Kent & East Sussex Railway

Yes, I recall that. But my recent post was picking up that they can mention events next year and even the year after that. But still don't say what is happening over the next 7 days, for something that to some of us at least, is important information. I won't visit any of the old SR located heritage lines (as a paying customer) without knowing which loco is at least booked to run on the day of my planned visit.

 

Couldn’t agree more. Other railways can do it so why not the KESR?

 

Because different organisations have different priorities and different resources. Why is this so difficult to understand?

These gala weekends continue to be successful with or without a timetable or loco roster being published days before.

 

Not talking about galas. I’m talking about normal service days. Any information that could bring visitors to the line should be disseminated if possible via website and/or social media. How long does it take to put up an FB post?

 

They were quick enough to post on Facebook the other day to say the rostered steam loco had failed and the class 20 would be out, and that the two diagrams had been swapped around. So it is possible.

 

Must agree here, I don't travel any distance to a railway without know what's running. Indeed twice this year I have adjusted the day I visit to coincide with a loco I want. With hire agreements, washout cycles & planned maintenance - most railways will know well in advance what engines are available to them on a certain day. Several railways have plans extending several months ahead. It really isn't likely the loco foreman turns up to the shed early in the morning and goes 'I think we'll have that one today..'. With shrinking fleets across railways the choice isn't there for many!
It's useful information, so why not share it? As others have said, a quick post on social media takes seconds and could persuade a few more ticket sales - the balance in reward for effort looks pretty good to me.

 

Quite so. Whilst the general public may not be so choosy as to which steam loco they get for haulage, there is a section of the market that likes to know so as to time their visit to get a particular loco. If providing that info gets them to visit and buy a ticket, the effort in posting it will have been worthwhile.

 

Maybe because events planning is done by people who aren't elbows deep in engines, trying to keep them running?

 

It’s not a good comparison, is it? You don’t need to be a fortune teller to know that there’ll be a ‘Saturday 6 September’ in 2025 and to plan an event for that day. But the folks running the railway can’t guarantee that an engine in steam right this minute will be fit to run at midday today, let alone tomorrow or at the weekend.

The people that make the trains go are also unlikely to be the people that update the website, who may be both more remote from the day to day operations, but also not work 5 days a week etc. to be able to update info in real time.

I was at Ropley at the weekend and there weren’t sufficient volunteers to sell soft drinks all day. If there’s not capacity to get basics like that sorted, it seems highly unlikely that the tiny number of people basing their decisions solely on exactly what’s on the front of the train are going to get their needs met.

Simon

 

I can quite inderstand that things go wrong and I might turn up intending to go to Alton behind Can Pac and end up with Kilmersdon instead.

But clearly there must be known fairly well in advance and probably in electronic form that on Day X we plan to run loco's Y&Z. By all means put a caveat on it.

Some of us may well remember getting our Isle of Man Steam Packet sailing instructions posted to us weekly, I certainly got them in the early 80's It can be done!

 

But that could have an impact on passengers who were expecting a steam loco. Also, it's thankfully an occasional event for most heritage railways.

However, getting someone to post the operating loco for each and every train operating day is perhaps a bit optimistic. And the commercial and customer mpact of changing the steam loco from A to B is minimal.

Rather than grumble about things that the "railway" could do, try to think about what might actually be involved to get that information at the time you are requesting it. How many people would it involve? What else are they doing to run the railway? How do they get the information to you? Who has access to the social media? And, finally, how much benefit would actually come to the railway (not you) from doing it?

 

I'm sorry, but social media is an essential component for any tourist orientated attraction these days. No longer can you say we can't resource it, someone MUST take responsibility for that aspect of the business. I would even argue it should sit within a paid position.
People reach for their phone far more than a leaflet - so an up to date website and social media is as essential as ensuring the gates are open on time.
All social media is essentially is information sharing. The loco information undoubtedly exists internally, it is just a case of uploading that information publicly with a caveat 'subject to change'. Many other railways manage it successfully and sometimes make an event of out of it promoted by social media at short notice. Note the SVR's 'Super Saturday' with Bahamas and GCR's use of 'Tornado' recently.
The SVR Diesel loco roster used to extend the entire season and was essentially a PDF upload of the document agreed with the various loco owning groups. There maybe a couple of revisions during the year, but it essentially stated the same.

 

You're generalising from my specific point which is the somewhat unrealistic requirements for heritage railways to publish every last bit of information about what is running.

Resources are limited and often provided by volunteers who have other commitments. So they should be focused on the things which create most benefit for the railway or most suited to their skill set. Expecting railways to publish a daily update on their loco roster isnt necessarily high on this list, as it only impacts a handful of visitors who are somewhat fickle in their criteria for visiting the railway.

 

And yet in the overall scope of things would probably save total time for the railway. If enthusiasts keep ringing up and asking what is running today, or planned for tomorrow someone in "front of house" has to answer the phone and stop doing something else.
I do not have a Facebook account but regularly check Heritage Lines Facebook pages (where they have not been stupid enough to make people sign in) as it seems to be the medium they want to use rather than updating a website, which I except will be far more time consuming and probably require a level of skill. I see my wife who does Facebook, write a post in about 15 seconds. It could be done whilst someone drinks their first cup of coffee.

 

No, you are missing my point. Nobody is asking volunteers to upload information to social media daily. What I am saying is that railways should recognise Social Media as an essential component of their business and prioritise sharing potentially useful information that already exists internally. This should ideally be done by a member of paid staff with marketing responsibilty. Loco rosters would fall into this category, amongst many other useful bits of information. Like it or not, social media is a hugely powerful marketing tool which has the benefit of reaching many people, instantaneously, for free. It needs to be embraced.

It also keeps being repeated that this is non-essential information for 'fickle customers'. For some of us it is very useful information which could make or break a visit. Yes, enthusiasts are a minority, but often we have pretty high secondary spend and could be members or volunteers of the future. Very dangerous territory to marginalise enthusiast wishes, who are ultimately the backbone of heritage railways, as other much larger railways have found out (and now quickly backtracked).

 

Simon, I'm certainly not asking for a guarantee that a certain loco will be running, just a view of what is planned, so I can plan my visits in advance. Always with the accepted caveat that locos can be changed at short notice.

And, as others here have said, posting brief loco roster details on such as on Facebook takes minimal time and can generate extra cash - it's what the Swanage Railway tend to do rather than have a specific loco roster page.

In my case the lack of simple advance information means I only very rarely go to the KESR - just twice in the last 14 years, compared with 26 visits to the Spa Valley Railway in the last year - a fabulous flow of info from them for enthusiasts' needs! Plus multiple visits to the Bluebell, Mid Hants and Swanage Railway. Four heritage lines where I always buy a day rover/event ticket for my mainly photographic visits, plus small donations in the station collecting boxes/ swipe terminals ( I DO like those!) and modest gift aided donations as well from time to time. Nothing unusual about that, many others do the same and they also go a big step further by doing volunteer work. Because I am so busy with my SR steam loco memoirs book, plus my ongoing study of Short-eared Owls I sadly have no time to volunteer, so at least I do something and contribute in a modest financial way.

Rather than add KESR to my regular visiting list because the info I need in advance isn't provided, I'll just have to wait for another event, like the recent one where they did issue a timetable and loco roster in advance with 31806, 32678 and 76017, which provided a most enjoyable day for me. So many thanks to the KESR for that.

Bryan B

 

The person who is likely to be the one who updates social media, Facebook etc, is likely to be someone in the office, and as such won't know things like what loco is running today, often the department, won't know what engine is out, because things can go wrong, often overnight, and only the crew, when they sign on, will know, The office isn't always in the same location as the MPD, and if your trying to fix a fault, bring into steam a replacement engine, fire up a diesel, your not going to be able to answer the phone, or even make a call to the office to tell them, today's loco is X, because Y is not available. even a text, might not get through, we all know how bad rural places can be for signals. often the first indication of what engine is in steam that day is when it is sat simmering outside the office window .

 

I do not think people are asking for what is running, but what was on the plan. If it fails or gets replaced for some other reason people accept that.
You will not convince me railways do not have a plan.
For example on the Swanage thread it was posted the plan for the next few weeks, Manston failed so the U was in use way before the "not until September" plan.
We all know how stuff works.
But it is each railways call, but I thought the sectors view is that every pound of income is valuable at the moment.

 

That has been one of our problems in the past. We have posted a loco roster, only to have to substitute things at the last minute. Far from accepting, some people have been positively offensive about the change, swearing at our staff, and generally behaving in that manner that only the severely entitled think they can. I believe that, as far as the commercial department was concerned at one point, it was easier to not post a roster than to have to suffer regular vitriol from the angry minority. Railways may well have a plan, but as we all know with 60 plus year old technology, it can all fall apart very quickly.

There comes the further problem of management of the Rolvenden shed. The previous CME stood down, and due to cutbacks, he has not been replaced. The engineering side of the job is being overseen by a volunteer, but he does not make the decisions as to what is running, and when. I think it is fair to say that rostering firmly falls between two stools.

One other thing. For all those of you stating that a social media presence is essential for all railways, have you volunteered to do it for a railway yourself? Or have you done it as part of a paid role? Given all the time it takes to maintain the various social medias these days, and the sheer number of things that people seem to want each railway to tell visitors/enthusiasts/people who are neither, but insist that it should be freely available, and you have a full time job for one person, if not more. In this financial climate, can any railway afford a dedicated social media person? I don't think so.

Oh, and a parting thought. If you think the loco roster should be available, and on social media, have you tried asking the KESR via their social media? The people who do these things in the office don't ever come on here.

 

I know it is partly an issue of volunteer power but really how hard would it be for the Loco Dept to email/text/whatever the Social Media team at the start of the week and say 'All being well, this loco will be out this week' or 'Planned for loco 1 on the service train and loco 2 on the diner' - this could be published on the railway's Social Media pages within 30 seconds with the usual caveat. Most railways don't run a different engine every day.

3 of the 4 heritage railways closest to me are about a 1 hour drive. They're all great days out, but I'd still absolutely want to know what traction was rostered before I commited to driving that far. In particular, two of them have Pacers in service occasionally - whilst I fully understand why they have them, there's no way I'm driving an hour and paying to ride on a pacer. And I've plenty of non-enthusiast friends who'd feel likewise as they'd recognise 'those' trains. So it is important to customers.