SVR General Discussion

I completely agree and, though Boogie Lights is my vision of hell, I wish it well. My observation, from the comfort of an armchair, was merely that protecting that golden egg undermined the success of the branch line event.

 

I would have to disagree I’m afraid. Branchlines was succesful, infact very succesful. It transformed what would have been a very average weekend of revenue, in to something extraordinary. It’s given us a platform to boost the event from next year, and actually with some tinkering it’s given us a base timetable that could work for all
Enthusiast events except the big galas. We all accept trains were busy, but Boogie Lights itself didn’t cause that.

 

And given the number of families I saw it did a good job at that, mine included at 3 generations.
The Auto Train BTW was a source of much fascination from my daughter (age 13) to my mum (whose 68th birthday we celebrated on the railway). I also overheard a lot of comments about the quality of restoration of the coaching stock. As time goes on, the time capsule that is the carriages becomes evermore fascinating to non-enthusiasts and that is something the SVR is blessed with.

 

I hope the Branchline timetable isn't used as the basis for future events as for me, starting from Bridgnorth as I do, it didn't work at all as there were far too many short-journey trains and not enough whole-line trains, which mean that regardless of the train I took from Bridgnorth there was much too long a wait at Kidderminster for a return train, so I gave the event a miss. Time will tell, I suppose, to see whether the "tinkering" will make much difference.

 

But as base it works. The whole idea of a base is that it’s flexible. The short paths can be brought together to make full line paths, etc. Its all about operational flexibility to prevent countless re-writes of new timetables

 

Quite right! But dreams change and we old codgers who yearn to relive the swansong of steam in the 50s and 60s are a diminishing number.

 

Much of the 'froth' appears to be from people who didn't actually attend!!

 

Why was the Auto Train reduced to one carriage on Sunday? It was wedged all day on Saturday with two!

 

It's clear to me that the SVR shouldn't have promoted the weekend. The whole idea of branch line trains is there's only a couple of people on them .

That way the non-visiting public would be happy to know that the SVR faithfully recreated the branch line experience and also made the whopping loss associated with running branch line trains.

Jon

 

A variety of reasons….

1) Storage of the 2nd coach. It needed to end up down CS1, and get the Boogie Lights set in on top. So couldn’t get it back out on Sunday.

2) Variety. Very much wanted to have variety of the event.

3) Passengers numbers. That Sunday normally would have been unbelievably low on numbers. We couldn’t have predicted the increase in numbers on the scale there was.

As I keep saying, we have learnt. We can now put on a more Budgeted and informed event next year.

 

To be followed by a ''Beeching Closure Weekend"?

 

Watch out some on here will think you're serious!!!!

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You could follow up with a "derelict railways" weekend then an early preservation weekend and culminate in a "festival of complaining" where apparent enthusiast arrive to complain about the fact there are too many people/wrong colour of engines etc etc...

 

Sponsored by Natpres!

 

Ah Well, At least it seems to have diverted people away from the NYMR thread, which like this one is becoming somewhat boring.

 

I can appreciate that it would be very hard to predict the numbers over the weekend and that it would have been very weather dependent but the one thing that I think could have been predicted is that the Auto Train would have been very popular, especially with enthusiasts. It is a train that basically only runs on galas etc and even then, if memory serves me correctly, it does not generally do a full trip of the line. I would have thought the Auto train was the train most would have want to have a ride on as trains pulled by a manor or pannier, even if on a shorter set of carriages, can be regularly experienced on the SVR. With its limited capacity maybe the option to pre book a seat at a premium might be something to think about in future.

 

Please no! This is an incredibly poor idea.
The whole point of this weekend was to have an event that was accessible to all. Suddenly making some trains 'premium' detracts from that ethos and then people like my mum and daughter miss out on a brilliant experience.
I find it very annoying paying an entrance fee for a theme park for example and then suddenly finding some rides (inevitably the 'best' ones!) are 'extra'. Its a very slippery slope and quick way to leave a bad taste with customers.
The Auto Train was fine on the Saturday, only slightly cosy in the afternoon. As I think @2857Harry has said on numerous occasions now, it was difficult to predict how busy it would be, the weekend exceeded even the most optimistic forecasts and lessons have been learnt for next year - for what will now be an even better event. Can we just celebrate that a heritage railway held an event in February that has made them a good chunk of money and significantly exceeded expectations?
Can I also reiterate, those of us who actually attended had a brilliant day! It was not like the Tokyo underground, certainly some steam galas have been much busier.
Way too much negativity regards what was a supremely successful event!

 

Fair enough. It is a hard balancing act, made especially difficult by the train that is likely to be most attractive to many, as the auto train was the real point of difference to trains the SVR normally operates, is the one with the smallest capacity.

 

The way to do it is to build capacity around it, which in fairness did sort of happen on Saturday as the departure before was the full line GW 7 coach set. We were able to get seats for the 10.30am departure off Kidderminster.
If an extra train is put on next year that will also take some pressure off, and run as 2 cars on both days (maybe a single car run early morning for variety?).