West Somerset Railway General Discussion

Funnily enough I’ve just read that piece, if the money’s already been spent, would that not count as a breech of contract? Or have I missed something?

 

Not exactly ring fenced then if it was spent on other things!

 

Spent on 53808, or on other things? It makes a difference.

However, and as discussed at length previously, it wouldn't be a breach at this stage unless the contract included provisions about reserving funds; the breach would only be at the point that the plc failed to fund the contracted work.

 

I thought that was a bit harsh. A lot of people like the security of booking on line and knowing for sure that they will have seats on the train they want to use. And the railway has the security of having the money in advance and the customer being thereby committed!

 

It is still a barrier. Ignoring whether the visitor has the technology, and whether there is a signal, it still requires going online, finding the relevant page, and doing the transaction - something in my experience that usually quicker and more user friendly to do face to face at a booking office. There are also transaction costs for the attraction which face to face booking may avoid.

 

Does that worry the plc board?

 

I note that the words reported were "two years ago". If so, that expenditure may predate the current chairman's term of office.

 

I agree with this wholeheartedly.
I've spent many a summer holidaying in Doniford over the past 18 years as it's been a destination we've hit frequently with the kids growing up.
I still wouldn't want to rely on booking on-line, finding a good enough reception is often an issue out in the sticks (though it's better than it was even 5 years ago). The weather can be very changeable too, so being able to decide first thing in the morning that we're going to the beach at Minehead and jumping on the first train out of Doniford was always key - I wouldn't want to have to book online (no printer on holiday, so phone based ticket? - reception on the WSR is a bit patchy). This is kind of key to why in normal times turn up and pay is important to have as an option...

I can see that having a certain amount of booking online with reserved seats may be beneficial though. Guaranteed seats when you have kids (or oldens) would be great. Equally, having that option to get on whenever you want, and to able to jump off at Watchet for the Lego shop etc. is also a vital ingredient for normals as well as gricers.

 

I am sure I read, on an earlier thread here, that the delay of work at Seaway Crossing was due to the PLC not agreeing to SCC proposals or similar. I am sure the SCC would want the work done in the quickest time possible.

 

But the present board surely inherited the company's responsibilities and liabilities.

 

Agreed completely; my question was purely in the context of the particular association between some very poor decisions by the WSR plc and the period of office of the current chair.

 

Gosh, what have I sparked? I must admit, when I made my initial comment about a very simple service, all pre-booked, it was in the context of what might be a minimum viable service when the line reopened; not necessarily the norm going forward. That was in the context of an assumption that coronavirus, with associated restrictions, will still be a fact of life for 2021 at least.

More generally, I think people are getting mixed up between pre-booked, and fixed itineraries. They are independent, i.e. pre-booking does not inherently mean fixed itineraries. My point about raising the latter was really about thinking of optimising the ratio between seat miles and passenger miles, especially in the context of cash being tight and probably limited loco availability. Like others, I quite like the “hop on, hop off” nature of rover tickets, but providing that flexibility while also ensuring no train is overcrowded means a railway is inevitably committed to running plenty of empty seats through the day. For those of us who like the flexibility, we should at least be aware that that flexibility comes at a price. On a “tidal” line, if 75% of your traffic went out on the first train and back on the last, providing another three or four departures each way in between becomes quite expensive to cater for the last 25%. I wonder if lines will increasingly look to either differential pricing, or splitting rover tickets (at a premium) from a single whole line return journey? That was also the context of thinking about “fill in” journeys: if you can cater for most of your traffic with an early out / late afternoon return, then what do you do with the train in the layover? The default answer has been just keep running whole-line journeys, but on a long line maybe that isn’t the right answer? Hence the thought of a short journey for the Minehead day-tripper as a fill in between the whole-line returned focused on those starting at BL and wanting a day on the beach. Longer lines might have more flexibility to get away from assuming all services must mean full line.

Of course every line is different, and you hope lines have good knowledge of loadings through the day. I suspect the distribution of passengers through the day would look very different on a line like the WSR than on, say, the IoWSR.

Tom

 

I don't know I dont produce such tickets, but last time we went to purchase some we were told the card stock was getting hard to source. I can imagine that the precise card required might vary depending on the printing machine and that they may be quite sensitive to things like thickness.

Sent from my SM-A405FN using Tapatalk

 

you then have to ask why, and who, would stand to benefit, if this was the case? as there are other attractions in Somerset who would be only too happy to take the visitors money off them, I can understand a board out of its depth, moribund, with no ideas, but why are the volunteers seemingly happy to go along with it?

 

GWSR, SVR and other big railways still manage to source them. I'm told the cost is not unreasonable, and given the former's heritage, ahem, reluctance at times, I find it hard to believe we would carry on doing it if it required any sort of hassle or excess effort or cost.

 

That should be done as a matter of course anyway, surely?

 

The little cardboard ticket is part of the days gone by experience.

 

So too were Porters, but we don't seem to have many of those

 

Plenty of 'em on tap at Quantock Brewery. Ask for Plastered Pheasant.