Should Steam railways employ more people ?

Steam railways have traditionally relied totally on volunteers but is this holding some railways back ?

By employing more people they could potentially boost passenger numbers, say by employing a marketing person, boost revenue with full time cafes and doing contract work etc. Maybe run trains more often etc

Also by having full time staff they can get stuff done quicker and hire people with particular skills.

What do people think ?

 

A paid employee should be one who is able to inspire, to push for worthwhile projects and go that extra mile. If you employ the wrong people you can end up alienating the volunteers. Put the wrong person in charge and it can be disaster, they can drain away all of your enthusiasm, I know of someone who has to devote the majority of his time battling a totally inept Manager. Be careful what you wish for.

 

It should be a requirement that any employee should have an interest and a passion for railways. Some lines have already gone away from the reasons the preservation pioneers put in all the money and effort for because of the men in suits. The P&DR was the first.
What is not needed is some marketing man who thinks it's a good idea to paint locos in pretty colours and have a 'corporate brand image' rather than realism. As the previous poster said be careful of what you wish for.
In addition to that a salaried employee is a drain on cash resources, not exactly in plentiful supply in the heritage railway movement

 

Where-as put the right person in a volunteer management role and they will encourage more volunteers as they are likely to see quicker resulted due to resources being pooled in the correct areas and a joined up approach to any task at hand or overall project. Often this is the thing Heritage Railways lack is proper project management and a plan to get to the end goal; there are lots of end goals just not many people who know the best way to get there!

 

The railway would need to generate their salary in new revenue or it would have a serious affect on ticket prices and/or fundraising.

 

Interesting topic. Six years ago we (Gwili) did just that. We decided to run about 180 days per year instead of 90, employing more staff when doing so. In that time we have also built an engine shed, cafe, and opened the extension. It hasn’t all been plain sailing of course but are we in a better position now than when we were? Absolutely.

Some quick fire points-

1) it is getting more difficult to expect volunteers to bear certain roles eg responsible officer both because of technical requirements and reasons of time.

2) job creation and employment ticks grant boxes

3) even within the model of paid staff and volunteers there are a number of possible structures. You have to find the right one.

4) it does require a leap of faith.

5) the interaction between paid staff and volunteers is critical ; often your employee base can be drawn from existing volunteers.

Regards

Matt

 

it makes sense, I wonder how many workshop days are lost because a loco is occupying a space but only being worked on for one or two days a week.

 

Add to that how long an overhaul takes if it's only been worked on once a week/ and or a blue moon...

 

this is just about the biggest can of worms its possible to open, Managers set the agenda, get a good Manager with the right skills and they will be an asset, get the wrong one, and your railway is at risk. Not all paid staff will inspire their volunteers, some actually will seek to undermine them, to not allow them to show their worth. but in most case this was because of past managerial mistakes

 

At one end of the scale we have the business model of “15 paid members of staff and that's all we need” which is only used by a handful of railways - P and D and Lakeside spring to mind. They aren’t too long either and have a meaningful destination. Their passenger figures are north of 100k each and don’t rely on workshop work or large catering outlets (I think!). In other words their core business is runnng the trains and they make it pay.

At the other end of the scale we have the GWSR with a high number of volunteers, and only a very small number of paid staff. They can also run trains and make it pay.

Most railways fall between these two stools with paid staff supplemented by volunteers. There are several models. involving engineering divisions, catering or a diverse range of operations, sometimes all three.

However it is noticeable that any major expansion plans are generally paid for by appeals, donations, charitable arms. For every Railway there is now a dual purpose - firstly make the day to day operations pay and secondly expand and improve on what you have, as visitor expectations increase. This doesn’t simply mean extend the line but it could mean for example getting a plan in place for overhauls and the like.

The challenges are considerable, but many railways have shown they can step up thanks to the dedication of those behind them.

Regards

Matt

 

I think the trouble is there can be an attitude where staff know their service to the public isn't top notch but have the excuse"we're volunteers you know". Well, I don't think that washes with the Public and they've a right to receive a top day out for their cash and if they don't, they won't come again. Railways are big business and second best won't do anymore.
It's as if the Public are expected to subsidise people's hobbies.
It mildly annoys me when people call to my door wanting me to buy raffle tickets or whatever in aid of their Boxing Club or Cycling Club. I politely say no thank you, after all I ask noone to subsidise my Ford Capri which is my hobby.....
I think all the major railways will follow the P&DSR model eventually, often I'm hard put to spot a volunteer at some railways as it is.

 

My view would be that some of the “premier league” would struggle to replicate a P and D style operation because the economies of scale just don’t add up. You would need much more than 15 staff a day to run the SVR or WSR for example. Being too big can have significant disadvantages....

In saying that though they are well placed to raise significant funds from their supporter bases as we have seen in the last few years.

Matt

 

well obviously the 15 would have to be scaled up....which is the point of the thread really.

 

How would you expect to 'spot a volunteer' ? Paid or volunteer, they're all railway staff.

 

It's that fine balance of where paying someone would do the most good. Paying a marketing bod might be a good thing for bringing in extra customers but that might have an adverse effect if there isn't the structure and volunteer base to handle those numbers. On the other hand paying a hands on general manager could be good for getting works done and enthusing volunteers which might well help increase the overall volunteer base, but that would do nothing to increase passenger numbers to cover the extra wage cost.

So what to do? Nothing? Chose one and hope? Or risk it and go for both at the same time?

I suppose one answer is only to employ people who's effect on income would pay their way but then you have to consider those positions that have no effect on income - perhaps in house engineering, grounds maintenance, cleaning etc. Here you either have to push your volunteer recruitment effort for those roles or accept having to have paid staff that will be a cost to the business.

 

Without asking, how do you tell who is a volunteer and who is paid?

On the Bluebell, we have a mixed model, though everyone in a front-line operational role (i.e. loco crew, signalmen, guards, station staff etc.) is a volunteer, along with significant numbers of restoration and maintenance staff. I saw some interesting stats for how much time was put in just in the Loco Ops department this year: if you assume a 40hr working week with normal paid holiday arrangements, it would equate to about 20 full time equivalents. Actually, if you went down a fully paid model, I suspect you would arrange things slightly differently so as to have a lower staff requirement, for example you'd roster most loco duties with a crew of two rather than three; not have weekend spare crews and so on, but even so, it shows that even on a railway like ours with a reasonably large full time paid staff, going to an all-paid model would be simply unsustainable. (Just to take signalmen: we have three signal boxes, and at weekends they are probably manned for about 16 hours per day on a Saturday, i.e. needing a double shift and probably 10 hours on a Sunday. If you went the paid route, you could probably kiss good by to heritage signalling to make it pay).

The other point that strikes me is that in these kinds of discussions, people tend to think of paid and volunteer as the only options, ignoring contract staff or work outsourced to other companies. Some railways are held up as models of being all, or largely, volunteer based - but I wonder how much work is done by contractors? For example, a contract boiler smith may not appear on the books as a paid FTE, but is still costing money, it's just the outgoing is a B2B expense rather than, say, wages, pension and NI. The same would apply even to such prosaic things as having a contract company to do cleaning. I'm not saying that one model is better or worse than the other, but simply that straight comparisons of staffing levels between railways aren't necessarily all they seem. Ultimately, it is down to the directors to strike what they consider is the best balance between cost, risk and reliability when aiming to get all the tasks - glamorous and unglamorous, skilled and unskilled - covered.

Tom

 

Some interesting replies. I agree that the railway needs to employ the right people. I am thinking of some examples. I understand the SVR for example employed John Leech as a marketing guy, (who has since died.) I read an article in Steam Railway about him after his death and it said passenger numbers before were about 170k a year but he helped promote the railway and market it for example to coach companies to bring their passengers mid week etc and passenger numbers then rose above 250k a year and revenue also rose considerably, so this is an example where the all the infrastructure and even the number of trains can be the same but more bums on seats and more spend in shops and cafes = more cash for the railway to use, more than covering the cost in wages of that individual.

The South Devon and other railways seem to have built up a real contract work doing wheelsets and other Engineering work again with paid staff who genuinely know what they are doing and also clients want the work done professionally and quickly.

The thing is with something like assembling wheel sets or putting new steel tyres on, the typical volunteer won't have a clue how to do all that as British Engineering has declined and it just isn't done much anymore.

Someone mentioned the GWR, As far as I am aware they have no paid staff at all. Is this an example of a railway that should now be looking at hiring some paid staff and by not doing so it puts them at a disadvantage ?

 

it's often the case that you can walk around a railway station, use viewing facilities and see almost noone even at the weekend. Those that are in evidence outside the operating staff ( for whom the railway runs in reality) most of the staff you do encounter in shops and catering outlets are, I suspect, employees in many cases.

I didn't mean you can't tell who is a volunteer and who is paid, I meant that nowadays there seems to be few volunteers around at all compared to "my day" when the place would be heaving with bods at the weekend.