Which railways will still be with us in 10 years?

Or to put it another way - which ones won't? Heritage railways have come and gone over time, which ones do you think might not make it?

 

I guess almost all will still be around BUT many of them will decend to the level of just being hobby sites, kept going by their owners in an almost private capacity. On the other hand, how many of the current exhibits will have deterioated to more or less scrap status?

 

I was both surprised and delighted by the success and ambition of the Mid Norfolk Railway. When it was first established I thought it was too long and too late on the scene, and the location didn't seem conducive to massive tourist support, but I'm happy to have been proved wrong, and now look forward to hearing about the push to County School and beyond to Fakenham, and who knows even the Norfolk Circle may not be an impossible dream. I am also inmpressed by their freight contracts.
Now I worry about the S & D trust. It's not a good time to enter the field with almost nothing except goodwill to sustain you. I would love to see them extend for a few miles but I can't see it happening.

 

Hasn't that already started to occur at a few sites?

 

I think it would be inappropriate to suggest new names, but if we take the examples of the Swansea Vale/Barry Island Railway, a major issue is going to be whether the lines concerned either hold the freehold or a long lease on the land they occupy.

If volunteers dwindle, you can run less operating days. If the Bank comes calling, you can normally stay afloat by shareholder bail outs/ asset stripping. However if the landlord decides it's curtains that is the end.

Don't forget the flip side of this however is that those lines which are displaced will hopefully join others and make them stronger.

Railway must be innovative too though, several of the smaller/medium sized lines still rely heavily on Thomas, other events need to come into the fold.

 

Wow! A difficult question but one that all heritage railway management must try to answer I guess. I'm not a manager of a heritage railway but I'd venture that the ones which will survive (railways that is, not managers) will be those that:
1. Go from A to B (Honeybourne (not just Broadway) to Cheltenham, Alresford to Alton, Leicester to Loughborough etc)
2. Have a unique selling point or a special association (Festiniog, Lynton and Barnstaple, "Heartbeat" Line etc)
3. Have good public facilities - toilets, play areas, decent car parks, clean coaching stock, staff who don't look and act like the Addams Family etc.
4. Have links to the National Network. (This is really important IMHO)
5. Form part of a "joined up" grand day out - ie they link up with other local attractions.
6. Offer good storage, servicing and minor overhaul facilities (in some cases major overhaul facilities) for both steam and diesel traction.
7. Don't bitch amongst themselves or appear to outsiders to be somewhat zany in their outlook (certain followers of the S&D).
8. Have great locations/assets for filming (GCR, GLos Warks Rly, WSR, well quite a few really).

In the long run however, to survive, they must do what railways were originally built to do, carry passengers and also tons of freight. I believe that they will have to do this to survive long term as heritage alone will not always save them. (No, I'm not having a bad day!)

The above list is not exhaustive and I will not be responsible if in 10 years' time you come back and tell me I was right/wrong/deluded/talking Kack.

 

I think these are valid bullet points, yes very valid points. Assuming good management practices by the senior people in any one railway, I think those who are in a tourist area and are close to urban areas for the volunteers and engineering skills (SVR, KWVR, NYMR, Llangollen, WSR, Bluebell, all the Welsh ng railways etc) will be OK; the others might have to do something very special to survive.

I don't see any of them carrying passengers and freight commercially though, but who knows what the future might just hold given potential government policies on global warming.

Regards

 

the one thing not listed is the most important, a renewable source of volunteers...

 

A number of lines have, over the years, seen a progressive increase in the number of full time paid staff. Dispite the present economic downturn, in the long term, I see the number of full time staff continuing to grow.
Going back to the original topic; perhaps we should consult with Michael Draper over which lines will still be around a decade hence.

 

Ah yes, volunteers!

Thank you Arthur, I knew I would miss something and it is probably one of the most important, if not the most important. Indeed, without a supply of young people to replace the generation that knew steam and some heritage diesels in their daily use as "beasts of burden" all else is wasted. The only exception is for the line that can afford all its staff to be paid to work on it and that's a tall order although not impossible I suppose.

 

So if you make the operation of a railway the target - by whatever means steam, diesel or p-way trolley..... - you are are left looking at the particular aspects of your success past and present and what are the expectations of the customer (present and future). Where those meet to a reasonable degree, expect survival, where they don't......

Sounds harsh but really we all need to look to our futures. It is a sad fact that the enthusiast market, such as ourselves, cannot sustain the available projects. Given the economic climate it is sad to say that if we only get some casualties we will be doing well. Let us not knock Jo-public with it's awareness guided by events such as Thomas-T or or 60163: I'm not knocking either btw, they just seem to know how to sell to those outside the scene. If you don't give those with money to spare to give to you something worthwhile, how do you expect them to think you worthy of their cash?

 

Presumably the larger well established Heritage railways will be already planning their budgets, staffing, rosters, opening days etc given a fall of visiters between say 5 and 40 % in the next few years, with various fallback positions planned. As someone who did budgets for many years in industry it is always a bad mistake to delay this kind of thing as that way you will be forever playing catch-up.

 

Isn't it a fact that by planning they've managed to grow? Surely even the smallest should have some sort of budgetary plans otherwise, long term, they are almost bound to fail.
Like it or not, our hobby must function on strong business-like terms otherwise the begging bowl will be continually passed around the membership.

 

Its one thing to plan for expansion and growth, but quite another to plan for contraction. Many organisations of all kinds are no longer with us because they could not bring themselves to read the writing on the wall and delayed planning for cutbacks. History shows that the early movers are usually those whom survive. To use the famous Warren Buffett quote "Its only when the tide goes out that you can see who was swimming naked"

 

Interesting topic and most of what is said is what I have written previously and been criticised for as being negative. Only the fittest and most businesslike will survive, i.e. those with robust business plans, marketing strategy and offer the punters a worthwhile experience. Now is not the time to start yet another pie in the sky scheme on a whim.

One of the biggest potential movement killers will be anti-pollution legislation. That could stop everything in its tracks (pun intended) and close the good, the bad and the ugly in the stroke of a pen.

 

This is very true but unfortunatley many grant funding bodies don't see it this way... they just think "great a new scheme to regenerate the local area, let's give these chaps money to turn that derelict site into a new Heritage museum'.

Grant bodies don't see things in terms of 'where will the new organisation get locos/coaches/volunteers?. To get round this it's normally sufficient to get a "business plan" which projects that the new project will receive "x" number of visitors, and there will be "y" number of volunteers available. It could be the stuff of a fiction novel but if it is presented well enough, you can pull the wool over anyone's eyes.

So even small organisations with no track record (so to speak) can get lots of money thrown at them if they are in the right area (in terms of regeneration, not necessarily near a population) to start up a scheme. Whether that scheme is then sustainable in the long run is questionable, but there you have it.

Unfortunatley new schemes will continue to be mooted as long as the emphasis is on 'regeneration' from industrialism to tourism/education. Funding schemes continue to exist to mitigate either the continuance or closure of industries as well as the great heritage railway hope, the HLF (olympics notwithstanding).

 

The established railways should still be there in 10 years time, but what about keeping the voluenteers that is where the problems will most likily be oh that and visitor numbers, how many families will be able to afford a day out and the resulting lack of income ,will see some lines fold and railways that dont offer anything other than a ride from a to b, will not survive
there will still be new schemes that will still pop up, weither these can flourish depends on where they are, what they can offer in the long term, if they have something marketable, they might stand a chance also but the biggest problem is going to be who is in government, and how much, they get taken in by the anti railway , pro road, green, get cars off the road and everyone riding push bike lobbies that will try to get their way, if god forebid, sustrans get any more power, all the railway lines will be ripped up and we will all be on our bikes ,or sitting in traffic jams,

 

On the face of it, I disagree. It doesn't matter how enthusiastic you are, if you don't have any business aptitude, you'll struggle to bring in the money. And if you can't bring in enough money, your place will close.

Matt78 raises a very good point, in that there are still those who rely too heavily on Thomas. When I recently found out how much of my own railway's annual income comes from DOWT, to say I was shocked would be an understatement. By relying so heavily on one event, you're only setting yourself up for a massive fall.

As others have said, the railways which will survive are those that move with the times, and are able to innovate. Unfortunately there's a good number of people out there who still think we're in the 1970's.