Swanage Railway General Discussion

The costs of leaflet distribution companies are not cheap and, to some extent, it might be questionable now as to whether they were ever 'value for money' in attracting passengers. Possibly one of those marketing queries that is difficult to prove one way or the other I guess - unless you enquire of every single passenger as to what made them travel and had a very quick way for the ticket clerk to register the responses. A few seconds for each transaction but not exactly easy during busy periods with queues waiting to buy tickets and the train departing shortly.

 

I suppose a discount code on leaflets which has to be applied for when buying tickets would give that data.

 

That can be quite an expensive way of buying the data. Any form of discounting the fare / price needs to be well thought through to ensure as much as possible that it attracts additional patronage and isnt simply giving a discount to passengers who would have paid the higher fare.

 

One thing you could do with a leaflet is have a QR code to link to the ticket booking site, which would enable you to track who came via a leaflet.

But I suspect the marketing people who actually have the data are well ahead of us in terms of knowing where their bookings come from.

Tom

 

The Watercress Line do this, the leaflet allows a free child ticket. I picked one up whilst changing trains at Southampton Central (a leaflet, not a child!) and it had the desired effect of prompting me to visit with the family.

 

Winter at Corfe. Ironically I think Manston may have been out on the Polar set earlier. Snow being rare down here let alone steam and snow.

 

Perhaps not surprisingly the data I have seen shows that most visitors to the railway come from within a 2 hour travelling time radius of Swanage. The denser the population the more visitors come from that location. When it was the Santa Special then there would be more people prepared to make a longer journey to enjoy the experience. Galas (where the audience was more niche) had a different profile with again more visitors prepared to make longer journeys. What this did indicate was that paying for leaflets to be distributed outside of the 2 hour radius was sub optimum but the leaflet distribution co sold packages that invariably included some racking outside of the radius. This is not dissimilar to advertising on the London Underground where you buy advertising packages across a range of stations. You can not just buy for example sites only within the busy central area.

 

Just after I posted the webcam image the Polar set went out from Swanage. So a quick change of plans, head to Corfe, amazingly a couple of free spaces in the square and arrived on the station even before the outbound leg, which does take 31 minutes after all. There the good luck faltered slightly as there was apparently some training being undertaken at Norden, so rather than a 15 minute wait for the steam hauled return it was nearer 45 and some snow had gone by then. Due to the rush I only had trainers on and over 4 hours later my feet do not feel back to normal temperature. Still felt more sensible than the guy I watched take those steep steps up on the East Hill, looked like he was very lucky to still be on his feet a couple of times on the way down though.
Still as I said snow and steam is rare down here, and with the great percentage of Polar trips due to be held in the dark or near dark, this was (a cold) bonus.

 

Great pics.

I’ve missed out on the snow by the looks. But I’m a bit further south!

 

Despite trying to keep an eye on the webcam having heard some whistling early afternoon, I ended up missing the train leaving Swanage. So my plan for School Crossing was abandoned when I did not manage to see it en route to Corfe, so had no idea where it was, but the signal was off at Corfe as I drove by.
So a couple of images from Castle Crossing and one multi coloured one on the way back past Swanage station, after what strangely was only my second visit to Boots this week for someone's drugs.

 

34070 has been turned then

 

Yes I believe so it is at the town end of the station for when the passengers return. Same as last year.

 

That Polar Express vinyl has complete synergy ............................

 

BBC South had a feature on their evening news but no steam shown although it was live

 

There is a requirement for the train to be hauled out to the Swanage Down inner home signal and on the given command, Steams majestically back into platf0rm 2 before participants board for the round trip to Norden, at least that is what happened last year.
In other news, The latest SLL November news states that 34072 257 Squadron will be returning to the Swanage railway "Full Time" in late March 2025 to cover for 34028 when it is away on mainline duties!

 

From what I could see on the webcam the first two trains today have looked very well loaded bearing in mind it is only day 2 and still a month away from Christmas.

 

That's good news, all railways need to make the most of these seasonal events in the current climate.

Chris

 

Yep, i was at Corfe today and the first departure was busy with only one coach empty

 

Let's hope the loadings remain positive and that all of our heritage lines receive a much-needed boost to their finances over this festive period,

 

Its a long, cold hard winter.