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The Talyllyn in trouble ?

Discussion in 'Narrow Gauge Railways' started by Baldwin, Jan 11, 2013.

  1. Steve B

    Steve B Well-Known Member

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    Or you could click on the link on the right hand side of the home page - about 5 down from the top clearly labelled "Shop"!

    Ok, the website has a lot of information bursting out of it, and could possibly benefit from some simplification and greater prominence given to the bits that non-enthusiast first time visitors will be looking for, but it is still better than some other railway's websites, and similar in detail (in my opinion) to the Ffestiniog site (festrail.co.uk), except that the Ffestiniog one requires you to go through an opening page before you get anywhere!

    Steve B

    Edit - you beat me to it!
     
  2. Talyllyn07

    Talyllyn07 Member

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    btw i'm not standing up for the website, just asking how people are finding it so difficult...
     
  3. Baldwin

    Baldwin Guest

    With respect, the main page is a mess, it should be as easy as possible to use with the minimum amount of buttons, direct and to the point with always the idea that the customer is a first time user and needs to be helped.
     
  4. Talyllyn07

    Talyllyn07 Member

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    agree that there is a lot of information within the website but in my opinion the public are well catered for and the links that tourists are looking for are either nearest the top in the left and right columns, or the furthest left as you look at the page (everyone reads left to right) meaning that the webmaster has put the passengers first but also put sufficient information in there for members who aren't in touch with Tywyn but also enough information to try to attract new members.

    again just my personal opinion but I do tend to agree with your observations with the other website mentioned Steve.

    cheers
     
  5. age4047

    age4047 New Member

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    Okay you did ask... if I were in charge(!) the service would be one engine and carriages making two round trips or three round trips on some days (as the round trip would be now just 2 hours). On busier days I would have two engines and sets of carriages making two trips each or in high summer three trips each making six departures, these could be almost hourly. A third engine and carriages could come out for specials etc. I would de-staff the Abergynolwyn cafe and scrap the 30 minute layovers there, leaving it as a waiting room with a hot drinks machine. It can open as a cafe for functions or in the summer when the train service is frequent and passengers can break their journey to use the facilities. All crossings would be at Brynglas to save on maintaining the other loops and on volunteers who could be better used elsewhere. I would stop work on loco No.6 (as there are four other steam locomotives in good order) and restart it only as another loco comes around for overhaul. This staff time can then be better spent on maintenance of the permanent way or the carriages. I would also mothball some carriages, keeping two basic sets of four bogie carriages, a couple of opens for summer strengthening and the TR vintage set as that is a unique selling point. There isn't much scope for cutting more staff but having fewer assets to maintain will help their workload. A lot of this will not be popular with volunteers but the railway is not there to be a train set for volunteers to play with, it needs to be a sustainable business. The organisation needs reshaping so that decisions can be made quickly without having to wait for the society council which only meets about half a dozen times per year. The challenges the railway would face are how to market itself better (My suggestions are frequent use of the vintage train and heavy promotion of walks around the railway that incorporate the inclines and waggonways as they both interpret the railway's past) and equally importantly how to change the mindset of members and volunteers; and keep them interested in a streamlined TR operation but encouraging them to help with the less glamorous jobs as there would be less operating roles.

    It is also a very Talyllyn trait to get defensive when anyone gives criticism, and retaliate by saying: "you try and do better then?"

    I don't think it's unfair to expect that once the Christmas service was over the website would have a fresh look and focus on promoting the spring services. But we're just talking about one small issue here. If we're being picky, there is no mention of the extra 1545 train running on Saturdays 16th and 23rd Feb either, for example. I stand by my opinion.

    I'd just like to point out that I don't want things to change as much as anyone else, I've not broke my silence as a lurker on here just to be negative but I'm trying to look realistically at the situation. Unfortunately the busy days of steaming up four or five steam engines to pull 8 or 9 trains per day has long gone, because most of the trains run around half empty. Maybe in ten years holidaying abroad will have had it's day and Tywyn will be a revitalised holiday destination bustling with tourists, but at present things aren't looking good and the railway needs to adapt to survive.
     
  6. Talyllyn07

    Talyllyn07 Member

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    can I ask which railway you volunteer for (member) of? just to compare that website with the TR's
     
  7. Talyllyn07

    Talyllyn07 Member

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    I agree with most if not all of that! and can respect your reasons for posting it. but that is due to you having the inside knowledge to make an informed decision. not having no insider knowledge and believing you know what the line needs

    the 3 train timetable btw is apparently my fault and is a bugger about with the timetable I suggested where instead of blue in the low (non holiday) season this could be replaced by a three train one engine one set timetable shortening the layover at Tywyn to 15 mins (yes it is do-able) but keeping the Aber stop for punters this gives three trains spread quite thinly to keep walkers happy with the late train option.

    I personally think the extra trains are unnecessary as they are not advertised in the leaflet, but it will be interesting to see what comes of it. but the way the discussions on here are going can do more harm than good. on one hand the Marketing Dept are trying to get the news out and promote the railway but sometimes posts (however intended) can do more harm than good.

    cheers

    AT
     
  8. ellisteph12

    ellisteph12 New Member

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    As an IT Manager who has dealt with various web design companies, your brief of minimum amount of 'buttons' and direct and to the point (in my opinion) would be extremely difficult to fit in with the Talyllyn, which offers customers multiple 'products'. If we were a 'one product' experience this would be easy to achieve.

    The Talyllyn needs to advertise its separate cafe's as going concerns to travellers, the Museum, joining the Society, Donating to the railway, latest news, volunteering, directions to Tywyn, information on its locomotives, the shop, the fares, the timetables, the history, the background, local accommodation, the real ale etc etc

    If any of those were cut out of any new website, I could almost guarantee we would have a thread on here asking where that information was, not treading in this 'don't blame a volunteer' culture, you can see how difficult it can be for a webmaster to fit all this in, and then for it to be called a 'mess' is too harsh. Perhaps it is time to look again and refresh the design as every website should do every couple of years. This keeps it fresh and exciting. It would be one monumental task, or extremely expensive task.

    I would urge you to visit Google and look at other heritage railway websites and see how they differ.

    By the way I totally agree with age4047 that the website is the most crucial piece of Marketing, I just think we should be looking at other areas rather than pulling apart a website that in my opinion is good and fit for purpose at the moment.
     
  9. Baldwin

    Baldwin Guest

    Not all of us who come here are volunteers some of us run companies where advertising can mean make or break, even more so in these times !!
     
  10. Baldwin

    Baldwin Guest

    Without going into an overly complicated explanation, the simplest way of organising a web page for the TR with the minimum amount of hassle is to use the pyramid approach, there really is no need to have all the buttons on one page.
     
  11. Talyllyn07

    Talyllyn07 Member

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    but then you complain that to find this or that you have to click here search there click again somewhere else and say its difficult to find...
     
  12. ellisteph12

    ellisteph12 New Member

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    Im sure this is down to personal preference but I've always disliked pyramid based websites, too many clicks you may lose people along the way or not give them opportunity to show them what else is on offer.

    Someone wanting a walk in Wales, may see that trains run on the day of the walk, and they can get a cup of tea, and book a driver experience etc..
     
  13. ellisteph12

    ellisteph12 New Member

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    Would struggle how anyone can disagree with this, but should willing volunteers / people with wads of spare cash who want to spend there hard earned on getting No. 6 back in traffic be told they can't because its not viable for the overall business plan? Or should we have a core model of business as you suggest, with an open policy of contributions that allow additions to be made if paid for willingly?
     
  14. Baldwin

    Baldwin Guest

    You're surely joking, no matter where you are you can always return to the start page or just go back !
     
  15. Neil_Scott

    Neil_Scott Part of the furniture

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    If it's not part of the core business plan then they should be told that their money would be better spent elsewhere. There has to be a line drawn somewhere so that the railway doesn't end up with 6 steam engines all working (as seems to be the desire from some quarters) and a reasonable workload left for the full-time staff. The railway needs to be tough in some cases that simply because a group of volunteers may want something to happen doesn't mean that it has to. We're now going to be saddled with No.4 and No.6 both coming back into traffic within a short period of time and having 5 steam engines available when we only need 3 or 4. Regardless of who wants to put money into a project there has to be a time where 'thanks, but no thanks' has to be said.
     
  16. Jamessquared

    Jamessquared Nat Pres stalwart

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    Ah, welcome to 1999! That "pyramidal" theory of web design arose form the flawed application of a theory in cognitive science that people couldn't remember more than 7 +/-2 items from a list, which web designers then took to mean you shouldn't have more than 7 +/-2 links in any group on a web page. Completely ignoring the fact that when browsing a website, the task isn't "choose one item form a list you have committed to memory" but "choose one item from a list you can see in front of you". At it's worst, I even saw websites that had options for each month, and had split them into two groups so there was never more than 7 items in each group! Barking... If you take a look at any state-of-the-art usable website now, you'll see none of them sticks to a rigidly pyramidal structure.

    The key is firstly matching a user's conceptual model of the tasks they want to accomplish to your website structure; and secondly making stuff discoverable. So if I were designing a generic heritage railway website, I'd want to think about what are the key "actions" that people want to accomplish. That would take a bit of research, but they might be "Visit", "Join", "Volunteer", "Donate" or something like that. (And, again contrary to the general advice in 1999 that links should describe the pages they linked to, e.g. be nouns; what people genrally want to do is accomplish an action, so your major links should be verbs). And then group items logically from there: so "timetables", "directions", "fares", "facilities" would be under "visit", for example. That doesn't necessarily mean one click away; it could mean under a sub-heading or grouping on the front page.

    Also, worth remembering that relatively few people visit websites these days by starting at the front page and navigating to where the information is. They use Google to do that for them. So provided the content of each page is good, then actually search engine optimisation is better use of time than a wholesale redesign of the front page and structure which lots of people will never see. It's always informative if you have access to a web analytics package (and good free ones are available) to see how many people start their journey through your site from a page deep within the structure.

    Tom (ex-web designer and manager of a 1,000,000+ page view per month website)
     
  17. Talyllyn07

    Talyllyn07 Member

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    I agree with your point here, whilst it makes commercial sense to follow age4047's thoughts to the letter and in so far as operating I agree with him yes.

    but as you point out if the members want to stump up the cash (which they already have done for No.6) then that should be done. now whether we have the mechanical knowledge within the volunteer pool to overhaul a engine ourselves then this is possibly something that should be done by volunteers so that the staff can do essential work on carriages etc and maybe this is something to consider? it happens on other railways.

    cheers
     
  18. Baldwin

    Baldwin Guest

    Again, we are missing the point. The aim is not to make information "discoverable" but to make coming to the TR for a first time customer as easy as possible !
     
  19. Jamessquared

    Jamessquared Nat Pres stalwart

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    Exactly. And you don't do that with pyramidal website design...

    Tom
     
  20. Neil_Scott

    Neil_Scott Part of the furniture

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    The problem with letting people just get on with overhauling a locomotive or carriage is that it's not often the same people who either want to maintain it or pay for its maintenance. Volunteers are excellent at starting projects and occasionally finishing them and then leaving the day-to-day wear and tear to the diminishing permanent staff. What's the point in having 5 steam engines anyway? No.6 will just be another labour-intensive engine to maintain.
     

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