The WHR, success or flop ?

Errr ? Sorry i'm not French !!

 

I agree, but there's no harm in discussing it. I don't think anybody is here to bring anything down, even those who are against the WHR as it stands at the moment do so with the idea to make things better for all later on.

 

Well, there can be, if it prevents other people from visiting the line because some forcefully expresses a view about the existing line that is inaccurate or overstated or made without any attempt to consider a wider view.

We all owe it to everyone else in the movement to express any criticisms in a considered fashion.

Nothing is perfect, nor are there members of staff who never have a bad day. There are other lines in the country which do not posess a single loco or coach that ran on the line in pre preservation days, for sure. At least the WHR has one! (Coach No23) (and of course several other items of FR stock ran on the line, but they aren't currently seen on it except at special events)

 

How refreshing. You are absolutely right sir. The railway needs more carriages and, probably, more motive power to cover for the inevitable failures that crop up. Someone suggested, on another thread, that the Garratts should be exchanged for something smaller. I'm still chuckling over that idea. In the real world there are no used locomotive showrooms and just imagine if there were.

'You want to part exchange that Garratt for two of my nice little 2-6-2Ts? The problem is the size of the thing mate. What yer average punter wants is something a bit smaller to fit in his shed. Tell you what though, I got a couple of Kalaharis round the back. They'll need a bit of work though, took 'em in part ex for a narrow gauge Leader'.

Smaller locomotives equals smaller trains and more of them to carry the passengers which equals more locomotive crews. You just can't go down the Job Centre and find a queue of steam crews looking for work.

Railway enthusiasts come in all shapes, very often with built in prejudices. All too often they believe that they know better than those who work at the sharp end. Enthusiasm alone cannot run a railway. Many years ago, Alan Garraway, the then General Manager of the Ffestiniog was being interviewed by the BBC. The reporter put a question about a railway that was run by railway enthusiasts. Garraway glared at him and replied.

'We are not railway enthusiasts, we are enthusiastic railwaymen'.

That, I suggest, sums up the difference between the dreamers and the doers.

Meic

 

I go along with that, but having said that criticisms can have a positive effect as well. We are so few on here in comparison to all those who are interested in this subject, we don't really have any idea what the general consensus is.

 

Its far from impossible, he didnt just use multiple accounts to get round bans but to try and make it look like other's agreed. As a recent example, i was amazed how quickly he joined the works forum after i mentioned him, it was almost as if he'd been posting there under a different username...

Chris

 

Well said Andrew - some would like the WHR to provide a commuter type service so they could use it once every 5 years

 

lol.................

 

I have removed a post and related posts as they were reported as being insulting and trying to get round the swear filter.

Neil.

 

I, my wife and our 14yr son travelled for the first time on the full line (well, from Pont C) in early August. Great scenery & locos & rolling stock. We all enjoyed it as a day out to Caernarfon. Would I go again? Yes - but not for some time. I'm not so much into the scenery, as the heritage look/atmosphere (which I appreciate is subjective), so will wait for these to develop.

Martin G.

 

There's a lot going for the idea of a cheap and quick independant railcar service over the WHR/FR all the year round. This subject really needs looking into further.

 

What a daft idea - it would just take business away from the core activity - steam trains - and jeopardise the future of the railway

 

Nothing more daft than using an infrastructure such as the WHR/FR has for only part of the year. Anyone who has been to the WHR/FR can see that it's not being used to it's full potential, railcars could be inserted between the steam operation. It's my opinion that the WHR/FR is underused and what's more it's just too expensive. It will be interesting to see what the profits are for this year. There is room for a railcar service independant of the WHR/FR and there's no reason why it should not be considered. This without doubt is the way forward daft or not.

 

Considered - why? because you say so?

 

No, because it's a good idea !!

 

And how would you come to that conclusion? The railway has been considering extra services of all kinds including railcars since the first section was open - one was even tried out - why do you presume to know better than the folk who run the railway? How do you know the ridership on the railcar would repay the capital expenditure amd running costs?

At the AGM this year there was an excellent presentation covering the cost of running additional trains - the idea that more trains would automatically equal more profit is I'm afraid very far from the truth. It was also made apparent that the WHR profits for this year will be very healthy indeed, and the challenge for the future will be to maintain that level in these difficult economic times. Despite which a further program of improvements is underway. These are huge decisions to do with large amounts of money and I personally am glad to see that the people running the show do their best to make sure that what has been a roaring success so far will continue to be so, based not on wishful thinking but on actual facts and figures.

 

It's rarely the case that running more trains results in better profitability, unless the trains you have are filled to capacity, and even then the first recourse is probably to lengthen the train rather than run more often.

Why would a railcar be successful? What market are you tapping into? If it is for local transport, I suspect that the car and the bus will win hands down. Didn't a previous operator go bust for lack of local traffic? This bit of Wales hasn't seen a huge population growth since the old WHR went bust has it? If the market were tourists of one kind or another, then I think the railcar would simply abstract passengers from the steam services to their detriment.