Swanage Railway General Discussion

Playing devils advocate

 

Look at what the National Trust is, heritage railways could learn a lot from outside their immediate circles.

One VERY grey area though, most railway charities claim Gift Aid on subscriptions which is permitted as they constitute a donation. If you change the rule and say it's to allow you to volunteer, you are no longer making a donation as you are paying for an experience, or a service such as insurance - and so Gift Aid is no longer applicable in such a scenario.

It's one argument I've had at a couple of railways I've been involved with, where signing the sign-on sheet states I'm covered by the Operating Company insurance of which the charity is not a party to and so there is no reason to "force" me to become a member.

 

Swanage Railway (pre covid) operated daily from C21st March to C1st November (Sunday at the end of the October half term). It had three basic timetables: low season: 1 loco in steam every 80 minutes C10:00 - 16:40, shoulder season 2 locos 1 steam 1 daily alternating every 40 minutes 10:00 - 17:20, peak season 2 locos 2 steam every 40 minutes 10:00 - 17:20 / 18:00. It then decided to drop Mondays and Fridays in parts of the low season and operated driver exs instead.

Operating that 3 variant timetable delivered significant marketing and customer benefits. It was easy to promote and easy for customers to understand. In the shoulder season if the customers didnt want diesel they could wait 40 minutes for the next steam. The choice was theirs. Apart from the diesel gala - which was very well promoted - there was steam every day for the entire season. A major plus point for the vast majority of customers / passengers for whom steam traction is essential.

Once the even headway / operating days structure was disturbed passenger numbers declined and the railway embarked on the inevitable downward spiral of fewer services / fewer days means fewer passengers which then meant further service reductions.

I have concerns that the Wareham service has cost Swanage Railway a great deal. Not just direct costs and time / effort but a great deal of hidden costs and time / effort. it also harmed the even headway creating some quite large gaps in service which delivered a sub optimal customer experience and put off potential customers and repeat patronage.

It was a sad day when the evening DMU service was discontinued but the passenger numbers no longer warranted its operation. There were just too few people in Swanage looking for something novel to do ie a ride on the dmu up to Corfe castle - dare i say it a couple of drinks - and then back to Swanage. Personally I think it would be worth a trial bringing it back for say Fridays and Saturday nights in the peak season. It would require though a well thought out marketing campaign (low cost) and the buy in / financial support of the publicans of Corfe Castle.

 

Whilst I agree with a fair bit of what you say, what strikes me most about 80104's posts are the depth of knowledge on all subjects relating to timetables, marketing, sales, Wareham, coaches, locomotives.... Did you work on the railway? Are you an active volunteer?
I struggle sometimes to understand the angle you are coming from? Seemingly wanting the railway to do well, but at the same time quite publicly shaming its decisions and really taking aim at the directors who haven't all done a terrible job.

I have signed up for a monthly donation and would suggest others consider it too.

 

Have you any idea at all how much it’s going to cost and the time it’s going to take to convert that goods shed into a pub and beer garden? More than happy to have a chat.

 

You would be amazed at what information is available from reading the SRC website, the SRT website, this forum, the COM Minutes, the published accounts, SRM, and attending the AGM and Open Forums.

To mimic Spock, I want Swanage Railway to "live long and prosper." However I am deeply alarmed at the financial jeopardy Swanage Railway Company is in. Some of the jeopardy is due to circumstances / events beyond the control of the Directors however one would have to question whether the Directors of Swanage Railway have on occasion being overly optimistic in their decision making or have embarked upon projects without the resources (financial and human resources) to see a project through to successful completion. Collectively these are a significant contributory factor to the financial jeopardy. @007 states "the directors who havent all done a terrible job". That may well be so and indeed I would agree with that however Directorial decisions are collective decisions so a bad decision is the responsibility of them all. IMHO the quality of direction and decision making needs improvement. In fairness to the current COM that does appear to have been recognised as evidenced by the statements made at the AGM relating to the composition of the future board when the SRT and SRC are reconstituted.

 

The challenge is to operate a timetable that is both profitable and commercially attractive

 

Erm ... aren't they the same thing?

Tom

 

well, a timetable that is attractive to the customer isnt necessarily profitable if that makes sense

 

When the evening DMU was properly promoted with flyers and timetables to the target customers, the holidaymakers, the service made money. As soon as the promotion was via social media and web site only, it died a death. Perhaps that's where we are now without a distributed paper timetable for standard services, along with unequal service intervals.

 

It does! There's also the issue of how you interpret "Customer". In its widest sense it includes volunteers who need to be attracted and motivated and members who need to be incentivised to provide support. Both can involve pressure to operate loss making services that maintain levels of activity needed to keep volunteers and members happy.

 

The numbers were there just not the will from higher up to keep running it

 

Precisely.

 

You said "profitable and commercially attractive" which are the same thing, but are different to "customer attractive".
I think that was the point Tom was trying to show.

 

The "higher up" were scarcely involved with running it, but still managed to demonstrate an ability to discourage volunteering by not supporting those physically doing it. Perhaps it was not their idea, so "not invented here" style of management.

 

When I holidayed as a child, we would always pick up a load of leaflets from the holiday camp, and peruse them to decide what we wanted to do for the week. I can see how relying on people already knowing you were there, and then having to make the effort to find your website would be nowhere near as effective.

 

Using leaflets is still part of finding what’s available when I’m staying in an area - racks and folders in self catering are still an important way to get ideas, even if I then do detail research online.


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Deleted

 

The trouble with pay to play is that it is possibly OK for those who are working members, but what about all those armchair members. I know for example from the Bluebell email group there are lots of members for that line (some not in the UK) who rarely if ever visit the line. I think they may feel differently if the subs rocket for something that is for them just a quarterly magazine. For example since March 2017 I had not visited at all until the Branch Line Gala this year. I know there was Covid in that time but the annual fee does not worry me, ask me to pay £20 or £30 a month then I may decide to support somewhere else if I have to pay that much especially now at my age as every visit means at least one nights hotel as it is too far for a day trip.
Maybe lines do not really need those armchair members and the bottom line of pay to play would provide more.

 

If your armchair sub of ~£30/year generates 50% return to the railway, then that is £15 free cashflow that the railway would not have. If a railway has 1000 members, that's £15k cash that can be used for the organisation's purposes.

I'd be quite cautious about throwing away that asset - bearing in mind that member concessions are only an opportunity cost. I'd also follow the taxman's principle of thinking how much I could pluck the goose without making it hiss.