West Somerset Railway General Discussion

I'm not convinced that secondary spend is that important but I suppose it depends on your view of what you are. Again, using the NYMR as an example, before trains ran to Whitby, a train load of some 300+ people would arrive at Grosmont and be deposited there. Now Grosmont tea rooms would struggle to serve 30 people in a reasonable timescale so the majority of visitors are not going to make their secondary spend there. Providing facilities to cater for 300 peoples' needs is an expensive investment which would alter the whole railway and probably not be viable. Better to concentrate on transporting 300+ people to Whitby and let the cafes & shops there take their secondary spend. If, like the Bluebell, you have no obvious non-railway destination, you probably have to turn yourselves into a destination with all the add-ons that the visitor expects. This even extends to toilets. There are no railway toilets at Whitby, people have to go into town and pay for the privilege.

 

As with Liverpool, which has two cathedrals - the song says it has one to spare; the Dartmouth line has two seas: Torbay and the mouth of the River Dart, so maybe they have one to spare.

 

I can understand why you would want to travel from Southport! When the NYMR first started running to Whitby, it was thought that there would be a demand from people to travel from Whitby to Pickering. Whilst, undoubtedly, people do make that trip, the demand has not been what was expected. In terms of people travelling from Minehead to Taunton for other than pleasure, I doubt that the WSR is viable competition to both car and bus in terms of the main considerations of cost and time.

 

It's not just about passenger figures, I'm told that East Lancs carried around 205,000 in 2018 with turnover of around £4.5m, helped by 2 pubs and a rather successful dining operation which has been rated No 1 of over 5000 restaurants in Greater Manchester.

 

Minehead always seemed like the less good Weston-Super-Mare.

I guess the key issue is where do most journeys start, break and end.

You mention the Ffestiniog but I think most journeys start in Porthmadog. It used to be that if you broke your journey in BF, then it was a trip to one of the slate mining museums. I don’t recall anything by way of catering in BF.

Thinking about a couple of other journeys I’ve done recently. (Again this is just me so I may not be ‘typical’ customer - but then I imagine that every line does passenger surveys to find out this find of information).

MHR - start in Alton, pub lunch in Arlesford, break in Ropley to look around on way back to Alton.
SVR - start in Kidderminster, break at Highley for Engine House and coffee, to Bridgenorth, Late lunch in town. Back to Kidderminster. (Did have a pint in the pub at the King and Castle).
IOW - train, fast cat, island line, I think on both occasions we stayed on the train. Didn’t get off at Haven Street, mostly because we wanted to get down to Shanklin to have some time on the beach in the afternoon. (And a crab sandwich).

So, I guess what this shows is that i’ll tend to eat in town rather than at the railway. In all three trips there was somewhere where I wanted to eat which pulled me away from the railway. I will break my journey for a reason, I tend to like to try to ride behind different locos. But a good meal is a useful way for me to sell a day trip to companions who may not see the attraction of sitting on a train to go somewhere and then going back again. (Having a network rail connection also helps).

 

I knew I had seen somewhere a line that had gone through 200,000 for the first time last year year - that's right, East Lancs! Thanks for the reminder @lil Bear !

The reporting of passenger numbers has become a little hit and miss. For a number of years, the magazines reported NYMR, SVR, Swanage (Swanage did slightly top SVR a few years back but then SVR changed their methodology to include Shareholders and went back to just under 250,000) and then WSR. East Lancs has passed WSR in 2018 for certain, Paignton and Dartmouth actually slot in between SVR and Swanage but never appeared on lists in magazines because they seemed to only reveal their passenger numbers when filing their annual accounts (and are just about the only line to quote them every year as a KPI).

Between their two lines, Ffestiniog Group are up there at or over 200,000.

Only East Lancs and SVR don't include a seaside destination of that lot (I would accept Porthmadog may be pushing that definition a bit!)

The WSR has seen slight falls in passenger numbers over the past decade, with some years up but I think have at best stagnated and probably dropped back a little.

Steven

 

SVR passenger and ticket numbers (where available) are on the SVR Wiki at https://www.svrwiki.com/SVR_Passenger_numbers. The SVR excluded shareholder numbers from 2010 and reintroduced them from 2014.

I seem to remember Swanage as passing 200,000 too?

Patrick

 

That is undoubtedly true of Turnover - however, in terms of Profit, it isn't as simple as that. If the 'destination' involves a longer run, this does add to some costs (fuel, possibly hire, maintenance of stock and track - if owned throughout!), but others ('depot' costs other than mileage related maintenance, like having a depot and undertaking daily examines). It probably doesn't justify a proportionate increase in fares, but if the run is to a 'destination', it might (and been known to!!) It may also fill more seats and the margin on a seat on a train that is running anyway is almost 100%. The margin on goods sold in shops and tea rooms is not! A longer run gives more selling time for on-board facilities on the train and few if any lines have 400 seat tea rooms!

I have heard it said that the average next Profit (after staff and overheads) on retail and catering is 6% and that doesn't sound out of the way for non-Premium sales.

Hence, having a higher proportion of (non-VATable) fare income, if that is a higher sum in real terms, may well be better for the bottom line and there may need to be an acceptance of lower secondary spend per head! If the head count is higher, this would probably be the case anyway (for capacity reasons).

Steven

 

An accurate compilation of passenger numbers definitely exists as the HRA submit these to the ORR every year. However, the information is confidential and we have to rely on the figures being given to the media in press releases. It would be interesting to see the HRA figures but I can't see that happening.

 

No, but I'm told there are a couple of big reservoirs on the moors beyond Oxenhope used illegally by locals........

 

Don't some lines count a return ticket sale as two journeys? Some years ago a railway mag article compared the different passenger counting methods. Comparing like with like seemed quite impossible!

 

They'll have to play catch up in 2019 unfortunately. <BJ>

 

Those wonderful galas a decade ago long gone, surely GCR, ELR passed them by ?

 

Wonderful for who? Almost certainly not for the WSR's finances. It would be interesting to see a true analysis of the figures for them.

 

More homes for Taunton, quite where who knows? But possibly 45,000 potential passengers:

https://www.somersetcountygazette.c...aunton-garden-town-for-new-homes/?ref=mr&lp=1

 

"Cream" in the Avenue, but Wetherspoons Lavazza machine at £1.25 + free refills or 99p takeaway is terrific value and pretty good quality (and wifi).

Rob

 

I think it's quicker to list those that do reach the coast, than list those that don't!

Steve B

Edit: I should have read to the end of the thread before bothering to post!

 

9351 Blog updated:

https://www.wsra.org.uk/category/9351-blog