GCR Winter Gala. 27-29 January 2023

Good post by misspentyouth62.....but I suspect a lot of us have "changed our behaviour" over the years!.
What I think is amazing is quite how far the GCR has come in the 50 years it has been operating. It started with just "Robert Nelson No4" and brake van rides along Loughborough platform, then a Black 5 and two mk1's to Quorn and Rothley on double track.....but then one track was ripped up by BR.
All this progress is being celebrated this year.

 

A big thanks from to me to those of you who came and visited us last weekend, we were hoping it would be busy but the numbers were astounding!

Clearly that raised some issues in terms of capacity. Being a fairly regular gala attendee at other railways I appreciate that having to stand may be expected on occasion but for long periods of time certainly doesn't make for a pleasant experience. This is something we'll have to consider for future events.

In terms of the timekeeping issues I'm not sure exactly what happened on Friday but unfortunately on Saturday we were scuppered with problems early on with the S15 needing coal when it was in the wrong position on shed and then the Peak failing. I've always said to have a chance of keeping the timetable in check you need to have a good start and we didn't get that on the Saturday. To be a few minutes late at a gala is half expected but in my mind when you get to over half an hour late it again diminishes the enjoyment of the day especially if you have a long journey home and have to look at altering travel plans.

Thanks again to those of you who visited us last weekend. I know it wasn't the best GCR gala ever but hope that it was still enjoyable in the large part. There have been some excellent constructive comments on here which I'm very grateful for and I hope we'll be able to use them to our advantage going Forward!

Phil
GCR Ops Volunteer

 

The gala has become a highlight of the heritage railway calendar for which you should be congratulated. The fact that a couple of services were so packed I couldn't board actually made me smile at how great it was for the railway.

And my somewhat controversial opinion that all steam locomotives should be black meant that on this occasion I was a pig in muck.

Well done, thank you, and keep it up. Stick to the current formula - even if things do run a bit late.

 

Like other long time attendees, we spent a lot of our time at the various stations watching trains go by. Being stuck in a gangway connection between quorn and Rothley wasn't great fun with a 3 year old.

A good gala nonetheless.

One thing I don't think I've seen mentioned with the timekeeping was the station dwell times. The timetable allowed 2 minutes, but in a lot of cases at quorn at least, passengers were still getting off at 2 minutes, before new passengers were able to get on. Multiply that across the whole day and it's one of those things I'm sure adds up.

We enjoyed the Saturday, not knowing what was going to appear from when, even with the odd light loco move and corresponding dmu drag the opposite direction to spice things up!

 

My main issue with crowding was not on trains per se, that did made things uncomfy at times, but on Loughborough platforms. There were just too many people for the sales stands. Or too many sales stand for the people.

 

I think reducing the amount of Loughborough departures would cause the railway to seem far less busy.

I'm one of those odd people who very much enjoy Diesel traction as much as I enjoy Steam. Therefore, when I've attended GCR Diesel Galas in the past I've noticed they've had no freight movements and that results in a noticeably less busy railway overall. It's effectively just the Passenger Trains from a Steam Gala.
To anyone only attending the Diesel Galas it would feel busy but to me it's always been noticeably quieter in terms of movements.
Unsure if that has changed or not more recently as I've been unable to make it to a Diesel Gala at the GCR for a number of years.

I therefore think it's not a timetabling issue, @waterbucket mentions the reasons behind the timeloss on the Saturday morning. I'm sure the GCR Op's Team are constantly looking at what goes wrong and how to prevent those things in the future. However, you cannot plan for the number of people who turn up to this type of event. You can only go on what data you had from previous years and next year's Winter Gala might not be as busy, we'll have to wait and see

 

Apologies for not commenting on this specifically before but you make a very good point. I can confirm that this has been picked up on and arrangements are already being put in place to make sure this is not an issue for future events whilst still allowing a place for stall holders to have a decent presence on the railway so thanks again for your feedback.

Cheers,

Phil

 

Sorry, not sure if anybody on android is also having issues at trying to reply to a thread which is being a real pig at the minute...hopefully you get the gist at what I was aiming for!

Phil

 

The best place for the sales stands would be in the large tent that has become a permanent feature attached to the "Tin Shed" at Quorn. The sales stands at the Bus Event are mainly set up in there and the arrangement seems to work quite well.

 

Johann makes a good point, but I suspect that Bus Events are centred at Quorn and in the yard, whereas train events are centred at Loughborough and so being on the platform gives the greatest footfall for the stalls. Had the weather been poor, we would not have had this overcrowding problem though, so it is a difficult situation to solve.

 

Thanks !

I've been to several GCR gala events over many years in no particular pattern of attendance; I would say this was the first time I thought it was a problem.