Loudspeaker happiness

What sunk it was the cost, i think it was £15 to hire the headset, it was pre programed to act as an guide to your journey, yet we sold on board a very good guide book, for i think £8 or what ever it was, and as it was pre programed away from the railway, you could not add in special offers, and they were just on hire to the railway,

 

Just checked the App Store but I'm informed that it's not currently available in the UK but I can download it from the Macedonian App Store. Hmm.

 

it was badly thought out, and i whilst i was working there did not find anyone who thought it was a good idea, £49 for a family ticket, then even if you just hire 2, thats another £30 on top, and you have to give it back when you finish your jouney, a guild book for £8 you get to keep and can look at it again later. i'm not against e guides and apps, but they have to market the attraction not be a very pricy replacement to the guide book, unless your replacing the guidebook with a DVD OF COURSE.

 

"The Railway Executive" published a pamphlet about public address in 1951. I'm lucky enough to have a copy. I have hopefully attached a sample page to this post. I can post the rest if its wanted and allowed.

 

Yes, and it is Joe Public whose money keeps the show on the road. All too often 'real' steam was accompanied by grubby stations, and demoralised staff. To recreate the genuine 1950s/60s scene would not keep today's customer happy. To keep the authenticity freaks happy, preserved railways could have a 'shed bunking' event now and again, when people would be challenged to sneak into the engine shed and a grumpy shed foreman would try to catch them and shout 'hop it' and chase them off the premises. Personally I, as a somewhat vulnerable and sensitive person, like to be treated in a friendly and polite manner. But I prefer to be left to ask my own questions, rather than have my daydreaming broken into by constant loudspeaker announcements.

John

 

I've been watching this thread with some amusement not being able to get worked up about PA systems. The solution for the enthusiast who wants a country branch line experience is to travel off peak, the SVR intermediate stations mid week are a haven of tranquility especially outside school holidays. Avoid galas altogether, hoards of people, often silly double heading combinations and not a particularly memorable experience, I really can't understand the attraction of Pacific power on single track branch lines.

 

I've mentioned this one before but when D821 ran in DB livery at the NYMR as Vierhund, a gent from the owning group announced the arrival at Pickering in Fluent German, I believe there were a few bemused looks until it came into view, then smiles from those in the know. Overuse of the tannoy? Maybe, but it got people talking and certainly raised the profile of the loco with Mr and Mrs Bloggs travelling that day.

 

Can you say, hand on heart, that you've never booked a photo charter with a loco that was "too big" for the line on which it would have run in the days of steam? Anyway, Pacifics used to appear regularly on the S&D, a line renowned for long single track sections and the popularity of S&D recreations never seems to diminish. The Withered Arm was no stranger to Pacifics either and plenty of single line in that neck of the woods.

 

I was speaking generally, there are exceptions, yes I've done charters with Bulleids recreating scenes from the S&D and 60103 on the Nene Valley with the Vans to reproduce the Scotch Goods. There are several places on that railway that look double track but LNER RA9 locomotives on a GW branch line or a Bulleid on an obviously North Country branch no.

 

Of course. The NVR is sooo typically ECML. No offence but you remind me of the guy who wouldn't photograph 34081 on the NNR because Bulleids never ran there but was happy to shoot the Super D on the WSR as it "reminded him of South Wales."

 

The Horsham Brighton steam service was a cesspit of a service in steam days, rotten damp leaky coaches, rotten seating, hardly ever any heating or lighting and I suspect that was typical, the Horsham Guildford was much the same.
No preserved line can offer its customers a genuine 50s/60s feel and travel experience and stay viable.

Once the Oxted DEMU 207s came it was like West Sussex had joined in the 60s space age and not surprisingly usage rocketed to the point you could not get a seat in the peak hours from either Horsham or Brighton , out on the track miles of it were relaid. Sadly the die was cast before all this extra traffic was accounted for and the Line closed. The track was not scrapped but carefully lifted in panels, stored between Beeding and Cement works and taken away for use elsewhere.

Brian

 

This is not a bad try at the ECML, perhaps somewhere in the NE. Geoff Silcock's portable 90 mph sign to add a bit of realism.

 

Fair enough that it's not their first question, Spamcan. But it is becoming so ubiquitous that there will come a time in the not-too-distant future where people will expect it and it will seem bizarre if it's not there - in exactly the same way that nowadays we merely expect central locking, electric windows and power steering in cars. Certain things get absorbed into the fabric of society.

I live in a place with no mobile signal and I'm so far from a telephone exchange that my broadband speed is pitifully slow. If I need to do a major software update I need to leave it running all night, which was what I had to do on dialup in my previous house, 15 years ago! Yet if the internet goes down (which it does periodically, thanks to BT's unwillingness to invest in the local infrastructure), it is a right bind because it's just 'there', part of the fabric of daily life. That same expectation of being 'there' will come soon enough to free WiFi at visitor attractions. Revisit this thread in two or three years time and tell me I'm wrong.

 

We keep coming back to I, I, I, me, my on this thread. But, as railway enthusiasts, are we the primary market and spenders of money at preserved railways? No.

 

Preserved railways in the main are all about the Enthusiasts , the paying public are the means to the end. It's all about us enjoying playing trains, with a secondary aspect of providing a glimpse of how it used to be. It isn't about trains rides for Joe Public, at least it shouldn't be.

 

But the enthusiast his the primary source of labour and finance for many projects.
Do you suggest free wi-fi should be provided the full length of the railway, including on board trains, just at stations or just the termini?

 

Personally, I feel this thread has become very silly and I suspect the OP is dying with laughter at the fact it's gone exactly the way it was intended to from the very start.

 

OK, RG. Let's get a preserved line to spend a year relying solely on its income from railway enthusiasts and in 12 months time we'll see how it's finances look. We know they are run by enthusiasts, but of course it's about train rides for Joe Public - if it wasn't they wouldn't survive, simple as that.

I agree with 60017. So, on that note, I'm out.

 

that's not what I was saying at all. They are run by enthusiasts but they are run FOR enthusiasts too. paying passengers from the general public are there to pay the bills so that enthusiasts can do what they want to do. Read what I said again.