West Somerset Railway General Discussion

Yes. Not all parents have them or tolerate them, and there are the parents to consider.

Note also that in my unrepresentative sample, I stated a 3:1 ratio - Mrs 35b is arguably the most of a challenge to persuade to travel for travels sake.


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I find it slightly bizarre that people are happy to travel considerable distances by car to spend time looking out of the window of a train, but appear to be unable to amuse themselves looking out of window of the car on the way there and back.

 

That's their loss. Perhaps the oddest (non traffic related) thing I've seen from a car, out near Odiham, was a most impressive, very tall topiary (a cypress, I think). Let's just say that the next time I was round that way, a few months later, the design had been modified into a very creditable impression of a Saturn V rocket. Evidently, a certain puritanical element took exception to the original upstanding concept. Oh, how I wish I'd taken a photo!

 

“Happy” is a relative term, and the journey on the railway needs to be seen as a destination, not a journey.


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That rather assumes that the purpose for most visitors of visiting. heritage railway is solely the journey - whereas all the non travelling parts are part of the anticipation and enjoyment. (Watching the loco come off shed, coupling up, the clunk of signals and so on). It would be a strange tourist attraction that marketed itself on the beauty of the journey to get there ...

There have been some interesting views put forward over the weekend, generally falling into two distinct camps: either the line is too large to be viable, and has to be cut; or there is no viable cut and the business has to be grown to pay its way. My own view is that a cut isn't particularly feasible: short of a tectonic upheaval on a scale that would make the financial success of a heritage railway the least of our problems, the prize destination is 20 miles away from the station with good motorway access, and nothing is going to change that.

So the answer is some combination of cutting operating costs and increasing passengers. There was a suggestion up thread about treating the two markets (day trip from Minehad residents whole line trip to the beach from BL) separately, and I think there is mileage in that. Maybe a timetable based around a tidal flow from BL to Minehead (out in the morning, back in the afternoon); with shorter trips advertised from Minehead to Watchet, turning back at Williton. The key is to run the smallest possible number of seat-miles in which the seats are empty. Possibly as well fewer operating days: if you have majority pre-booking, can you concentrate seven days of passengers into four or five days? That cuts service cost. Seven day running might just be a school holiday thing. The two or three days you don't run give you more flexibility for slightly more major infrastructure repairs; or value-added services (courses, filming etc).

The other question would be about value-added for passengers. 75 - 90 minutes one way is quite a long journey. So can you pre-sell an elevenses on the way out, afternoon tea on the way back on your BL - Minehead services? Pre-booked and pre-packed, so you minimise wasted food. Go for quality, sold on local provenance of the ingredients. Anything that adds a pound or two of profit on each ticket at minimal risk.

That then just leaves the elephant in the room of fundraising ...

Tom

 

Another alternative is to keep the steam traction and the bulk of the services on the Minehead-Williton section and run "people mover" trains with DMUs on the BL-Williton section on all but the busiest times, effectively giving you a 10 mile heritage railway served by rail from a car park close to the M5. Everyone still get a ride on a steam train, if that's what they want, but they also get to go there in a more interesting way than travelling there by car.

 

That just adds complexity to the service. You’ve now got two changes of transport to get from your home to the beach. If “steam to the beach” started at Williton, most people would prefer to drive to Williton - or else just ignore the train altogether and drive straight to the beach. People won’t see the DMU feeder as all part of the heritage experience, it will just be another faff. (Years ago when the Bluebell terminated at Kingscote, planning conditions meant it had to run a feeder bus service from East Grinstead. No-one bothered to catch it, so it basically ran empty all the time. There just isn’t the market for those multi-modal journies).

It also ignores the fact that the marginal per mile cost of running a steam loco isn’t that big relative to the cost of lighting it up in the first place. So the saving of a split steam / diesel journey is less than might be apparent. Most of your fixed costs remain.

Then you have the point that your feeder service needs the same seating capacity as the train it feeds. You can’t feed a six coach train with a three coach DMU - at least not if you want the six coach train to be full, which it needs to be. So you really need a mainline diesel and six coaches to feed a steam loco and six coaches. You can’t do the “people mover” element with double frequency of half-sized trains (ie DMUs) because the line capacity BL - Williton is no greater than Williton - Minehead.

Tom

 

I don't have any more interest in old diesels than new ones. At least you can open a window, unlike the air conditioned things on the national network, but paying steam train prices to ride a diesel is going to be a very hard sell to steam enthusiasts, and parents/grandparents of young steam enthusiasts.
For a family holidaying in the South-west, the proposal to provide a DMU service over part of the WSR would be a great advert for the Paignton & Dartmouth

 

Easier said than done. The NYMR occasionally do a set swap at Grosmont and it is a nightmare. Trains are on opposite platforms so everyone has to retrain and walk round to the other platform an that includes young children, slow walkers, those with sticks and wheelchairs. People have to pick up and carry all their belongings which might include opened drinks and food. Complaints are frequent. If you utilise the same platform you have the problem of what to do with the second train. If it departs back before the other one has arrived, you’ve lost the connection in one direction. You also have the fact that one set of passengers are detraining whilst the other set are crowding the platform wanting to get on.

 

You are looking at the WSR as public transport, where the object of the exercise is to get to your destination (the beach) as quickly, simply and cheaply as possible. The railway is never going to succeed on those terms. People who just want to get to the beach will drive there and ignore the train. Does the SVR rely on passengers wanting to travel from Kidderminster to experience the delights of Bridgnorth, or the Bluebell the attractions of Sheffield Park? Tipping everyone out at Williton gives the opportunity to develop the secondary spend there. As you said yourself, part of the attraction is "Watching the loco come off shed, coupling up, the clunk of signals and so on."
Passengers not wanting to take a bus is no argument for using two different types of rail transport. On the "big railway" passengers are happy to make changes between trains, but the person who said that "rail replacement bus" are the three most depressing words in the English language was only exaggerating slightly.

The marginal cost per mile might not be more, but you have to find a fireman and a driver to man it and the wear to the track is considerably greater. If most of the cost of operating a railway are fixed, why is anyone arguing the WSR is too long?

The feeder service doesn't need the same capacity as the train it feeds as quite a few people in that train will have got on at Minehead and will be returning there. The times when the Minehead - Williton section is being used to its full capacity are the times when it make sense to run steam trains over the whole line anyway.

The first part of your arguement is from the POV of a railway enthusiast, who do not form the bulk of the WSR's passengers, and the second part from the POV of "a family holidaying in the South-west" who are not going to have the same interests or priorities. No-one is going to be paying "steam train prices to ride a diesel" (not that that seems a problem on lines with mixed traction in any case). What the WSR can charge for 10 miles of steam haulage is roughly the same as what it can charge for 20 miles.

 

Again, this is still thinking of the railway as public transport. Why is it important to get everyone quickly from one train to another? It is perfectly possible to leave time for the slow movers to move at a leisurely pace from train to train, for people to go the loo, buy more refreshments, walk up the platform and look at the steam loco etc etc. If passengers know they will have to change trains at Williton, they will not arrive with a half-eaten meal in front of them, any more than they would at Minehead. Even if they did, with a longish connection there they have time to finish up and pack up. The problem about one set of people wanting to get off at the same time as another set wanting to get on is one that every railway faces at every busy station and, by and large, they seem to cope.

 

From my perception having seen it on more than one railway, old DMUs are OK because you can see the driver, they look old fashioned, and they have good visibility out. However a better ideal if you are running DMUsvis DMU one way, steam the other. You have to give the passenger something he won't get on the mainline. Diesel hauled mkb1s are still a bit too close to mainline experience.

 

It's both a means of transport as well as a destination in it's own right. You can mitigate the hassle factor on the change of trains, for example by building in time for the inbound train to shunt clear and the outbound to come into the platform, but you are making the experience more frictional, by introducing tensions where none need exist. I have seen that modal transfer work on a tourist operation, for example changing from funicular to railway at Grütschalp, but I'm not seeing it in any way as a selling point for the WSR.

Because you're confusing your cost categories. I'm not aware that the availability of footplate volunteers is a significant problem, and by being volunteers, the cost is nil. As @Jamessquared says, the fixed costs of firing a steam locomotive far outweigh the marginal costs of running it over the additional mileage. That leaves the savings in infrastructure from either not running, or running much lighter vehicles. They're material, but also have the effect of leaving a significant maintenance debt for the future that has to be met before the line can be used again.

All in all, I'm struggling to see how reducing the length of the operation delivers benefits to the WSR that aren't offset by equal sized disbenefits. Ultimately, though, my objection boils down to this being the wrong approach for a railway on which many of the problems are linked to hunkering down and saying "we're different to...", when cutting back will reinforce the inwardness. The future of the WSR lies in looking up and out, learning from what others have done successfully, and taking advantage of what it has, rather than trying to comply slavishly with models that work elsewhere under different conditions. Yes, optimise the timetable, and yes, make the most of the string of pearls* on the route, but don't throw the baby out with the bathwater.

And that, IMHO, brings us back round to organisational culture and the ability to generate and harvest support. That is where the WSR needs to act if it is to be successful; the rest is just window dressing.

* - an aside, don't invest too much hope into the quality of those pearls. None of the intermediate locations are particularly great destinations in their own right, and the two best - Watchet and Dunster - are less than ideal. I've given my views on Watchet before, while Dunster would be great if the station were actually closer to the village; if staying relatively locally and making that a destination, I'd plan it as a destination in it's own right, not a pairing with the WSR.

 

There is clearly a case for looking at greater use of Diesels to reduce costs, BUT I suggest that rather than a DMU hauling MK1 stock instead and again on 'off peak' services as the GWSR does

 

What I found surprising is how, in the right circumstances, how few people mind a diesel. Our main passenger flow is (or was pre-Covid) Cheltenham to Broadway for the day then back again. As long as the outward trip is steam, peoole seem quite happy to have steam only as far as Toddington on the way back then let a diesel take over for the rest of the journey back to Cheltenham. They've had their steam train trip, they've had their expensive lunch and wander round Broadway village, job done, as long as you get them home again they don't seem too fussed about details.

 

The problem is because of ineptness, a failed bid etc, the railway needs to find 1million pounds this year just to stand still, to run what ever service they decide they can afford, without that very large sum of money, they will be in greater trouble next year, returning a to a post I posted several days ago, it most likily will fall to the next PLC Board to try to save the line, because i can't see any of the present board doing anything to turn the tide, because they probably don't have any answers, carry on before, but expecting a different outcome, is insanity, but that's exactly what they will do, until the pressures get to much, and then you will see Llangollen all over again, but this time, there will no white charger racing to the rescue, despite someone's dream of owning the line, he don't have the money.

 

There are a number of people here with suggestions for slimming down the service, especially between BL and WN. However, it is obvious that some of them have no idea of the passenger loadings, so I will explain.
On almost all days, any time of the year, approximately 70-75% passengers start their journeys at BL, and probably 90-95% of them buy a return to Minehead. They may stop off at Watchet, for example, on either the outward or return journey. The remaining 25-30% mostly start at Minehead and Watchet, the remaining stations accounting for a small percentage of starters. The down trains in the morning are usually well-loaded as are the up trains in the afternoon. Nearly all the passengers who start their journey at BL continue their journey to Minehead, therefore loadings are about the same for the whole length of the line.
In the high season, the 10XX, 11XX and 12XX departures from BL are 6/7/8 coaches, normally load well and have been full and standing on occasions. The same applies to the 14XX, 15XX and 16XX departures from Minehead. I think there is a case for the DMU to form the first up train in the morning and the last down train in the afternoon. This would require three sets of coaches and their locos to stable at BL every night, which is possible but cramped.

 

'Happy' is not the word that I would use ! We do it because the way in which railway services are operated often gives us no choice.

 

That is in the past. The WSR will not run a full service until October - according to the WSR - so I think it will take a while to return to the figures quoted. After all the line has been closed for an extended period as will take time to re-establish it self.
Winter will upon us and who knows how Covid will affect us then.