SVR General Discussion

20 years ago, most people were familiar with a mark 1 coach as they had only just been withdrawn from the big railway. Slam doors, compartments etc were not that unusual - the big draw was a steam locomotive. Now modern trains are very different and it is a unique experience for many to travel in an 'old fashion carriage'. I think it should be pushed more.
I know West Coast push their heritage stock for Jacobite services etc, but that was more the Harry Potter connection, not sure anyone promotes the historical narrative.

 

I see that N1, S1 and S2 identify rakes of coaches, but what do they mean? How do they relate to the timetable?

 

it requires the reader to match up top left and bottom right!

For staff it should be no problem. For public consumption it would be how do you get the right amount of information about ~25 vehicles (or 3 locos and 3 carriages sets) onto a sheet of A4

Probably QR codes would be another way.

And if you start it, it needs someone updating loco/carriage swaps on a daily basis

 

It’s probably a lot more complex, but ideally you don’t swap the sets around much all that often. Possibly some sort of tie into HOPs would be possible for lines that have that system?

 

There have been a few discussions on this forum that if it is being sold as an historic experience then there should be better info for the customer to understand what he is experiencing. Surely the crux is to have the info available and then make someone responsible to make sure it is correct on the day. Producing the info at the beginning is probably the hard work. As long as somebody is given the responsibility of right info available on the day and explained the importance of doing so, should be a case of getting it going and it should become a natural habit. In the past I,ve certainly seen people imppressed when they actually realise the engine is 70+ years old and the coaches are old also and start appreciating what is what like to travel then.

 

There’s a press release from the SVR today, picked up at https://www.railadvent.co.uk/2023/0...t-railway-through-challenging-year-ahead.html

It will be in the SVR newsletters being published and distributed later to members, shareholders and supporters later today

 

Seems like a realistic approach that most lines should be adopting (although the number of running days will probably be area/line specific).
One thing is clear, not just for Heritage Railways, that going forward the leisure industry is going to be different than before.

 

Isee that rather uncharitbaly on Faceache, the blame game is already being played out by some, calling for career managers to go and be repalced by people who understand railways. That's not an helpful attitude

 

Famously railways have never cut back services in the face of rising costs and stagnating passenger numbers to maximise profit/ minimise losses. Which is why Beeching never happened.*

*High levels of sarcasm here for the current year challenged.

 

Also published on the SVR Website
https://www.svr.co.uk/2023/01/12/se...-plans-to-meet-challenges-of-the-coming-year/

 

Also from Facebook. It appears GM of svr Helen Smith has resigned from her post. Very interesting to see why she left before she was pushed if those rumours are true.

Hopefully (in my eyes) the svr will really look at their wage structure and see if its really necessary to have over 11 members of staff on (reportedly) over 50k per year wages, including a GM role on 95k. For me its a little excessive, maybe the members should ask questions at the next AGM.

 

Agreed, be interesting to see if certain board members decide to follow too.

 

If you pay peanuts etc. The market for talented and knowledgeable people is tight. If you want them, you have to pay. There maybe some who are willing to do the job for less than they are worth, and many or most in the heritage sector generally accept lower wages than they could earn elsewhere. However, you should expect someone who as GM will probably have to accept they will be doing a 70+ hour week, to want and deserve to be rewarded?

If true that Helen Smith is leaving then I think the railway looses a talented and hardworking individual. The SVR needed someone unafraid to take on difficult issues. That was never going to make them universally popular. It may also be the case that the governance structure was not helpful.

 

What any heritage railway needs at this time is a good leader, someone who can not only make difficult decisions but also carry the community of the railway with them in explaining, understanding, accepting and implementing those decisions. We all know there are problems ahead, it's how we approach and deal with them that matters. I have never met Helen Smith but I get the impression that carrying the SVR community with her was perhaps not her forte.

 

I think that no one faced with the scale and range of issues would have managed to take the whole organisation along.

 

As others have said, it sounds like your DMU figure refers to each individual engine. You may be interested in some fuel trials (on a 5 mile railway with 45 mile diagrams on sustained 1-in-80 gradients) which recorded a 2-coach DMU (seating 120 and with two engines) achieving 4.5mpg. I would say your diesel loco figure (1mpg) is accurate.

Looking from a cold perspective, diesel locos will always be more expensive to fuel than DMU's unless you have a train of around 8 coaches or longer, above which the sheer number of DMU engines makes a big diesel more economic.

This isn't new news. There is a reason that the lines with the highest loadings and longest trains (SVR, NYMR, WSR) tend to favour diesel loco haulage whilst many other smaller lines make greater use of DMU's.

This is fairly true for the SVR, whose DMU a) spent most of its time as a 5-car and b) has never been favoured on normal services, instead carving its own niche primarily with the evening fish & chip trains.

Sent from my moto g(8) power using Tapatalk

 

Who would want that responsibility? A lot of heritage railways are faced with severe strategic issues, many of which may fundamentally change the game that so many have come to love in the last 60 years.

There are a lot of comments on social media about the £95k salary, however someone with the necessary skills (and mindset) to manage the current economic encirclement could probably do significantly better elsewhere in industry if they wanted to.

 

Welcome to the January edition of Branch Lines, which you can access this in the usual way at https://www.svrlive.com/bljan23


Although the Railway is now closed for public services until 4th March we have news for you from across the Railway. We hope you enjoy reading it!


Lesley and Patrick

Co-editors

Included:

The Railway today (12th January) released the following statement from Mike Ball, the chair of SVR (Holdings) Plc:

We regret to announce the resignation of Helen Smith, our managing director, who has accepted a new role with another organisation.

Helen will remain in post for the next few months and will be working closely with our vice chair Jonathan Dunster and myself to ensure a smooth handover. We will release more information about this as soon as we can.

Helen has made a phenomenal contribution to the SVR. In the three years that she’s been with us she has steered the organisation through the devastating impact of Covid-19, ensuring we secured substantial government support and emergency grant funding to keep us going when we were unable to operate. She successfully oversaw the reopening of the Railway in very changed and testing circumstances, with the country still in partial lockdown. It’s a testament to her leadership that we won a national VisitEngland excellence award for Resilience and Innovation last year."