Coronavirus, galas and your attendance

I suggest that if The Government wants to close 'tourist attractions' whatever then the operators should lobby for a ban rather than a 'closure by stealth' so that they can make insurance/compensation claims

 

I think it's just as likely that railways will be forced to close as the volunteers don't want to come in and work the railway, if this poll is to be believed, a sudden drop of over 30% of your volunteer workforce is going to be significant, I know as a roster clerk I really notice even if just a few people don't put in availability when they normally do gaps suddenly start appearing in the roster.

 

Median or mode average? I'd go with median.

GWSR had a war weekend and of course Easter school holidays which would've bumped up numbers I'm not going to despute that - which is what I'm saying. 500+ means shut.

 

I'm not sure if the war weekend numbers were included, I wouldn't like to say. But in any case, my main point still stands, there are railways that attract significantly more passengers per year, and hence per day, than the GWSR, so will likely fall into the 500+ category on many days.

 

I would be very surprised if many organisations had insurance policies in place which covered such events.

 

I appreciate that we would dearly like our hobby to continue as normal but keeping supermarkets open for the public to buy food and essentials is far more important than running a tourist steam railway. <BJ>

 

I expect that they used the mean average for this as it is quite accurate and wouldn’t need more complex operations for this job

 

I am sure many heritage/tourist lines consider the welfare of their staff and volunteers. Given the higher age of many, if not most, volunteers I hope they are looking at how things may well develop and if they will be able to operate with a probable lower number of people.

 

The only problem is if anybody attended such railway galas infected with coronavirus and nobodys aware of the infected person without having screening tests in go which is highly unlikely at galas which us rail buffs wouldent expect in the norm anyhow, Do people just attend these events on pot luck or is just wise to have precautionary measures in place with any large public gatherings such as football music concerts, and what about when people have to go out shopping in general that cant be helped when someone is in need of going to the supermarket stocking up the cupboards these new by laws may be for the goverment to slow down the spread of covid 19 fortunatly in the U.K. where not on lock down as of yet like Spain and italy but it could come to that.

 

I will be staying at home with elderly relatives its not worth the risk of me passing it on to others who could suffer worse effects.

 

Chasewater Rly have postponed all events.

Notice:

It is with the best interests of our volunteers and customers that we have decided to post pone all our events until June due to the Coronavirus outbreak. This includes the pits to power stations weekend and Snow Queen events. Mother’s Day will continue on March 22nd with any afternoon teas and cream teas booked at The Sidings Tea Room taking place as normal.
However, we will run our normal scheduled timetable at the weekends for as long as we are able to. We are taking daily advice from the government and will keep updating you as often as we can.
Thank you for your cooperation at this unprecedented time.
Chasewater Railway.

 

I suppose my answer to the poll question would be "less likely to attend." My preferred answer would be "wait and see how things develop". I rarely buy tickets for these things in advance anyway and often make a last-minute decision as to whether to go or not. None of us knows how this situation is likely to develop and no-one really knows what the best way to deal with it is. It has the potential to escalate very rapidly, but then again it may not. I feel that to go into "lockdown" at the present moment is over the top, but on the other hand I feel that we should all take responsibility for not exposing ourselves or others to unnecessary risks. For that reason I favour the approach of suspending mass gatherings. I know it's debatable whether a steam gala spread out over several miles is a "mass gathering" but being stuck in a crowded railway carriage when there is no pressing reason to be there does strike me as an unnecessary risk.
So, I don't know my answer right now, but unless things improve before April which seems unlikely I may give the galas a miss. Hopefully this will all be over before too long and we can reconvene in the Summer / Autumn.

 

Even if it reduces by the summer it is expected to return again next winter. When a cure is found months of testing has to follow before it can be released to the public. So not going to get it until summer 2021 at the earliest.

 

For those who have accomodation booked for galas I understand Premier Inn (whom my wife had a non refundable room with at Gatwick tonight) are allowing date changes to non refundable bookings. Not sure if it includes just cancelling but I guess other hotels chains may follow as well.

 

I've just seen this on the BBC website.

"Now is the time for everyone to stop non-essential contact with others and to stop all unnecessary travel," the prime minister says.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-51917562

Gala visits are out for a while now.


Edit: new url link.

 

Indeed - and I suspect railways will now be starting to think about their event insurance policies given that the government is forcing their hand.