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What sort of percentage of your annual revenue comes from the Christmas season? Certainly not intended as a criticism of the Spa Valley - more something that I think is a sector-wide risk that financial performance becomes increasingly dependent on doing a few big events really well, rather than "core" running through the year.

I have a hunch - not backed up by any data (*) - that in at least two cases of railways recently and suddenly mentioning financial difficulties, it is because events they hoped to be blockbusters turned out otherwise. Quite possibly in both cases there were underlying issues before hand, but those issues crystallised when the expected revenue from a big event was smaller than expected.

(*) Hence why it is a hunch! But I'd be willing to wager a king size mars bar ...

Tom

 

Do you have source of supply?

 

I can't be as open as I'd like to be in how I answer this because of the contracts we have in place.

However, the truth of the matter as far as our railway is concerned is we are reliant on this time of year to give us a big cash injection to enable projects that demand such large sums of money being spent on them all at once to take place. We are not reliant on it to keep the Wealden Railway Company stable, the rest of the year does that quite happily for us.

In terms of % the income from this time of year is only around 15%. The rest of the year is what makes us money at a steady pace to enable the ongoing parts of running the Spa Valley Railway happen. We make most of our money through dining experiences.

Visitor Numbers:
Between 1st February 2023 and 31st October 2023 we carried 31,760 with Polar the total on 24th December should be 72,760. Between Xmas and New Year I'd expect this to reach around 73,500 as the DEMU never attracts as many people as say a dining train with a steam engine does.

We're running the DEMU to try and be easy on Ops because of the demand Polar puts on us, the Purple timetable is somewhat a lot more relaxed and it means we don't need to shunt the world on Boxing Day to open on 27th December.

Profit & Loss
Sage (the accounting system we use) is showing that we have taken £440428.38 in ticket sales (which includes dining trains). When it comes to the split between dining and travel there is not a lot in it, around 50:50. Total sales for the year amount to £696,243.17.

We were running at a loss of £51,000 at the end of October, this has now reduced to £12,000, although that is the result of income from sales for events/products/services next year, that is money I can't spend until the event has happened though in case we had to cancel and a refund needs issuing. Polar hasn't come into anything yet, that is accounted for in January.

In my head this makes sense but that's because I know how our railway works so apologies if it doesn't to others!

I'm off to drive 34072 this evening, I had an unplanned driving turn on it last night as the booked drivers van broke down on their way in. 250t with a Bulleid Pacific does make it chuff a bit louder than most in preservation expect them to sound!

 

Many thanks @Jonnie - that's very informative.

Tom

 

Spa don’t sell the tickets or take the money directly from Polar Expesss do they, am I right in thinking that’s PNP?
It’s interesting to see how to railways count annual passenger numbers!
A few years ago I heard a railway counting one passenger on its dining trains, as three passengers on the annual total.

 

PNP sell the tickets yes.

I count per person based on ticket sales. We don't sell platform tickets though so it isn't always known the true number of visitors and the Beer Festival sees a lot people just coming along to the stations rather than travelling on the train.

 

34072 is running today if anyone's in the area.

 

Thanks for that Jonnie, I'm not over with you today, but I did very well on Wednesday: I posted two photos at #1100. Same locations that I've used before but the exhaust was showing much better in the prevailing weather conditions.

If my online food shop arrives in good time tomorrow I'm hoping to get across for 34072 on the two daylight trains - at best starting with the return of the first one.

 

@Jonnie thanks very much for all the information about the Polar Express runs, it is so helpful and much appreciated!

I have just put up my video of No.80078 last Friday:


If you want to share it on the Spa Valley website or social media, feel free

Comments and feedback welcome

 

Some interesting accounting going on there. Hopefully the auditors are ok with it.

 

Can't see anything an auditor would worry about, they won't normally care if you keep money unspent just in case. As long as the books balance and the right entries and breakdowns are in the accounts is what they look for.

Sent from my SM-A526B using Tapatalk

 

I think @simon may have been commenting on the sales for event next year being counted this. I’m sure all is above board and really @Jonnie was talking about cashflow rather than statutory accounts. The cash has arrived now, but presumably the sales will be shown when the event has been delivered.

 

If you have money in you have to account for in a given period, if you don't spend it it stays in your credit side until you do, which can be anytime in the future, normally end of year accounts would have a note about any reserves and why.

 

Does the railway now own the Riviera TSOs 4946 and 4949?

 

I wasn't talking about reserves, I was talking about "the loss reducing from £51k to £12k due to monies being received for an event next year".

As @21B says, this sounds like cashflow, not profit or loss.

 

If you look at some big companies it is amazing how they do thier a counting, I think you will find they use preorder payments/deposits straight into the profit side even if deliveries are monthhs or years away. They also if they want to reduce profits use previous against potential liabilities to get tax benefits ! Must be fun being an ace accountant , they say statistics can be used to prove anything but accountants can be as clever !

 

Isn't for example what airlines and package tour companies do all the time?

 

And did the railway have to hire in the two West Coast Railway TSOs as well?

 

Not these days with IFRS, but this isn't accounting today so maybe the end of this discussion.

 

Didn't make it over today as my online Christmas shop was rather late arriving.

But it's been a great few weeks watching and photographing 80078 and 34072. With very grateful thanks to you Jonnie for the wonderful flow of information that you have posted here, which, with 34072 in particular, has allowed me to catch up with a loco I last saw in August 1964.

I hope that you and the other Spa Valley guys and girls can switch off a bit very soon and enjoy Christmas.

With 34072 and 80078, along with the possibility of 78019 joining them before too long, once we get a few weeks into 2024 and steam operations restart I certainly plan to be back.