SVR General Discussion

All true, but the question of the absolute costs of the railway are also important, not just the relative costs. Costs like coal and utilities may be rising dramatically, but how much of the railway's cost base do they represent? The question, raised here with reference to the SVR but also applicable to other railways, is whether the underlying cost base of paid staff is proportionate and appropriate.

My own takeaway from this is that one of the key determinants of the long term sustainability of heritage railways is in maintaining the right balance between paid and volunteer workers, and ensuring that reliance on paid staff is actively minimised. Earlier, a simple analysis suggested that 27,000 full price day tickets are required to fund the pay of 11 SVR staff. Without comment on the individuals, their roles, or the pay levels, that is a significant fixed cost burden for an SME business like a heritage railway to carry. Given the other high costs that the sector carries - fuel, overhauls, routine maintenance - it raises some important questions about their viability if the wage bill gets too high,

Those questions need to be asked in the context of how railways can grow their income. The comment's been made that cost cutting is a limited lever. The other side of that equation is that it the effect of increased income on the bottom line is often more marked than that of reduced costs. That question of increased income needs to include not just fares, but also things like membership income - which reinforces the need to provide motivation to volunteers, who are I suspect both some of the key donors and, more important, ambassadors for their organisations.

 

Then 25 years later you could merge those regional groups into one big state-owned heritage railway admin office

 

I definitely am comparing apples with oranges in terms of size but I was trying to illustrate the advantages of being an all volunteer railway and employing lots of staff. The heritage railway movement came into being because the railway was unsustainable as a traditional paid staff operation and it became sustainable by using volunteers for as much as possible to save on those wages and salaries costs. Over the years the trend, certainly with the bigger railways has been to fill the difficult gaps with paid staff. Don't get me wrong, such railways need paid staff but it seems to be becoming the easy option to pay people rather than try to find a suitable volunteer.

I was going to suggest this as the second part of my post but noticed that you'd beaten me to it. Most railways have such as a chief civil engineer, head of catering and safety manager to name but a few. The reality is that, again, most railways are relatively small businesses and could probably merge these over more than one railway without compromising things. There is probably scope for railway organisations to merge although I can't see it happening for various reasons. In fact, going to an extreme, perhaps heritage railways could benefit by being nationalised. Look at the advantages,; a central workshops for major overhauls, locos moving around to fill motive power shortages, economics of size, etc.

 

Whilst it sounds OK in principal, but politics reported on most railways seem bad enough within one organisation. Even where I worked when we "merged" with others things did not go well.

 

Then we can decide on a unified livery for all the locomotives.

 

Perhaps Steve's apples and oranges comment is spot on? As heritage railways developed and expanded from embryonic preservation societies to the substantial corporate businesses have they outgrown their ability to rely principally on volunteers? Of course there are always notable exceptions but it seems to be widely acknowledged that to get the same output as from one full time employee requires between five and seven volunteers. They are usually part time and work when they want to so its inevitable that on average more of them will be needed than would be the case for employees. I don't believe that heritage railways deliberately set out to replace volunteers but it may be that they reach a size and scale where they simply outstrip the size of their potential volunteer pool? The smaller apples may get by quite happily but the larger oranges struggle. It does seem significant that it's the larger heritage railways that tend to have a higher proportion of paid staff so there's clearly a factor at work somewhere.

 

There is clearly, and the challenge is recognised. But that raises the question of what is an acceptable price for a day out, and what works for the different attractions.

As for the ratio of paid to volunteer, I wonder whether some of the phenomenon is actually a case of boiling frogs, where the accustomisation to using paid staff leads to a self-perpetuating cycle of assuming that roles should be met by paid rather than volunteer staff.

 

I suspect it's more that a small railway can rely on Dave, wheras on a bigger railway to get 5 individuals to be there all the time is that bit harder.

 

I'm sure there's the risk of that but put yourself in the place of a manager needing to ensure the railway has the resource to get an essential back office job done. You have the option of a full time employee, who can be obliged to work, but the downside is that costs. On the other hand you can try and attract, say, five part time volunteers who are "free" but can't be obliged to work at any time or, indeed , at all. Each of them may have their own view of how the job should be done. I put free in inverted commas because even volunteers have a cost e.g training and the administration. If those volunteers don't materialise , decide they only want to work when they feel like it , or do it in a different way that has to be undone to achieve consistency, then essential job doesn't get done when required or, possibly, at all.
Is it any surprise that employment may be the more attractive alternative?

 

Surely that argument applies to an awful lot of roles, and I don't really like what it implies...

 

The old phrase "horses for courses" springs to mind.

Don't we already have a cenralised repair service, it's just that it hasn't been nationalised yet - Ian Riley's works!

 

I agree with some of what @Lineisclear has written. As some railways grew (because of the support they attracted) they have needed more paid staff. I also thing that a factor in that need has been the changing nature of work outside of the railways meaning that fewer people have the type of engineering skills especially that we need for a heritage railway.

I think that the most important thing for any heritage railway manager to remember though is to never pay someone to do something you can get done by a volunteer. Convenience is not a justification.

 

https://svr.co.uk/whats-on/timetables/


The non-special event timetables are now live for March to June. One for March, running a single train service between Kidderminster and Highley whilst works continue, then becoming a two train service, with both starting from Kidderminster resulting in a rather unbalanced service (if traveling full line on the first service you can either have 45 minutes at Highley or wait three hours for the next Northbound train). First train out of Bridgnorth isn't until 12:30.


Although not explicit it has been strongly rumoured the two train service will be one diesel and one steam.

I understand economies must be made, but this seems rather saddening. I remember, when I was rediscovering my love of railways in 2013, visiting in the spring and on a "normal" Sunday you had three steam locos on regular services, one on the diner, and one on footplate experience.

With such a timetable the line difts to becoming a "special events" only one for me.

 

Those are challenges. The counter is that (a) there needs to be close review of what tasks are deemed necessary, (b) how they may be delivered, and (c) that volunteers are often able to be guided if suitable thought is given to how they’re appealed to.

That may well not lend itself to 9-5 patterns.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

2023 fares from the website https://svr.co.uk/plan-your-visit/ticket-prices/:

Adult – £25.00 advance / £32 on the day. It was £25/£27.50
Child (age 4 -17) – £16.50 / £18.50
Small Family Saver – £50.00 / £55
Large Family Saver – £75.00 / £85

Plus, for 2023, every ticket purchased online gets a free return ticket valid for 12 months

 

And tickets for the Santa Trains are on sale from tomorrow...!!!

 

Gets earlier every year!

 

Whilst the adult fare has increased from £25/£27.50, the child rate remains the same as 2022 (this is also the members fare).

 

Thanks for that. My take:

I notice that the weekends 18/19 and 25/26 March are now KY-HY short length services, not full line as previously advertised

It doesn't give whether it's steam or diesel haulage.

Table A has 12 minutes turnaround at HY which suggests to me a change of loco or - more likely - top and tail.

Table B has two diagrams S1 and S2, both starting off Kidderminster, with as you say a three hour gap between the second and third trains. The last three trains return to KR at 2.40 5.20 and 6.25, tricky for small kids. You can have an 8 hour day exploring though.

From Bridgnorth it's a less attractive proposition. There's no morning departures. The last train returns 4 hours 13 minutes from the first departure - at most a half-day out. It's difficult to plan a day with a full length trip and any break, the best I can do is:

60 minutes at one of the intermediate stations on the way down, then 50 minutes at KR before the last train back

A full line run to KR, 35 minutes there and 75 minutes at one of the intermediate stations before picking up the last train home.

 

Presumably the majority of the traffic originates at KDR?

I note that the timetable is only to mid year so perhaps this is an experiment to an extent, or there is an opportunity to learn and adjust anyway?

A lot will now depend on how volunteering is affected in the coming months.

Unlike (perhaps) the NYMR which has stated that it would like fewer people (Chris Price in an article last year) and therefore we can infer that it has a ready supply of traffic, the SVR had a difficult year last year and has seen a slide in visitors that apparently pre-dates covid.

The NYMR has for a while been a posh park and ride. Whereas the SVR is more of a linear living museum.

The consequences of these differences are (I think):

1. Volunteering is needed ( emphasis on needed) by the SVR across a wider range and number of customer facing roles than the NYMR, because more people are needed to make the linear museum work. The Moors might be able to become predominately paid staff. The SVR will never achieve the traffic numbers needed for that.

2. To Tom’s point earlier in this thread the railway is a much more attractive proposition to visitors and volunteers when there are more trains. It might therefore be better to operate on even fewer days, but run more trains when you do.