West Somerset Railway General Discussion

Very interesting post and idea. However, having been to Minehead in November just as the railway had finished operating, Minehead is a veritable ghost town once the various touristy things shut for the winter, and certainly a massive gulf away from the bustling town in other months of the year. It's a rather cold and bleak place and certainly not a destination I would recommend! Indeed the whole of that region becomes rather drab once the nice weather vanishes.

If you ran such a DMU service you'd be looking at an absolute bare-bones service and system in place, just the DMU shuttling back and forth with only signalmen where absolutely necessary (mostly to operate crossings rather than deal with traffic) and likely sell tickets on the train instead.

That being said, people like seeing steam trains and there's a noticeable difference in numbers when running steam versus any other kind of diesel service, the NYMR saw drops of up to 40% according to an article in Steam Railway, which in most business terms is probably your profit margin and quite a bit more. And that was during the high season.

 

Which extra days would you be suggesting?

I’d need a lot of convincing that there was likely to be much trade available on a Thursday in November, January or February.

What would you suggest the effect on Engineering works would be?

Pleased to see some flesh on the bones of this idea to understand whether it is a body or a cadaver.

Robin

 

Would somebody be so kind as to post a link to "the other thread" please?
I can't seem to find it.

 

https://www.national-preservation.c...bility-of-extending-to-taunton.541153/page-29

 

How many staff would be required to run regular ghost trains like those suggested?

 

Perhaps a more relevant challenge for the Chamber of Commerce et al to address? Minehead as al all year round destination?

 

Shoulder of the season trains can be very marginal for numbers (and weather dependent). Station House, Stogumber is a good place from which to watch passing trains as they are silhouetted as they pass making loading easy to assess in crude terms.

But Mike @Maunsell907 would know this from his volunteering as a TTI.

There aren’t any extra days to run in, for example, July or August, when loadings are good, so I am genuinely intrigued to understand when he thinks there are untapped passenger numbers to unlock.

Robin

 

Once upon a time there was a view that our 'shoulders of the season' weekends created ideal opportunities to stage low-cost special events targeting different potential groups of passengers, and so put bums on otherwise vacant seats. That was how the WSR/CAMRA Real Ale & Cider Festival came about. That event ran successfully for 16 years and attracted an eclectic mix of folk that would not otherwise have considered visiting the Railway. It brought a lot of business to the Minehead area and many festival goers made a long weekend of it, year in year out. Many of those that didn't ride the trains on event weekend did so on the days either side of it.

The challenge is to propose such events and, as I very quickly found out, actually make them happen!

Rather than commit to more operating days, or longer operating days, we should be coming up with ideas to fill the significant volume of vacant seats that we already drag around West Somerset, including those rarely occupied 24 non-dining seats within the QB consist.

Barrie

 

Very sensible, and something we've been doing on the GWSR, doing small special events that require minimum extra volunteer hours but encourage different people to visit. In addition to the ale weekends you mentioned, we've had a food fayre, Lego weekend and classic vehicle display days. A normal timetable runs so no extra staff, just a few people to organise it and man the side event and all give a significant increase to passenger numbers even on miserable October weekends.

Sent from my Moto G (4) using Tapatalk

 

Sadly the real ale festival was killed off by the WSR PLC partly of safety grounds. Agree totally re the QB. An instant money spinner would be to use the first class coach on galas. This has been vetoed by the OS department for the winter gala without any credible reason being given.

 

& a follow-up question or three:
How many staff, absolute minimum, needed to run just one train from MD to BL, well off-peak?
I'm thinking about 15 with most stations un-staffed.
About 32 for 1 train each way, passing at WN?

 

You say that Michael, though in recent years the Bluebell has been cutting the days on which it runs. Not too many years ago, we ran every weekend, plus daily between Christmas and New Year; during the February half term and then continuously from Easter until the October half term.

In the last couple of years, we have cut out the weekend running during January and November. Doing so gives two relatively long windows of 4 - 5 weeks for major infrastructure work. For example, this November the infrastructure team substantially rebuilt Poleay bridge over the river Ouse; last January they replaced 1/3 mile of track at Holywell; November 2016 they replaced the most northerly point at Horsted Keynes plus about 100 yards of track either side, etc etc. These are all the kinds of jobs that (a) sever the line completely, (b) have an ongoing operational impact if not tackled (for example, in TSRs) and (c) cannot be sensibly, or at least efficiently, managed if you are struggling to keep the line open at weekends. Lots of our current relaying activity involves a rebuild from the formation up, i.e. digging out for several feet and starting afresh, and the logistics of doing that (hiring machinery etc) mean it needs doing in as concentrated a fashion as possible. (We did relay a couple of hundred yards of track in the middle of the summer this year by doing the work overnight between trains, but (a) it was on an embankment, and only required track replacement, not rebuilding of the drainage and (b) it was a massive volunteer effort, probably not repeatable on a routine basis).

It will always be a struggle to find times to do major infrastructure work within an operational railway, but if you are going to choose any time, January or November tend to be the best in the sense of normally having very low passenger loadings anyway.

With regard your comment about running a half line: When the extension opened to East Grinstead, the following winter we had a large job planned that cut the line between Sheffield Park and Horsted Keynes. There was an impression that, having only just got to East Grinstead, we didn't want to sever the line immediately, so we hired in a DMU to run a service from Horsted Keynes to East Grinstead for a few weekends. As I understand, financially it wasn't a success, with low loadings. This winter, while the line is cut between Horsted Keynes and Sheffield Park for the work planned this January, we are running footplate experience courses in the vicinity of Sheffield Park - so some revenue generation, but high value - low volume and pre-booked, rather than a "turn up and go" service that would probably be poorly patronised anyway. We do appear to have very good relations with the Town Council and others in East Grinstead who recognise the benefit the line brings to the town in visitor numbers.

Tom

 

WSR plc announces solution to Railway budget crisis.

The WSR plc is pleased to announce that it has reached agreement with Somerset County Council to extend the months of July and August by a week in West Somerset from 2020 as soon as Brexit has taken effect. In future both months will include dates from 32nd to 38th at the end of each month. January and February will, correspondingly, be shortened by a week each.

A spokesman for the Railway, Erik Meow, said:

“This demonstrates how the freedom from central regulation will permit economic renewal in Britain. The Railway always carries many more passengers in July and August and we believe the budget out turn will be positive. If this experiment works, we will be proposing that all dates in September are designated a Sunday, to allow Quantock Belle Sunday lunch dining trains to run every day in a ‘month of Sundays’.

The Minehead Chamber of Commerce welcomed the change as logical and sensible. It also noted that anyone born between 25 and 31 January and during the last week of February would now live for ever in West Somerset as they would not have any more birthdays.

As we went to press Somerset County Council were reportedly talking to the UK central government to resolve issues around whether there would need to be a ‘hard border’ between West Somerset and the rest of the UK during the periods of date variance.....

Report Ends

Erik Meow of the WSR

 

In late news, Mr Roy Wood has announced that further commercial opportunities will soon be coming to Somerset. "I wrote a song in the 1970's called "I Wish It Could Be Christmas Every Day", so I thought why not ?" Mr Wood added, "The Australians wait until summer before they have Christmas so we have decided that we should do the same. Christmas will be moved to June and will last for the full month. It's a Wizard idea !"

Erik Meow was unavailable for comment due to a fur ball incident.

 

Hmmmm. Dragon Handler reads Robin's and Snifter's posts and then checks calendar and finds that it's December 18th not April 1st.

 

Only until MCC get at the calendar...

Robin

 

I totally agree regarding low cost events in order to bring different people onto the railway. Why continue to try and chase diminishing returns of the ‘one product’ (a trip from BL to MD), its chasing a small (at that time of year) market but is high cost and highly volunteer intensive. There are many other options as you say Barrie you could also add SEC’s / DEC’s, Diesel running days and photo charters for example.

How about a 1940’s weekend for example, low cost, easy to arrange but high interest/profit, one was I believe muted for 2018 but it appears that somebody at the railway didn’t like the sound of it !!!!! Surely a large lost opportunity especially given we have a S160 for 2018, why would you not run one when we need more customers and more revenue ?

When I was training and mentoring Managers as a full time job two quotes were always used constantly: ‘If you always do what you have always done, you will always get what you have always got’ and ‘they don’t know what they don’t know’. Both are over used and annoying when heard but perhaps very relevant here. Whilst I respect anybody who takes on the job of running any railway like the WSR we need more outward looking thinking please, we have to move forward not stay the same.

 

That was exactly the thinking behind the June Classsic Car Run which I initiated in 2015 and will run for its 4th year in 2018.

No more trains but the Railway made more interesting for the day and so some extra revenue. The chosen date also attempts to give folk a reason to stay in West Somerset for the Sunday at the end of the half term holiday.

A fair bit of work to organise, but rewarding.

Robin

 

We now have a new Head of Commercial, Mark Hill, who would (I assume) be interested in any ideas we have. Mark's email is Mark.Hill@wsrail.net

Perhaps Mark might hold a "ideas" session - a meeting or online or both - to help spot these possible areas to explore further.

There are a 101 things that we could do to bring more people to our Railway. My small idea from years ago of a "station gardens week" had to be officially approved. It was eventually accepted, after a year or two of trying. It was tried for one year, after passing a series of tests and gaining funds for a leaflet. I didn't think we needed a leaflet, just a mention in the timetable leaflet and some regular online mentions, a press release or two, y'know the sort of thing. Hmmm. I still have a page on wsr.org.uk about the station gardens. Maybe I'll suggest the idea again...

Steve

 

These 3 letter acronyms or whatever still get in.
And still no one knows what they mean.

I'm just as guilty.