Open or Closed during Emergency?

With added situation that UK Railtours has a train (The Cotswold Lion) scheduled for 21st I believe but with no restrictions i'm aware of concerning where travellers will have recently been to in the world. I'm not sure how you could police that aspect tbh.

 

That’s pretty irrelevant anyway. People are now just as likely to have caught the virus within the UK.

 

Statement from West Somerset Railway

Currently planning to resume public services as planned on 21 March.

Steve

 

How are heritage railways going to survive a lock down period. Say it goes on for 3 months, and they lost 25% of business. With so many struggling recently such as Llangollen or WSR could they survive this or will it be the straw that brakes the camels back?

 

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That seems a reasonable and sensible response from the company. <BJ>

 

Not sure I agree, when I was in business, every year we would carry out a 'Scenario Planning' exercise. Basically trying to assess what would happen to the business if certain events happen. Not speculation merely looking for weak spots in the business set up, be it physical, material or financial resources.

Sunnie

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I work for a business that is having to react to Covid-19, in real time. This event goes well beyond plausible scenario planning for my employer's business, but it's something that I'd expect to be kept discreet within the company rather than discussed in public. I'd imagine that the various lines, those you've mentioned and the others, would be hoping for some space to work out how they respond.

 

It appears that the desire to run trains to planned timetables and cater for special events must be a difficult choice. Government declarations will make some decisions inevitable but even so those not directly prohibiting travel on heritage lines may well turn out to be a costly affair. Revenue receipts set against operational costs will, I am sure, have a great part to play in future decisions for most lines. Some have weighed this up it seems and have decided to delay opening dates. Wise I think.

 

One for the Mods: we have another Coronavirus / heritage railways thread opened. (https://www.national-preservation.com/threads/coronavirus-affect-on-heritage-railways.1417822/). To save discussion getting fragmented, would it be sensible to restrict this thread exclusively to facts, ie linked announcements from heritage railways on their definite status; and then put discussion about the operational, financial etc impacts in the other thread?

Or else merge them, but personally I think there is value in maintaining one as a “sticky” for unambiguous facts, and keep everything discursive / speculative else where?

Tom

 

GCR model railway event in June now cancelled.

 

The Goods Galore Event is also cancelled but the regular trains are still running that weekend.
The GCR website is having daily updates - which I'm sure other railways will be doing.

 

https://www.hsb-wr.de/

Harz railway will not been running any services for the foreseeable future, except the local tram train services between Nordhausen and Ilend. Charters seem to be cancelled until the beginning of May.

 

I agree completely, this was board level only, not publicly disseminated. Luckily never had to assess something like this, but had to assess effect of the first Iraq war on our businesses in Iraq.



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Foxfield has postponed the start of 2020 services

http://www.foxfieldrailway.co.uk/season-2020

Jon

 

Not any more. GWSR now closed, and May gala postponed as a result of the government's latest advice. I expect most other lines will be following suit in the next 24 hours or so.

 

Statesman Rail:

“All trains due to operate between 20 March and 10 May have been cancelled and every customer will receive a letter offering a choice of either an immediate 100% refund, or a transfer onto another train operating in 2020”.

https://www.statesmanrail.com/

 

It looks as though my Model Railway club is closed for the duration, the Model Engineers are going the same way it seems

 

Alex. Where did you get that from? Perhaps I'm on a slower connection!