Edmonson tickets a lost "cause" for ever?

But any passenger donating with Gift Aid will have to give their name and address, and sign a tax confirmation statement anyway. Gift Aid implies form-filling, unfortunately. I know a lot of charities will take the statement once and keep your details on file, but I doubt any railways do.

 

Considering the nostalgic comments here I am reminded that many of the things that those of us who travelled on the older pre-nationalization and pre BR 'blue' railway will note the absence of those things that were once part of the everyday scene on our railways.
For instance are there any wheel tappers now? They could usually be heard at their work. What about Porters? Many heritage lines do go from somewhere of size to another and some folk do use the busier heritage lines as public transport rather than a day out.
Where is all the small parcel traffic? The railways were usually the principal method of getting produce - farm machinery, foodstuffs and clothing- sent to ones nearest station long before 'white van man' and their liveried equivalents came about. I don't expect to see baskets of pigeons but there were other commodities - other than empty suitcases and trunks - to be seen at many railway stations. And there are, of course the empty cattle docks and lack of the limed cattle trucks.
I am sure others may remember more of the things that went to make up the railway scene of yesteryear.

 

some lines go some way to portraying that and this needs encouraging.

 

For attractions that levy Gift Aid on entry, the admin burden is not that high - they need name and postcode, then give you a printed receipt for the payment. The declaration is verbal, and the record keeping is in the computer. The receipt is necessary for those who are higher rate taxpayers, who can offset some of their donations against tax.

The question is whether the cost of setting this infrastructure up and then maintaining it will justify the investment and operational costs. Even for those - Talyllyn, IoWSR - that are already set up in a way that allows them to benefit from this, I am surprised that it is economically viable, and hope that the HMRC attitude doesn't shift, leaving them high and dry.

 

At a marginal cost for the piece of pasteboard, I think you overstate your case bearing in mind that the electronic printing is also not free. The ticket cost just becomes part of teh cost of doing business - and rather less onerous than the percentage of card payments taken by the banks, for example. Also, a ticket is not the same as a receipt, and where a railway has conditions of carriage that entitle the company to retain the ticket, I might well refuse to accept the two on a single piece of paper. There are valid reasons why I may require to keep the receipt - business expenses*, Gift Aid records - irrespective of the status of a ticket. At which point, any ticketing system that addresses that workload already has to carry the extra burden.

Personally, I think others on here speak much more sense than @paulhitch, some of them from perhaps rather more in depth knowledge of the issues involved.

* - a business expense might be a youth leader taking a group on a day out, and doesn't imply a businessman travelling for work purposes. Though, if a railway does have to charge VAT on fares/admission, a proper VAT receipt is also a pre-requisite.

 

Given that my first day working a BR ticket office (with NCR ticket machines) was Derby Day at Epsom, I don’t need lessons on busy offices.

If I buy a ticket at a National network station these days, I usually get a ticket and a receipt. The EPOS print can be the receipt and the Edmonson card the ticket, preserving and enhancing the heritage image. Or don’t we care about that?

Robin

 

GCR have been known to carry pigeons...
Cattle trucks are more of a problem as there are very few survivors. We don’t have one, nor a horse box, which is a shame as we do have two surviving cattle docks so could actually recreate the traffic in a small way if we restored them and had suitable vehicles! Maybe one day...


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Robin - you need to remember that on Nat Pres, talking about ticketing from direct operational experience as a guard, TTI, booking office clerk or ex- Charity trustee with finance responsibility affords no particular understanding of the issue. True insight can only be reached by making sweeping assertions about costs and assigning singular motivations to diverse strangers backed up by no evidence, preferably from a comfy armchair. See also any thread about loco operating costs.

Tom

 

Oi ‘ad forgot. Silly me.

(Mind you, a rush hour morning on the window at Wimbledon with NCR’s would give most heritage clerks a heart attack!)

Robin

 

Name and address presumably comes as part of the information disclosed with the card payment? They may have to give a verbal agreement, but for the most part I don't see people filling in Gift Aid forms. The whole business of clipping tickets seems to me to be wasteful of material and labour - it would be much more to the point to have an EPOS ticket that could be quickly scanned using some kind of electronic reader (QR code and smartphone camera?) to verify its validity.

 

It would be much more to the point to close the railway and sell everything for scrap while passengers used their own cars to go from A to B. Somewhere along the line you seem to have rather missed the point about what product heritage railways are selling.

Tom

 

You forgot the important bit, a connection with a railway on Vectis.

 

Name and address need to be confirmed separately from card transaction; but can be done easily where applicable and without form filling. I’ve done it many times.

@Jamessquared sums up my thoughts on ticket checking, unlike me, within forum rules.


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I spent many hours "portering" at Bishops Lydeard Station, shifting suitcases for grateful passengers, using a variety of trucks. Just like the old days - real heritage

Steve

 

New build cattle trucks? You'd also need a herd of cows. (And if you like lame jokes 'Herd of cows?' 'Yes of course I have.')

 

You write in the past tense Steve. Has anyone followed in your footsteps? Or is there no requirement nowadays?

 

then hire them to Northern , they would still be better than anything else they have no seats to complain about, standing only plus you can pack them in,

 

All in the past @Greenway back in the days of the Saturday DMU service. No porters about these days, sadly. Mind, whilst watching the webcam the other day, some passengers were to be seen with "wheely" suitcases at Blue Anchor Station, but we no longer seen the trainloads of yesteryear using the railway to get to/from their hols.

Steve

 

Cash is so overrated.

 

Perhaps the sort of job that you could have a volunteer on stand by for with a proper porters barrow?