people visiting railways over the Christmas holiday period and coming back saying that 'they were heaving.' As we go forward into the new year, I wonder how heritage railways generally have performed and whether they are planning for a different future or simply carrying on with little noticeable difference?

Any thoughts and, ideally, statistics to illustrate things?

 

I rode on a midweek train on the GCR (Dec 28th) and it was just turn up and ride with a reasonably full train, the DMU service was quieter, looking at it going the other way. The Santa Specials and Winter Wonder Lights had been all booked and sold out I believe.

 

Currently on the Chinnor line. A mix of pre booked and pay on the day carriages. Loadings are healthy in both.

 

I've not been out much on preserved lines since Covid, but the pessimists are consistent with other things that I do - numbers are down, and it's harder to get people out. Whether that's the aftermath of Covid, cost of living, or whatever, I've no idea.

However, what I also observe is that the challenge is to get people to come out and spend their cash. IMHO, that means marketing and advertising are more important than ever, as people need to be persuaded that they want to partake. But once convinced, they then want to be able to be sure of their event. For some, that means being able to pre-book and be sure of getting their day out. But for others, I suspect it means keeping things simple and leaving space (and confidence) to go out on impulse.

 

I recall the Talyllyn reported earlier in the year a significant change since pre-pandemic towards online booking. Helen Smith at the SVR has been reporting a 22% drop in visitor numbers but better than budgeted income from events. "Visitors are continuing to purchase on a ‘value for money’ basis, [this] is not a price- based decision but the purchaser’s perception of the value they’re getting for the money spent. Giving free 2023 tickets for all children coming to our Christmas events is a good example of how this works, and will encourage whole families to come back." Swanage is reported by SLL to be running less steam in 2023, I think I read the ELR will also be doing so. There's cost-saving exercises across the SVR to keep 2023 costs near to the original budget.

Things are appreciably tougher, but I'm not sure the model's fundamentally changed in the way that was forecast.

 

Things will need to have the wow factor, such as the winterlight trains, santas etc, to attract people, Our heritage railways now more than ever will need to sell themselves, it has to be what can they do, that other attractions can't. with the advent of prebooking and on line booking, your publicity has to be on top of everything, I think that people will still want to visit our steam railways, but they will expect good value, and that has to mean thinking out of the box,

 

tbe trend of late booking is common, one day in August I was witness to 25 bookings for that days trains made between 7am and 10am on our system which was something of an eye opener.

 

I think the trend for pre booking is waning. Whilst still an option at most lines, tickets are also normally available for on the day. An increasing number of passengers are choosing to make walk up ticket purchases, or book online for travel the same day.

 

I've certainly noticed more pre-booked tickets than before Covid this year, but I'd still say the majority are people turning up on the day just like they used to. I've seen roughly 20% down figures quoted for a number of railways and indeed other tourist attractions this year, feels like a cost of living thing to me. But as the SVR feeling is, money is still out there to be had, but what you offer for it needs to be good.

 

There is an enormous amount of speculation here as to why railway A has had a better couple of seasons post lockdown than prior whilst railway B. still struggles. We might think we do but more likely we don't!




















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I'm currently overseeing a pantomime and theres a big trend of latecomers purchasing the night before or day of before the show. Its been tough to budget but at least shows are seeing a 20% increase some days.

Thinking deeper, I think theres an element of 2008 recession where folks who would spend money going abroad end up going somewhere they can do a number of activities without driving to Carcassonne or flying to [insert summer destination] going on. I remember the railway press talking about incoming doom and as I remember, a lot of railways buoyed or went up in that period.

 

Have to agree, certainly with my missus and myself if we want a a day out we don’t want to have to pre book, for day out at somewhere like the NNR, if the weathers nice we’ll make a spontaneous decision and go, if not we’ll just go elsewhere, certainly trying to pre book whilst on the way somewhere with a dodgy 4 or 5G connection whilst on the way out in the middle of Suffolk or Norfolk isn’t an option.
Same as if we go visit my Parents in Worcestershire, I don’t want to have to pre book for a day out with my friends on the premise of say 40106 being advertised and then it’s substituted for say 43106.

I get that some Railways GM’s are maybe looking at the coach party model and the fixed numbers model (Messers Smith and Price, I’m looking at you)

But I really think there has to be some flexibility, 10 years ago just before I moved to Cambridge I had a week down here in March and the North Norfolk took advantage of some lovely weather and ran some additional service’s with the rail bus at something stupid like a fiver for a return ticket.
I’m really not a fan of the pre booking model, maybe as it’s because I’m someone who’s used to planning things on the hoof in both my work and leisure life, its something I’m not a big fan of.
Not a big fan of straight line thinking.

 

I concur only in part with some of the above comments. Many railways have reduced the number of operating days thereby concentrating the volume of custom to open days. At the Severn Valley, passenger figures on peak operating days are near normal and I can understand why people may think that Covid, steam bans and the economy have had little impact. However, such optimism is offset by very poor figures for off peak service days.

 

Much of my travel on heritage railways is on almost on a whim basis; if it's a nice day and it happens to be a weekend or I'm on holiday from work, I might decide on the spur of the moment to go on a daytrip.
In that context a regimented 'you must specifically book for this train out and this train back' is decidedly off-putting and on more than one occasion has deterred me from travelling.
Advance booking has its place of course but I for one hope that being able to turn up on the day and travel freely continues.

 

Indeed. Pre booking was necessary during covid, and the public understood and accepted that.

Like many things introduced during covid, businesses have found pre booking suits them, and they have tried to hang on to it post covid.

However the general public are now much less accepting of it, and want to return to normality where they can get up, see what the weather is doing, and do what they want on a whim. I don’t think pre booking is here to stay.

 

time for HR to reconnect with their local base
time for HR to reconnect to their supporters . Why else are donations down?
time for long heralded projects to be fulfilled or else abandoned
Communications,as in the excellent GWSR and Corris blogs show the way forward.
Time for some HR to realise that even a gricers pocketts are not bottomless
HR that offer value for money will flourish using traditional revenue streams

 

I’m with you regarding being restricted to specific trains. The wife likes a day out in Whitby during our regular North Yorkshire mini breaks. We’d normally take the first train out of Grosmont to Whitby, enjoy some time there and have lunch. We’d then take the train to Pickering for tea and cake before catching the last train back to Grosmont. On our last two visits though we’ve had to start at Pickering, which means a much longer drive from our accommodation, and then travel on the designated train back from Whitby, thereby giving us less time in the town. Wife wasn’t overly impressed by the lack of flexibility in the new system.

 

This is something we’ve learnt at work, we had pre booking during Covid and it’s still there as an option, what we’ve noticed is bigger groups of 10 or more will book because they want to be sure of a seat which is fair enough if there going to be about for a few hours, a group of 4 or 5 on a bit of a crawl round Cambridge they aren’t going to be too fussed if they have to stand for 20 minutes half an hour or so.
It’s trying to as flexible as we can be to all our customers to try and accommodate them,
It’s trying to get the balance right so you don’t end up disappointing people.

 

I think it is really too soon to say whether we've just experienced an earthquake or just a bad tremor, people seem to be drawing firm conclusions with too little data Nevertheless, we're entering a recession coupled with rampant inflation and that is not a good combination. I think a few of the weaker groups will get weeded out but the stronger ones will continue to thrive unless there is some spectacular mismanagement. Some railways, for example, emerged from Covid in a much stronger position than they went in. Obviously, the price and availability of coal will play an important role and adaptations of the traditional heritage railway model to provide better perceived value for money will be needed, in some cases more than others.