Recommissioning after Coronavirus

In England ! You can remove it when crossing the Welsh or Scottish borders.

Bob.

 

Aren't English banned from Wales ?

 

So I am really pleased to say that the Swindon and Cricklade has started allowing volunteers to go back to work. I have seen it officially, so definitely a step in the right direction. Not running trains for the public yet though. There are some conditions in an official notice but I am not going to paste them here. Hopefully other railways are doing the same.

 

I am not an expert but I think the TR might argue that they are not claiming gift aid on the sale of the ticket as they can only claim gift aid if passengers make a voluntary donations of around 10%. If you pay the gift aid rather than the basic fare you get a voucher for more than the donation to be spent in the café or shop. The gift aid recovered more than outweighs the value of the voucher and it has the added bonus of encouraging visitors to spend in the shop and café. the main downside is that the gift aid fare has to be available to all so they loose out on visitors who choose this option but are not eligible for gift aid. It must be worthwhile doing even if they are only benefiting to say 50% of the gift aid recovered or they would not do.

 

I cannot see any reopening for a while based on the news that Chester Zoo yesterday started an appeal based on the fact they have advised they will remain closed for an indefinite period, effectively a minimum of 4 weeks, despite being a huge open area, strictly limiting numbers and having all their social distancing plans in place and signed off by the council. If the Govt will not let somewhere like Chester Zoo open, all be it on a limited basis, the prognosis for heritage railways does not look good.

Give the Zoo credit though, they have raised over £1.5m in about 36hrs which is seriously impressive.

 

Probably as risk assestments and social distancing is easier for a wetland trust than for some Zoo animals.
If Zoos open they may have to close access to many areas?.
I notice some heratige railways (like the Great Central) are now planning limited spectator fund raising running days where risk assesments allow.

May be a while till the leisure travel restrictions on trains are relaxed.

 

Apologies if this has already been covered. The KWVR recently sent a survey to people on their mailing list asking about our attitudes to travelling on the KWVR as the restrictions are eased. Questions included whether we would feel safer if people wore masks, etc., and whether we would prefer to book a compartment for a round trip, half day or full day.

On the question of masks, not only will I not wear a mask on a heritage train, I don't want to ride in a carriage where other people are wearing masks. This would destroy the sense of timeless escapism that makes heritage railways so enjoyable.

I like the idea of booking a compartment, though. You can still enjoy the nostalgia whilst not wearing a mask (unless the government insists). On pricing, the suggestion was normal round trip fare for a singe round trip, Day rover for a half day booking, and a premium fare for a full day. Sounds like a good and creative idea to me.

Of course, the KWVR has plenty of compartment stock, especially if you include the vintage stock. Some other railways are not so lucky.

 

As the government has now said that facemasks must be worn on public transport from June 15th . Is there anything stopping a steam railway opening to the public from June 15th and implementing the same measure. ? You get given a cheap face mask with your ticket if you don't already have one.

 

This type of carriage seems,to me, to be the best suited for heritage lines once they can re-open. - as I previously mentioned. It appears that it would not be too difficult to fit perspex screens between seating bays and each bay has it own door and opening window so social distancing is probably more easily accomplished.
Turn around cleaning also appears to be far easier than compartment stock. Problems arising with compartment stock would appear to be due the narrowness and length of the corridor. How do you prevent everyone exiting their compartments at the same time, without staff directions or loudspeaker announcements? Open stock, it appears, could be much more easily and quickly cleaned than compartment stock. Staff need considering as well as travellers. Admittedly compartment stock has less seating and area to clean but open stock does not have a corridor - a place of high risk as I see it which has many glass panes and ledges.
The shorter lines will be the winners, I believe, as social distancing and occupation of compartments will be far more easily supervised by railway staff. I believe that once a bay has been used then it should not have passengers again until cleaned at the terminal point. Mandatory booking would help with this of course. Presumably lay over at each terminal point would have to be timetabled for cleaning etc. Snack type foods are often eaten on trains and will certainly have to be cleaned up where spillages (wet and dry) have taken place.
Reference to the guidance of last month by the ORR/HMRI, does suggest a high degree of responsibilities and actions required by heritage line managements before they re-open to passengers.

 

I'm not sure open carriages would be my favourite, masks or not. If you have compartment stock, then ticketing based on compartments (rather than individuals) would be possible - one compartment, one family, pre-booked for a round trip.

Tom

 

Tom, I suspect many lines have both types of stock. That is why booking would be essential. I still maintain cleaning opens (made into screened compartments) will be far easier than dedicated compartment stock. Better ventilation as well with two larger opening windows.
However, presumably the traveller will make his/their choice and that might reflect upon which line they choose to visit.

 

I was wondering whether the FfR's "bug boxes" mightn't benefit from a full height screen above the seat backs down the centre. Possibly even win a bit more in fares by making the valley side (i.e. the side with the views) '2nd Class'.

 

It is crazy that the zoo has to remain closed. It has a huge car park, wide open walkways throughout , and the few indoor areas can be walked through by marking out the floors.
Over-reacting to this virus is wiping out businesses such as this.

I'm sure that other zoos are the same.

Bob.

 

Do you open, and hope you can somehow not lose money through opening, having to have sufficient staff on duty to ensure you comply with the new requirements, or do you say, No wait until restrictions have been eased enough for you to operate an late season limited service, As things stand, I think the restrictions will make opening very difficult how do you ensure safe distancing, and then theres the question of protecting your staff, If a guard reports for duty, then contracts Covid from a customer you will be closed down again, then theres the question of cleaning the stock , every time, after each return trip, You will be lucky to manage more than maybe two return tips a day if you have to do that, and will the customer want to wait an hour, possibly longer whilst the carriages are cleaned might they not think, lets do something else? I think any railway that opens up whilst there are still cases being reported is putting the health of its staff at risk if theres no new cases, then maybe they can, but passengers don't just come locally, some could be holidaying, not aware one of them might have it, i would say, bite the bullet, hope you survive being closed, but don't re open until its clearly not going to blow up in your faces if you do decide to run public services.

 

Social distancing? No problem!

 

There are ways of reducing the risk like checking prebooked tickets on entry to platforms with a PC and barcode reader so staff do not have to touch tickets, having markers on platforms to show where to wait for number carridges, the guard keeping in a guards area away from passengers and not having to check tickets.

There will probably be countless other problems which could be picked up on a risk assement, but ways arround them to minimise risks like they are now doing on German and Dutch heratige trains.

 

Bear in mind that the open coaches you posted a picture of above with doors directly into seating bays are only DMUs not loco hauled stock. Normal open stock has just the same problems as corridor stock in terms of lots of people having to touch the same surfaces to get in and out. And as I said earlier, whilst DMUs might be the cheapest way to get trains running again, I think it's very questionable as to whether anyone would bother turning up. Most people who ride on a DMU on a heritage railway do so in addition to the steam train, without the steam I'm not sure it'd be worthwhile.

 

I still think one of the best ways to get things moving is for Heritage Railways to run empty trains purely for the benefit of photographers and spectators. A reasonable charge would generate some income at least.
A few volunteers to man car parks and popular viewing locations to collect donations, plus the train crew wouldn’t take too much effort. Both passenger and freight could be run to add some variety.