NRM Mallard gathering events announced - £90 for a photo evening!

The NRM has announced at last the full detail of the events assocaited with teh gathering of the six A4's. The full details can be found here

Most events are free or priced reasonably at £15 but the one I am really struggling to get my head round is the last round of charters at Shildon, a mind numbing £90!
The grand gala dinner costs £15 less!
I cannot even start to understand the mentality of that number, and having had so many free events the chances of selling any kind of numbers at that price level is minimal. It seems the NRM has learned nothing from the debacle of the last time they gathered 4 A4's for what now seems a bargain £32.50.

I applaud most of the events they are putting on, but they have a left a bitter taste overall with that nonsense price for 3 hours of photography. I suggest a rapid review otherwise that one crazy figure will besmirch the rest of the well laid out if rather last minute program.

Duncan

 

My sentiments exactly Duncan -- was really looking forward to this BUT I CANNOT
justify fuel, hotel & £90 FOR 3 HRS PHOTOGRAPHY!!!!! ---- puts into complete
context when you consider the cost of OUR session @ BEAUTIFUL HIGHLY
on SAT EVE --- THANKS for your company!! -- apologies if I got TOO excited with
my positioning!!! -- nice shots -- like the Bullied @ Bewdley!!! -- see you somewhere else no doubt.
Neale

 

hello
i agree £90 is too much especially if you think what the wether might be like in november !!!
ive just booked my £15 york ticket though very reasonable
regards

 

The £90 event is actually in February, but you're still taking quite a chance on the weather.

The significant differences for this event are:
* it's at Shildon;
* the locos will be displayed outdoors, presumably alongside each other, rather than gathered around a turntable;
* some will be in steam, so there may be some movement and re-positioning;
* it's the last chance before 08 and 10 return home.
It will be expensive to move them all up there, and the night-shoots, with lights, staff on overtime, and so on, will be quite expensive to organise and run. I can see that it justifies a higher price than the York early mornings, but £90 does seem rather steep. At that price, though, it won't be overcrowded, and some folks will pay for exclusivity, as LU150 has recently shown.

How much did Sidmouth and friends charge last year for the 3 green ones? How much more is the full set worth?

 

£60 for 3, or £90 for 6. Pay 50% for twice as many A4s, bargain!

 

Or see them at York for free then look on flickr... And that's speaking as a photographer!

 

Hi,

While £90 is a fairly hefty cost, there are plenty of other events (outside of our hobby) where people will spend that amount of money for tickets; I would have happily gone to the £60 '3 x A4s at Shildon' photocharter, but had other commitments at that time.

I am really pleased that the NRM is providing several weeks of free-access to see all the A4s together, and I wasn't expecting this, so well done to them for enabling 'one and all' to see the locos, without a crowd-rush for a 'one day only' event, and without excluding people who may struggle to afford the cost of entry.

I personally welcome the final Shildon 'premium' events, as there are few places to line up six locos together, and while it is a risk with the weather, I am looking forward to attending this 'once in a lifetime' opportunity, in a much better photographic environment than NRM York can provide. As everyone will have had free-access to the other events at York, I don't think we can really complain on this one, as it helps fund the cost of staging all the Mallard 75 events.

Cheers,
Alisdair

 

Hi Martin,

If I had been free that weekend I would have happily paid that and I'm sure you event incurred costs such as teh extra transport for 60010 and bringing in 60009 unplanned, plus it was the only chance to get all three together in BR colours. The NRM has no such excuse for their event. The transport costs were always planned as they announced they would have a six engine line-up at Shildon as well as in York before the locos had even got here. They will have been on display at Shildon for free for some time regardless of the evening photocharter running or not. I would have accepted a £60 figure again as this is what good all day charters cost on average and the small time is offset by having six locos together, but £90? It's just a step too far for lets be quite honest a not great location environmentally for a six loco line-up. I shot six deltics here and it was hard work in the evening with many background obstacles and an ultra modern building that jarred with 1960's Deltics, never mind 1930's steam!

I have a lot of time for most of the NRM staff, I work there occasionally as a volunteer at the larger events and I believe they have made a much bigger effort in the last few years to engage with the enthusiast market and be more pro-active in meeting our occasionally eclectic desires. However just as some elements of Railfest were badly misjudged commercially, this one event in the program has also been badly miscast and I would humbly ask that they should carefully re-consider the pricing for the last event perhaps at most to the same level that you set fairly Martin at £60.

Regards,

Duncan

 

Not only is February risky for weather but the event is during the hours of darkness. What are the lighting implications?

In July 1988 I got a wonderful shot of Mallard at Kirkham Priory, returning from Scarborough. The only fitting tribute to the 75th anniversary would have been restoration to running order but I suppose that the money's all gone on Scotsman!

 

Hi All

It will be interesting to see where they line up the A4s in the Great Hall in July and October at York. .I did a count on how many adjacent roads there are between The Chinese Loco and Ellerman Lines (both of which I suspect would be hard to move) and it only made 5!
I suspect they may use the turntable roads nearest the stationery engine/cap park area, going clockwise around the 'table from Evening Star- will be interesting to see what happens I'm not sure how this will work out for photography, being a novice at correcting for lighting issues, as there are great patches of light and back lit in that area of the museum.

I'm looking forward to all the A4 events over the coming months, though I'm not sure what I'll be attending yet. I'm just grateful to the Canadians and Americans who have allowed them to come over to the UK and to the NRM and all the other people behind the scenes who have made it happen. It's a very nice thought to think that less than 2 miles from where I live there are 2 A4s sat at this very moment :smile:.

Anne

 

I was out of the country for the 60008,9,10 gathering else I'd have been right here.

However the 2014 event falls on my birthday.. which makes that easy to "get permission".

a line up of 60007,8 & 9 together with 4468, 4489, 4492, to me makes this very worthwhile, considering 3 of them will be in steam and one will be gleaming with it's Bell attached.
I'll just pack a raincoat, thermos and other warm clothing.

 

Let's blame it on 4472 shall we? Even if the A3 wasn't costing the NRM a bean you wouldn't have seen 4468 running for her anniversary. AFAIK the NRM has no plans to restore 4468 to running order in the near future.
As for the lighting implications at Shildon, think floodlights.

 

Just to pick up on these points Martin, yes I think £90 would have been a step too far for some people, but not all. Can I ask you do you think you would have had the response to your event if it had been the last of several events, not the first?

As for lighting, in three hours there will be time for one change of loco positioning at best. 3 hours will fly by and unless the support crew are incredibly slick there will in reality only one static layout to be shot.

I would have criticised this kind of figure regardless of who was organising it in terms of the originality of the content (after several events where the 6 have been gathered) and the shortness of time on offer. It is just such a shame that the NRM had form for this with A4's in the past which was rightly criticised at the time and in retrospect, and yet has still gone for "get as much as we can" for the last event.

For balance I applaud them making access generally free for the public and for catering for photographers separately at York for a reasonable price. How does a small amount of coal and some oily rags turn a £15 event around a turntable in a classic railway setting into a £90 event on a cold usually dark wet evening against a modern industrial factory front?

I just don't get that huge jump in price and I struggle to see how it can be a success.

Cheers

Duncan

 

If the Shildon event is organised properly then it will be worth every penny of the £90.

 

For those to whom photography is the be-all and end-all, it will be, and there is nothing wrong with that. I hope that there is a great take-up and that NRM make a lot of money out of it. Nobody is being forced to shell out £90 and this event is not preventing anyone else from doing what they want to do. For myself I would spend my £90 in other ways, but I accept that to many it is a good way to spend £90. Each to their own!

John

 

Exactly so. Its up to each individual how they spend their money and nothing about this event will detract from any other event. What is there to gripe about (apart from this being NP)?

 

I suspect we won't make any money out of it after we've paid for overnight security, coal, loco movements, staff overtime and lighting...

Just a disclaimer - I have had precious little involvement with the organisation of Mallard 75, but I do know how much the evening is likely to cost.

The NRM does NOT have pots of money and neither are we seeking to make a profit, but we do need to try and cover costs if possible.