Steam engines available for traffic in 2014

precisely. I'm sure somewhere there was a figure for just normal OTC, but I can't find it at the moment, and it doesn't help the the volunteer announcements only have numbers in their titles, and the board blog isn't always the most helpful of places for titles either.

 

Whilst there are varying degrees of competence to be found in businesses of all sorts, I find it hard to believe that heritage railways would continue with OTC on timetabled services if they were the high financial burden that PH and GFG seem to think they are. An RMB provides seating anyway so not all of the weight is "dead" even if the buffet is closed.

 

That is interesting, thank you. Your dining car train is franchised out and the Flag & Whistle buffet is about to go the same way. Operationally speaking you are hardly in the catering business at all. That's food for thought.

 

Only elegant excursions (EE) is another company, the fish and chip specials, and everything else listed here is the railway as far as I can work out, as for those you buy the tickets through the GWSR website, not through the EE site with the special EE trains. I'm presuming the figure quoted in the comments box I linked to won't include EE as it is a separate business.

 

Be very interesting also to see what you do next time a buffet car needs a heavy repair.

 

see our carriage and wagon blog, if you go from the very first post it catches the backend of the restoration of an RBr, if you look through and find the release date it will probably say how long it was in for, from what I can make out, it was in for more than a quick repaint like the current buffet car we are doing.

edit - after the first Rbr featured in the blog there is the restoration and conversion of a BG for the p'way people including kitchen facilities, easy to find out how long that took.

 

Catering must provide something to railways, because last time I checked, we were running almost 150 scheduled dedicated food-only trains this year! (a mixture of Golden Arrow, Wealden Rambler, Fish and Chip and Rail Ale - but mostly at the high end of the market, i.e. GA.). And that is before private charters (i.e. weddings etc). In fact, our Wealden Rambler has just been extended to four coaches, 120 covers. That operation, incidentally, is entirely run by the company: it isn't a contracted out franchise.

On the subject of catering in service trains, rather than dedicated trains - our mark 1 RMBs are 37 tons for 44 seats; if you swapped for a TSO you'd get 20 extra seats for no reduction in weight. If you took it out completely, you lose 37 tons, but that isn't enough, for example, to change a class 4 duty to a class 2 duty. (Say 220 tons going down to say 185 tons). What it would do is lose 44 seats plus the associated RMB income - always accepting Paul's point about whether that income would in any case be spent elsewhere on the railway (i.e. at a station buffet) or not.

What is more significant for loadings (and by implication size of motive power needed) is overall train seating capacity, and in particular not having over-crowding. A railway manager of considerable experience has made the point that many of our passengers spend Monday to Friday forced to stand on the 07:37 to Waterloo and 17:35 return: the last thing they want when they visit us at the weekend is to have to stand because they can't find a seat. Given the above, dragging an extra coach more than you need is quite possibly less costly than the reputational impact of always having shorter, more-crowded trains - even if those shorter trains fall within the scope of a class 2 rather than a class 4.

Tom

 

RMBs whether mark 1 or of pre-nationalisation origin provide the railway with a large income. Taking the SVR as an example, passengers don't have to buy tea and coffee from the railway. There are plenty of nice tearooms and cafes in Bridgnorth and Bewdley and the same goes for pubs, probably even more so. The RMB also provides somewhere to store and restock a trolley if one is in use. For the loss of 20 seats (more for the LMS and LNER buffets on the valley as they are 2+1) and gain of about 4 tons, the income from tea, coffee, beer and snacks is a lot.

 

No, the Flag and Whistle has been franchised for some years - the franchisee has changed this year, that's all.

As for catering done by the railway, as flying scotsman says, the fish and chip trains are railway run, as are the Winchcombe cafe, buffet cars on two trains and lots of party bookings for cream teas and other refreshments. I'm struggling to find the figures as well, but they were sizeable, and a good increase on last year, reflecting the increased passenger numbers.

 

I wholly agree that catering is important, and can be lucrative in it's own right as well as adding to the visitor experience. I am not so sure that RMBs are the best way of delivering it. At the moment (Byzantine Alert) the C & W usually takes the hit for overhauling them (always 50% more than a comparable passenger coach), and MPD takes the hit for dragging it about, but the Buns & Pop Department keeps the money from sales. As a rule, I look at anything P & D or Lakeside DON'T do with very wary eyes when it IS done elsewhere. Don't fall into the trap of thinking sales are everything and the costs don't matter. Nothing wrong with losing money but usually best to know you are doing it and know where the money is going to come from to cover it. I find it odd that catering outlets, pub landlords, bookshop and model shop owners, who run their businesses for a living, are finding life very hard and failing in huge numbers, while somehow the Boards of heritage railways are all able to turn a profit at it.

Trying to ease this back to the original topic, there are some classes - BB/WC, Austerity, 80xxx, quite a lot of Swindon things, that are not quite ominpresent but certainly more common than Columbine or the E4. PH is right - eventually someone will bump into the wall of having to build a new boiler. Some are very close already because patches are difficult to put on other patches and you need something solid to wled them to. Would one new boiler shared, for instance, among all the owners of a well-represented class would perhaps enable shorter overhauls of the already complete machines. There are signs of this already happening with tenders, of there is a shortage. I am genuinely curious whether that would work at all, and if so how much might be saved.

 

The circumstances surrounding the problems faced by some but by no means all the businesses you mention - the takeaway market seems to be growing in he catering sector with new outlets opening all the time - are somewhat different to similar operations on a heritage railway. The latter having recourse to large numbers of volunteers whereas in the high street wages have to be paid to each and every employee.

To have one spare boiler shared between class members would need very careful planning of overhauls. Otherwise you could have two or more wanting an overhauled boiler at the same time. Then there would be the problem of a sudden and unexpected boiler problem requiring major repairs. Would depend on the number of locos sharing the boiler but in some cases one may not be enough.

 

It doesn't keep the money, it goes back into the generic railway coffers; these same coffers provide the money for C&W and MPD budgets. How is this different to (or more Byzantine than) how on board catering works on the national rail?

You'll be wanting an internal market and charging everything to cost centres next!

 

A boiler pool... If I were a billionaire aiming to become a millionaire I might start gwr standard boilers Ltd which would do tradeins on refurbished boilers...

But seriously, we have from the numbers roughly 30%, running, 15% in the shops and 15% queued. Ignore the rest for now, this is the active pool.
The queued locos need a cosmetic boiler for display, so only those in the shops can benefit from having a boiler ready to swap. Its a lot of spare boilers considering the number of classes out there.
With target 85% utilisation the Gw could just manage with 10 boilers for 9 4700s. Working out what preservation might need is trickier because isn't boiler availability the biggest itrm on the critical path for turnround?
Have lost my thread, oh well, the numbers are valid. May edit tomorrow.

 

The Mid-Hants has 3 S15 chassis and 4 S15 boilers present. However, they are owned by two groups, neither of which is the railway. Here is an example of how PH's byzantine objection is demonstrated....albeit not to the detriment of the railway at present, because people want to donate money to restore other locos (for example 35005).

 

We have four SECR P class boilers for three locos. All are under the same ownership structure, so no problems with swaps - currently the best two are on 323 and 178. Whether either of the other two is suitable for 27, or whether a fifth will need to be constructed remains to be seen.

More pertinently for Paul's point, we also have three SECR H class boilers. One is on 263, owned by the Bluebell Railway Trust. One is on 65, owned by a private individual. One is spare, owned - I believe - by the Bluebell Railway plc. That "Byzantine" structure hasn't prevented the plc-owned spare being sent away to be repaired for ultimate use on 65, the privately-owned loco. So where there's a will, there's a way.

Tom

 

This is a very interesting point, as no one part of the organisation should really get something for 'free' from another, as that means something is not being recorded, and so things slip between the floorboards. Even if it is just numbers moving around on a spreadsheet, at least that cost is being registered somewhere.

A line in the UK is currently entirely reliant on hired-in steam motive power. It does own its own locos but they are either under overhaul or restoration. Apparently, when these locos were in use, the railway did not 'pay itself' steaming fees or mileage (e.g. ringfencing the money that would otherwise have been spent on hired locos), which meant when the certificate ran out, there was a shortfall in funds for the overhaul.

So, would it have been better to put money aside during the operating period and deal with a lower final 'profit' figure for those years?

 

They aren't essential but they seem to do a lot of business. There does appear to be a significant percentage of enthusiasts who like to have a drink whilst travelling. Presumably they are also a way of providing additional capacity to other catering outlet. Given that most people still seem to like to eat at or near a set time, this must be a good thing in reducing overcrowding and increasing ridership on lunch time trains?

 

Captive audience. The customers are already on the train, you haven't got to persuade them into the restaurant, whereas when they get off the train they'll like as not head straight for the carpark.

Not hard to beleive they get a lot more sales that way. Franchising the catering may well make sesnse. With all the regs and inspections its becoming an increasingly specialist area, and if your management capacity isn't large then taking a regular rent payment rather than running it youself may ensure that the eye is kept on the ball in other areas, even if down some profit.

 

On some of the longer heritage lines it can be quite a while until you get to your destination so on board facilities can come in quite handy if you suddenly fancy a snack or a drink. Your point about overcrowding at station facilities is a good one. If you're pushed for time it can be more convenient to purchase on board rather than hang around in a queue wondering if you'll get served in time in the station buffet. Then there are those who prefer to have their refreshments on board a sup a cuppa while watching the world go by.