Heritage Railways, are they in trouble, generally?

A post by @21B on the NYMR thread is perhaps worthy of further discussion outside that thread:
"Very sadly, my view at a macro level is that not all current heritage railways can survive. As to which will not I couldn’t say, but it is I think likely to be those that fail to remain attractive to volunteers and fail to be commercially flexible."
So, which railways are struggling, and why? Or perhaps rather than look on the gloomy side, which railways are doing relatively well? I'll kick off with the Middleton Railway. Although a small line (and entirely volunteer run) financially, it is relatively well off with almost 2 years turnover in the bank. Passenger numbers are static but at a level where the income matches outgoings with a small surplus at the recent year end. The big worry for the railway, though, is volunteers. On paper, there have never been so many but the days of people spending every spare minute there have almost gone with only a few old timers putting in 1 or 2 days/week. Most of the younger ones (there are exceptions) come perhaps once a month. The other weakness is the lack of engineering skills, especially steam knowledge. Whether it will suvive in its current form, I don't know but sincerely hope so.

 

Always been casualties amongst heritage schemes, abandoned new builds and failed restorations, nothing new.

 

Honoured that a post of mine might be worthy of further discussion.

I think many of the smaller railways stand a good chance because the overhead and labour need is more manageable. Interesting what you say about the pattern of volunteering which matches my own observations. I perceive this might be different at some narrow gauge lines???

 

There is a discussion thread on defunct heritage railways:

https://www.national-preservation.com/threads/defunct-preserved-railways.359555/

I seem to recall that some folk would spend a week (or more) of their holidays in remote North Wales, working on the Talyllyn or the Ffestiniog. Not sure whether that still happens.

Many smaller heritage schemes have existed on a shoestring and some have folded. The more prominent heritage railways have grown into sizeable commercial enterprises, but have been badly impacted by Covid and by the many recent cost increases. I suspect that the most at-risk enterprises are those that took out large loans during the years of ultra-low interest rates and now have to pay much higher rates.

As an aside, I wonder whether the narrow-gauge lines have significantly lower operating costs due to their smaller and lighter infrastructure, locomotives and carriages? Of course, staff costs will be unaffected by that difference - they can't employ smaller people on lower wages!

 

I'd suggest that some of the larger lines (not mentioning any names!) have seen their turnover grow to the point where they see them selves as SMEs and lose site of their shoestring roots, and feel they have to "professionalise". I'd suggest that some of these are most at risk.

 

The big difference with the long list of schemes in the “defunct” thread is that few of them had achieved any great scale. Yeah I know Tyseley, Carnforth and Dinting could attract a fair number of people on some open days.

I'm not sure problems are to do with forgetting roots, but with leadership that doesn’t really know what it is managing.

 

What do you mean by this? What do you want to see changed?

No paid staff at all?
All paid staff must be ex-members?
No "outsiders"?

 

Might a more interesting conversation be about those hitting the sweet spot, as sustainable commercially successful operations, offering something for visitors, volunteers, craftsmen and the heritage sector at the same time?

You’d think that the Bluebell is an exemplar of that where, of the larger lines, the NYMR and WSR are struggling. The SDR and P&D both seem to do OK despite different models etc..

Simon

 

As a student and until married life and family got in the way I was very much involved in the Talyllyn and it was very much like that. My fortnights summer holiday was spent in Tywyn and weekends during the rest of the year. I was far from unique in this respect. There was no railway provided accommodation, either, and everyone had a preferred B & B where they stayed. Evenings would be spent in the Corbett Arms or the Railway Inn and there was a very good social life. I’m not sure what it’s like for today’s volunteer on the TR but I suspect it’s nothing like we experienced.
Another thing that happened then was that the railway gained seasonal staff by taking on volunteers who were university students for the summer season. However, they weren’t paid as such. The railway paid for their accommodation and subsistence but that’s all. There was no shortage of people willing to offer their services in this way. I’m sure this would be impossible to do, today, with current employment law but I’m not sure that it would happen even if it was possible to do. On another forum it has been suggested that volunteers could get together and build some necessary facilities that the railway can’t afford. A small civil engineering job in essence. Forty years ago that would have happened and there would have been no thought of employing contractors but not today. Volunteering has changed so much since those days and I think that this is one of the reasons many heritage railways are now struggling and having to employ so many paid staff.

 

Is there any such thing as cheap accommodation these days? B&Bs, where they still exist in tourism-rich bits of the countryside have become both more glamorous and expensive, and self-catering AirBnBs have proliferated.

The days of staying a few nights with Mrs Miggins, cooked breakfast included for a tenner, are gone I suspect.

Simon

 

I listened to this on Green Signals recently : no specific HRs mentioned but there is a view expressed that some are expected to fail.

 

How about blending the underlying volunteer led culture with the paid workforce and professional marketing and other skills that are needed to compete these days?

As others have noted, there are some clear successes in the sector, some of which have had challenges in recent years.

 

All are in trouble, it's just the depth that varies. But, most businesses are also in trouble. The economic climate is not good. Opining that some heritage railways will fail is stating the obvious. It's more a case of when. Make the most of it while you can.

 

It's worth adding that Service can be the differentiator and doesn't have to come at additional cost. Some of the most customer-freindly railways I visit are those run by volunteers on a shoe-string. I've been visiting most of the UK's HRs since they started out and have seen huge evolutionary successes but the one thing I would say is that most if not all can be very sensitive to any constructive criticism or ideas how something could make a difference without adding costs. I say this having had the benefit of working for 45 years in Private Sector service industry where customers have choices on who they contract with.

 

I want to see razor-sharp control of staff levels - every one of them necessary, none unnecessary. I have been portrayed elsewhere as being not in favour of paid staff but that is not the case, but I feet that there comes a point where the paid staff themselves become the centre of (their own) attention, and the ethos of why they are there in the first place gets overlooked. Ideally, the paid staff need to be enthusiasts at heart, with a real affinity for what they are doing - really its a vocation rather than just a job.

 

Examples that come to mind of heritage railways that seem to hit the sweet spot that you describe, are the KWVR, GWSR, and the Ffestiniog & Welsh Highland. They are all heavily focussed on volunteer involvement.

 

For me, the key is attracting sufficient visitor numbers, without people paying money you have no business, and so you have to look at how you attract visitors, how you publicise yourself, and how do you treat people, Visitors if they have a bad experience, will not return, and they will tell others, so you have to look at visitor satisfaction, in some cases, how do you show value for money, as there is always other venues only too willing to take your custom,
At the same time, there are costs, that are only rising, but that in its self should be a factor in looking for change, Sometimes, it a case of offer what you can, that others do not, Dining etc, footplate experience, behind the scenes days, photo charters, , If railways are going to survive, they have got to think outside of the box.

 

https://www.gov.uk/government/publi...#defining-a-small-and-medium-sized-enterprise

Core threshold criteria

11. In order to qualify as an SME an enterprise must have:

a. fewer than 250 staff (see paragraph 8 above); and

b. less than or equal to £44m in annual turnover or a balance sheet total of less than or equal to £38m.

Given the test for being an SME is set out above, I'd think almost any railway not considering itself an SME should re-think it's position.

It's very hard to predict on conventional metrics if a preserved railway will "fold" for a number of reasons
1) profit is not a key metric (as opposed to not making a loss)
2) volunteers are almost by definition economically irrational
3) assets are very illiquid, and the value is very hard to define (the value of say, a working engine, will vary enormously depending on whether the small number of purchasing entities are interested or not. Their interest will be defined by reasons other than economics)
4) as the trackbeds are frequently owned by others, and generally protected, even if all the current entities operating a railway go under, there is a decent likelihood it will re-open with new operators.

 

If volunteer numbers are declining, asking the volunteer railways in a few years time, and the answer may be different.

As has been discussed, many of the volunteers are very much not young. All power to their elbows, but what happens when they are no longer able to do things? If they are bringing replacements through, fine, if not, then what.

Things like pw, structures etc need to be maintained. If a backlog is allowed to build up, it becomes very expensive to address (and that's a risk with declining volunteer pools).

 

My point was that the three railways mentioned do not seem to be experiencing any substantial drop-off in volunteer numbers, and they also seem to attract those in the younger age group. The railway companies that fully integrate the use of volunteers and paid staff, and give volunteers some meaningful responsibility will reap the rewards.