Which railways will still be with us in 10 years?

A glimpse at the WLLR balance sheet would be a salutary lesson in financial prudence and (so far) success. Of course it would be "rather nice" to run a lot more trains but experiments in the past in adding extra services proved that this only spread the same business over extra trains. This was not sensible so was discontinued.

It is very wrong to assume that location alongside a main road is a sure fire way to attract plenty of custom. Many years ago, oil companies conducted research to find out why people with money on them drove past open filling stations only to run out of fuel. It was concluded that with some people, deep seated desires to get to the end of a planned journey overcame sensible considerations like having the means to get there.

So, apart from a minority who have the flexibility to adjust their plans at short notice, railways have to assume that their customers come from those who know about them in advance. Heritage railways are not providing a transport service so sheer frequency of service is not an issue. Excessive train mileage is a sign of weakness rather than strength.

 

The comments are from first hand experience. I visited the line in April 2008.

Regards

 

May apologies, your original post suggested you hadn't.

All the best

Andrew C

 

Hello,

Surely there must be at least two approaches to running a heritage railway. One is the business approach where all possible business is explored and exploited and, hopefully, made profitable. If resources to exploit a business opportunity are not available the leaders try to find those resources. (e.g., if midweek operation at a certain time of the year proves to be profitable, the staff and volunteers are found to do that.) The other would appear to be resources-led. Here the aim to to make best use of existing resources and the availability of those resourses determine the progress that can be made.

I believe both approaches have their right to exist and, coming back to the original question, those railways which are best at matching resources and requirements will be those that at least survive and at best prosper. This can be a large multi-million pound railway with plenty of paid staff and volunteers and 200+ operating days a year or a small railway with a steady but not necessarily big workforce of volunteers who know exactly how much they can achieve in terms of restoration and maintenance of vehicles and infrastructure.

With this background it appears useless to me to moan about not exploiting potential visitors and not realising potential turnover. The approach is just different.

Kind regards

Christoph

 

Gut gut , danke mein freund..

In theory this is true, in reality there are too many shades of grey with , (as in Govt), incompetants in charge who think they know what is best for all of us, have their own agenda to bolster thier ego,s, and refuse to step down even when the truth is staring them in the face.
I think this will happen more to the bigger Railways rather than the small ones who all of a sudden will run out of money , idea,s ,excuses , and will blame others for thier own faults, these Railways will become shadows of their former selves.

Sad but true

Chris

 

No apology necessary, you are quite right that my original post didn't suggest that I have visited. The circumstances were that I was staying in the area for the Llangollen's 'Patriot' gala and the weather forecast said it was going to rain until about lunchtime. I thought I would motor over to see the W&LLR while it was raining, have a ride and then go back to Llangollen. This I did and this visit formed my view of the railway.

It is friendly, courteous and inviting. Everything is clean; the locos, coaches, shops, stations and loos. The restoration work is brilliant. That's the positive side and it's a very good positive side, but I think it needs to be a little more ambitous too. It's positives appeal to the coach tour companies, and I noticed that an extra coach was put on the service I was on for such a tour. The speculative general visitor however, who might not look at the timetable, needs a greater frequency of service because otherwise they would be hanging about. They might, probably will, leave without spending money and go somewhere else to amuse the kids and spend their dosh. The enthusiast, on the other hand, who will look at the timetable and see there is little doing, will be put off from visiting at all.

I can understand the argument that small can be best, but there is a perception that people are perhaps spending their holidays in the UK. Perhaps the W&LLR needs to be a little bigger to cash in on this trend.

Regards

 

[The speculative general visitor however, who might not look at the timetable, needs a greater frequency of service because otherwise they would be hanging about. They might, probably will, leave without spending money and go somewhere else to amuse the kids and spend their dosh. The enthusiast, on the other hand, who will look at the timetable and see there is little doing, will be put off from visiting at all.

I can understand the argument that small can be best, but there is a perception that people are perhaps spending their holidays in the UK. Perhaps the W&LLR needs to be a little bigger to cash in on this trend.

I suspect I shall have a bit of a struggle to convince Columbine but here goes!

This is not a seaside area where people wander up from the beach on a chilly day to go on the train. Ninety percent or more of the business comes from excursions, either by private car or motor coach. It matters little as to which end of an eight mile line such visitors begin their journey; this is not a public transport operation but a joyride.

In these circumstances it is legitimate to regard the normal service as being five return trips each day and anyone arriving late at one terminus can be re-directed to the other, or Castle Caereinion for that matter. In my days as a volunteer I would do this and I would imagine this continues. A very large proportion took this suggestion up happily when I was there.

Enthusiasts seem to have difficulty in grasping that even voluntary aided organisations are subject to the same ruthless economic forces as fully commercial ones. Being born desperately poor, the revived W&L had no option but to be ultra careful and, by great good fortune, had the sense to remain so as matters improved over decades. I am as bemused as anyone at the transformation from poor relation to relative financial comfort but there we are. It would have been so so easy to have gone the other way.

Lastly, as an occasional gricer can I say that gricer's priorities and sensible business priorities are far from being natural allies!

 

No, just a pipe dream unfortunately.

 

What will & won't be around in ten years time? :-k I've just looked back 30 years for clues and in 1979 amongst operational sites were:-

Bristol Harbour Railway, Bulmer's Railway Centre at Hereford, Caerphilly Railway Society, Dinting, Ashchurch, Lytham Motive Power Museum and Steamport. The East Lancs was listed only as a site not a railway as was the Midland Railway at Butterley.

Meanwhile listed as "Other projects not yet operational and some only in the planning stage" were:-
Brecon Mountain Railway, Avon Valley Railway, North Stafford Railway, Peak Railway Society and the Swanage Railway Company.

It might be worthwhile therefore to see why some died whilst others blossomed.

Mind you also around that time Mr Draper, then the top man at the SVR announced to the country that "There are too many railways and preservation centres in this country. We should only have one every 50 miles and enthusiasts should back existing schemes rather than start new ones that dilute all railway preservation".

 

Ah yes Mr Draper, look what happenned to him.

Regards
CW.

 

I have fond memories of Lytham Motive Power Museum, it was where I got my first sight of a quarry Hunlset.

IIRC though LMPM was very much a private collection that was open to the public, I rarely recall anything ever being steamed.

Ian King

 

Bristol Harbour Railway is still operational? I know I said its under threat in another thread but up til now it has earned a quiet living.

 

The Hunslet quarry loco 'Jonathan' , I seem to remember was certainly steamed at Lytham on my visit on 27th July 1969 and as far as I know the collection remains in Lytham at the same private site excepting a few locos that were sold at auction at Lytham sometime in the early 1970s(?)

 

You may be right about July 1969 - I have a vague recollection of a BBC Look North broadcast from there around then.

I remember LMPM in the mid 1970's (IIRC it was open until about 1980) and nothing ever seemed to steam then.

Is the collection still on site? Jonathan (named I think after the owner's son), renamed back to its original "Bernstein", has been on its travels a bit in more recent years. I think at least one visit to Bala and possibly the West Lancashire (just over the Ribble on the south bank).

Ian King

 

Lytham Motive Power Museum is very much still there. Jonothan is on site and occasionally runs on the line there with the ex-Groundle Glen coach. Some of the collection was sold many years ago, but there are still several industrial locos there.
Due to the business growing around the site its a private museum.

Craig