Winners & Losers in 2014

Not quite; the Swanage experience actively encourages it by road signage whilst IIRC the WSR experience is given as one of the available options for travel to Minehead. I agree that the facilities may be comparable but the difference lies in the marketing.

 

Hardly the same - 20 minutes/£32 for a family or 80 minutes/£45 - one is clearly more of a standard park-and-ride than the other...

 

Turning that comment on its head, the Swanage puzzles me. All those passengers, a (IMHO) relatively high ticket price and a short run. I don't understand why the Swanage doesn't have better facilities than it has. Looking at the two railways as an outsider of both, I would say that it appears that the GWSR must be more efficient in the way they spend their money. So if anything I would worry more about the Swanage, but only by inspection and not having looked at either's figures or having any "inside" knowledge of their workings. Just an observation not a jab at the SR.

 

Find us some land and we will build the facilities. Swanage is a 10 mile corridor with either SSSI's areas of outstanding beauty, owned by national trust or simply prime building land both sides of the raileay.
But you are right we do have to spend a lot of money contracting out work. But we have a plan for the future, but it all takes time.

 

We have the same problem at Llangollen - a ten mile line in a narrow valley with nowhere to expand ,except by going onwards into Corwen. The big problem there being that the original station site was sold to Ifor Williams trailers. There is vacant building land beyond the station , in part of the former goods yard.
This would also require a new Transport & Works Order, as ours only goes to Green Lane , which is just beyond the temporary platform.

Bob.

 

It's a story with a familiar ring. The NYMR has exactly the same problem, being in a national park, and relatively little spare land.

Going back to the original post, were there any lines that didn't do so well in 2014?

 

It's worth recording that the St Albans South Signal Box had its best year ever in terms of numbers of visitors. We'd been averaging around 1,900 a year since the end of 2008, but in 2014 we had 2,300+. I haven't seen the accounts yet for last year, so I don't know if the income altered to match!

It's also worth noting that when preservation was first mooted, it was said that we needed 500 visitors a year to keep our heads above water - we've certainly been well above that level!

(Open Days in 2015 can be found at www.sigbox.co.uk for those of you who've not yet visited us.)

 

Just looked on the gwr boardroom blog, it says 83,500 visitors, and points out other railways count single trips rather than visitors which may account for a comparatively lower number than perhaps might be expected looking at similar railways. How do other railways count their visitors?

 

It used to be the norm to count single journeys, as on the big railway. However, the annual return to the ORR requires, amongst other things, the number of visitors, number of passengers and number of passenger journeys. Generally, only the number of passengers (i.e. tickets sold) is easily quantifiable and that is generally used for statistical purposes. However, as you say, it is up to the individual railway how they boast. You could argue that a person buying a return ticket on a railway with two intermediate stations that gets off at each will make six individual journeys! I don't think any railway does this, though!

 

L&B Press Release:
Exmoor success story - Busiest year ever for the Lynton & Barnstaple Railway

The Lynton & Barnstaple Railway has had its most successful year to date.

For 2014 we introduced three rebuilt original heritage carriages dating from 1897 and 1911 and these have been a real hit with the travelling public. During the last 12 months 46,000 passengers travelled on the railway, with numbers 26% up on 2013 and 43% up on 2012 - impressive figures clearly indicating the railway’s strong attraction for visitors and enthusiasts alike.

Our ongoing success already provides clear and sustained benefits for many other local businesses in the North Devon and Exmoor area.

The receipts and passenger numbers not only eclipse several other well-established heritage railways but also exceed the original railway’s traffic figures prior to its closure in 1935.

The increase in visitor numbers has resulted in a growth in income of 29%, producing a very useful financial surplus which has been used to boost the funds for a planned extension of the railway.

A planning application for a five-mile extension to the line will be submitted in the next few months. When that extension is operational, the benefit to the local economy is predicted to be in excess of £5M per year.

Thank you everyone for your continued support of the project to reinstate the legendary Lynton & Barnstaple Railway.

 

According to latest Heritage Railway (Issue 199):
North Yorkshire Moors passengers to 31/12/2013 = about 330,000 and to 31/12/2014 = about 335,000. This compares with their busiest ever year in 2010 when they carried around 358,000.
North Norfolk passengers to 31/12/2013 = 158,700 and to 31/12/2014 = 161,054 (this is the second successive record-breaking year).
Keighley & Worth Valley passengers to 31/12/2014 = 110,715 (almost 9% up on 2013).
Severn Valley - no passenger figures mentioned to 31/12/2014 although the article states that Santas and Christmas Herald trains were 99% of capacity at 32,213.

 

What is interesting when you do a rough comparison with income and passenger numbers. Swanage 216,267 with turnover of £2,500,000 equates to a passenger spend of £11.55. Whilst NYMR 335,000 for a mere £6 million comes out at £17.90 passenger spend per head.

Bloody impressive as neither railway has much in the way of contractual work so relies on bums on seats, catering and gift shops. Who says there is more money down south!

 

As the Swanage 2015 fare is £11.50 return or £12.50 "freedom of the line" (both the adult fare) for a 6 mile journey and the NYMR equivalents (which are effectively "Freedom" tickets, being called All Line and acting as Day Rovers) are £20 for 18 miles or £26 for 24 miles, it just shows that you can charge more per mile on a shorter line.

Swanage don't do Senior Citizen fares except to holders of a Senior Saver Card and the NYMR give greater family discounts, both lowering the NYMR average fare per head in comparison.

Steven

 

Just from memory, doesn't the GWSR have a very low number of paid staff and the Swanage considerably more? I would then expect wage bill to be a factor.

 

Quite correct, a couple of paid administration staff and an operational manager and that's it.

 

SVR in 2014 was 204,045 (2013 - 211,000).

The railway is re-examining how to count annual family passes (first introduced in 2013) which are counted in each of these years as 8 trips (two trips each of four people).

Patrick

 

Is this an official announcement? I see the number has been listed on one of the public pages of the SVR Forum but so source is given.

Thanks

Steven

 

It was published in the current issue of SVR News.

 

Cheers

Steven