2015:- The best year in preservation so far for........

Mainline steam gives us rather nice big engines thundering along at a rate of knots, it looks and sounds rather impressive. It is however not cheap for your average family, has to be planned a few weeks maybe even months in advance even then theres no guarentee you'll the loco you've booked for. Now say Tornado visits the SVR for half term for instance, Local paper publicises it, mum/dad see it think 'be nice to take kids to see that', yes its not charging up the East coast but they can get up close have their photos taken with it and travel with nice teak stock behind it and all at a sensible price. Mainline steam cant do anything like that but the two can compliment each other. Somthing we should think about and see if we could interlink more maybe?

 

Each to their own and I wouldn't be without our heritage railways for one minute - damn it, I "own" a loco on one - but travelling by steam in the high 90s, breaking records over Shap, battling the Devon banks, taking a Bulleid over Honiton, a rebuilt Scot over the Long Drag (the list is almost endless) stirs the soul in a way that heritage railways cannot replicate. Their strengths come in the shape of vintage stock, locos and buildings. Long live steam in all its forms and in all possible locations.

 

To address the social club comment..

there's an immediate assumption I am belittling preserved railways, thats not the intention.

I cannot for one minute consider any preserved railway in the UK to being a viable business, with really only 1 maybe 2 exceptions (Paignton being the fore runner).
Every preserved railway is dependant on volunteers, donations, charity and people giving their time for free. They are all somewhat cash constrained, dependant and non-viable as a business standing on it's own with a full time labour force.

Those volunteers are attracted to the shared vision on a social level... They are not forced to volunteer, they choose. Their decision is a social one, through spare time or retirement.. I would suggest only a minimal financially satisfied souls are professional full time volunteers.

Therefore railways are social clubs, just like rowing clubs, fishing, bird watching, sailing, flying etc etc.. it's all a social pot of related people sharing a common interest in their spare time.

I'm not saying the mainline is much different, but at least it is run as a viable business for profit, not charity (even if the loco has a small slice of this)... mainline is the professional front to this (even if some loco owners need that kicking and screaming nudge every now and again).

I suspect some of the offended here are more due to the fact Ive dared suggest their ivory tower is not a global corporation they manage, but a place for social niche that serves a community leisure time interest... ok some social clubs are bigger than others.. the RSPB for example puts NYMR into the shade but to suggest the NYMR is as viable or comparable to say Alton Towers is laughable, lets not be climbing too high up the ladder, the bump hurts... preserved railways are social clubs playing / pretending to be in the leisure space.

The issue i'm raising is the profile of mainline steam to the hobby, the public and media interest generated should not be under estimated... as long as people volunteer their time a preserved line will exist... as long as mainline steam is viable it will exist... the point I'm making is the social club will always go on, in some form and will go until the last member exits... mainline steam will only exist as long as it's viable... viability is much more risky than volunteers.. there will always be someone who will work for free for a hobby... even if it's 1 curator of a museum.. mainline steam won't have that luxury once over the financial, logistical, policy or procedural apex.. it' stops and when it does.. the royal family ambassador role that mainline steam is will cease to entertain the public mindset and that will affect preserved railways to a larger degree than people think...

If 1000 people see a mainline steam train at their station and 10% of them chose to take their 4 person family to ride behind a heritage train on a budget day out.. thats 400 people delivered to a preserved railway.... I really don't believe 1000 people riding a preserved railway will influence 400 people to ride on the mainline... If the mainline didn't exist.. how many of that 400 would proactively go looking for a preserved railway, or maybe stumble across it when comparing against several other types of day out.. I suspect without that "imagination" that would be many less.

to address one more specific point..

maybe it's proving my point about the level of interest / influence mainline steam has over the hobby ???

 

Is 2015 no longer a possibility for 35006's return.....?

 

Each to their own. I don't have any objection to main line running, and I do occasionally look out of my living room window to watch trains on the Salisbury-Waterloo route labouring up Porton Bank, but I wouldn't miss it if it went. My point is that heritage railways offer a more of a multi-dimensional experience than the main line. They tend to attract their visitors in part or wholly as a day out in a particular locality, an example being the use of the NYMR as a means of visiting Whitby. Whilst it might be argued that this reduces the NYMR to the level of being a "Park & Ride" for Whitby, the level of complaints voiced when steam has to be substituted by diesel would seem to indicate that the steam experience is an important part of the overall package. It's also a considerably more expensive park & ride than most people are used to, so the added value of the steam railway is clearly an attraction, and with 3-4 locos in steam more or less whenever the railway is open and 5 or more at peak times punters get a a lot more steam activity for less money. If there were no main line trains running I don't think it would make an iota of difference to the NYMR's figures, and I think the same would be true of all our other leading lines - they stand or fall on their own merits.

The argument that main line steam must be viable because it exists is rather specious. Most locos are owned either by societies, who raise the additional funds needed to keep them going, or by individuals who put their hands in their pockets. There may be exceptions to this rule - Ian Riley seems to work his engines hard - but only he knows whether they pay their way. The 71000 Trust had lottery funding for their last overhaul but seem to have little in the bank for the next one. Tyseley have their own business model, but I can't help feeling that the "sparing use, inexpensive overhauls" philosophy can only go on for so long. The reality is that main line locos, on the whole, do not run enough miles per year to generate sufficient revenue to cover their costs. In contrast, locos on some of our heritage lines are running 8-12,000 miles a year and do stand a chance of breaking even.

 

Perhaps those who clearly have little actual experience of what is involved in running heritage railways (or for that matter mainline steam) might like to stop digging their hole before they disappear beneath ground level.

Absolutely correct that few if any heritage railways could survive without volunteer labour and "charitable" input - but mainline is exactly the same. Who do you think provides most of the support crews of mainline steam locos, stewards the trains, is involved in a large part of the maintenance, raises fund behind the scenes to pay for overhauls, or funds overhauls from their own pockets? Enthusiasts, volunteers, people who do so for pleasure and social reasons. Both types of steam action also rely even amongst their staff on people being paid less than they would expect for similar work if they didn't enjoy it.

As for "playing at being a leisure industry" - exactly where does the majority of trading income for heritage lines and mainline steam come from? Oh, yes, people spending money in their leisure time. Whilst plenty of passengers may ask "are you all volunteers", the vast majority still expect the same sort of quality and value for money they would expect at Alton Towers or other "commercial" tourist attractions (and, just as an aside, I am pretty sure heritage railways and mainline tours are not alone in relying on volunteers and charitable giving - many commercial attractions with heritage or conservation aspects also have such input, even if there is a core commercial business), so if it is just "playing", it is a risky enough game they are playing at. The ORR might also point out they expect something rather better run than "just playing" before they allow operations.

And the reference to photographs was in the enthusiast press and other specialist media like websites. Photo Charters somewhat evened the balance but I suspect it may be that familiarity breeds contempt - heritage railways are there all summer, with several trains passing a given point every day, whereas mainline steam is perhaps more challenging and more a case of even a poor photo "records a moment now gone"!

Steven

 

If you think that owners of locos that run exclusively on heritage railways don't have to raise additional funds to keep them going or that individual owners don't dig deep into their pockets, think again.

 

But isn't most mainline steam effectively subsidised by volunteers helping with locomotive overhauls and preparation, support crews etc? Without that level of support, mainline steam wouldn't be viable anyway.

I'm not criticising those people, by the way - but clearly, mainline steam is no more viable as a standalone business model without significant volunteer input than heritage line steam is.

I think that is fanciful, and ignores the significant efforts the major preserved railways take to advertise their services. And are you sure that the traffic is all one way: someone seeing mainline steam at their local station somehow makes the connection "I'll visit a heritage railway", but no-one on a heritage railway thinks "I'll take a trip on a mainline special"? That sounds implausible to me.

At one level, having both options help to support each other, not least in transfer of skills (and sometimes engines that work on both systems). But the big selling point of a preserved railway is accessibility: almost everyone in the country is within a short trip (less than one hour, say) of a preserved line that is almost certainly running any weekend they wish, and - crucially - for which they can have a day out for a family for less than £100. That simply isn't true for mainline steam: it seems to be a preserve that is only really accessible to people with more money and who have the opportunity to pick and choose their days and plan ahead to a much greater extent. In particular, I'd suggest the cost, length of trips and early starts / late finishes of most mainline steam makes it a singularly unattractive hobby for anyone with young children.

Tom

 

I think the point being made is that owners running on the mainline also in the main rely upon being able to "top-up" hire fees from other sources. There are probably a few jobs, both mainline and heritage, where with careful planning and maintenance, good luck and the ability to sustain the income earning work, costs can be covered. In most cases, the ability to cover costs exists - if the supply of work were great enough, but it generally isn't. It should also be remembered that not overhauls have to cost the same - a real "bottoming", especially of the boiler, may cost a fortune but will reduce costs for the next couple of decades (not my view, although I agree with it, but that of a former BR Regional Mechanical Engineer).

Steven

 

So, if heritage railways only survive because their passengers have seen a mainline steam trip, then presumably the NYMR will have had a dire summer with no steam hauled SSE's acting as an advert?

The 20% to 25% increase in fares income since mid-August must be a figment of our collective imaginations then?

Steven

 

According to this quote,

there are 167 other railways than the NYMR, which arguably has a considerable silver spoon in it's mouth when it comes to publicity from other areas, which are internationally well known... but even that (i'm sure we both agree) doesn't make it a self sustaining model. Glancing out from that Ivory tower, you might just see other lines just aren't as lucky on visitor numbers and have to earn and learn where each and every visitor comes from and harness it.

To completely suggest that no london bound commuter traversing on London Victoria at 08.30 on a weekday morning isn't influenced by 70013 or any other steam locomotive going out on a railtour is ludicrous.... Ive given up counting how many times someone has asked me "can I ride on it" or "where can I go for a day out with the family on a steam train" as a result of seeing one.. (Of course given the pedantiscm of some posts.. i must qualify I refer to 70013 and London Victoria solely as examples.. not as be all and end all). I never said everyone arriving from Dartford on plat 1 will this weekend goto Bluebell... but over the course of a year many families will look on the internet and plan a day out.. and when see recall seeing that hissing monster on platform 2.. it might inspire a decision to go to there instead of somewhere else...
x many people
x many mainline steam trips
x many towns across the country
x many photographs in the media...
x many stories of locomotive x,y,z

surely does make an impact for the heritage lines over a time period.

That is how mainline steam doesn't just get to the market.. it positively sits on their minds.. more so than any website or magazine advert ever will.
Mainline steam is the royalty of our industry and a rolling advert.
If Tornado was retired sitting in Grosmont.. do you honestly believe in the long term that would do anything for anybody ?
But as a mascot parading the country it gives media and public awareness at a local level, which leads people to think... hmmm where can I see more of that.

Take it away... sure those with a silver spoon legacy will trundle on... but many others will feel some impact... not an overnight waterfall.. but a long term trickle.
The last few years have been golden on the mainline, but not without black spots.. it should be a warning... take away the A,B grades of any industry, whats left would be the C/D average... competing against the A,B grades of other family interests in the leisure space... in my opinion the AB of our industry is mainline steam.. it's the highest profile presence and closest to professional run / sustainable (even if some hard decisions in pricing will have to be met in the future).

 

I have to take this quote separately on it's if I were to consider any attempt at a serious answer to this post.
Ive no intention of commenting on safety of any railway, let alone yours.. when it comes to safety : reputation and track record is the only yardstick.
Were talking about sustainability as a business, not safety, please save the Spin Doctor stuff for Downing street and put that back in it's box.

Bringing back to business... sorry but preserved railways are playing at it... virtually all of them. (to be pedantic: business that is).

Look at the Vulcan, or Duxford, or Birmingham's canals, the RSPB..... very professional subsidised offerings, paid staff and highest safety regimes.... all of them charitable in the leisure industry chasing the family day out $, but they are still not sustainable and self funding alone.. let alone to even consider paying a dividend to a shareholder and being wholly full time..

with the likes of Merlin Entertainment with £1.2bn revenue... preserved railways (all 168 of them combined produce little of this) still aren't even on the ladder of the industry and closer to the monthly village community bunfight / bake-off...

I still say they are social clubs that exist for the benefit of the community... both those who participate in it, or partake in travelling on it. It's a hobby which at best is working in a business like manner or just surviving as best it can. The Mainline aspect is the closest to a business industry as we have (and yes the locos might be volunteer lead, the stock, route planning, marketing and sales certainly is not and represents where the money is that allows it to thrive).
Any railway putting themselves in the same category as Universal Studios, Disneyland or Warner brothers studios.. is not just digging a hole, they are working an old wild west mineshaft.

 

I take it you're not involved in the heritage railway business. You don't have to be a multi billion pound business to be part of the leisure industry.

 

The British Leisure industry is £115bn a year according to KPMG.
The Entire Heritage Rail Industry is worth £92m (not even 1%).
http://www.markgarnier.co.uk/files/mark_garnier/u4/HeritageRailways.pdf

The hobbies' place is closer to the paper boy than it is to Rupert Murdoch.
I'm sure there's many wannabe Rupert Murdochs in preservation however.

Mainline steam is the pinnacle of the Apex, this debate seems to be around if the Apex of that triangle is pointing to the sky or balancing it on the ground. From a marketing / business perspective (and safety as someone went there) imho it's on the ground balancing / influencing the rest of the hobby above it, although I admit to being in the minority in that opinion right now, who seem to think the Mainline steam business and it's marketing (ok lets add in Safety as someone insisted) is lead by Preserved railways.

If the 18k volunteers were paid a £25k average wage, the industry would be in the red by over £300m on volunteer labour alone.. that is why it's a social club.

 

Where does £25k come from? That might be the national average wage across all industries in all areas of the country, but certainly isn't the national average wage in the tourism industry, which is considerably less well paid. A lot of visitor attractions, even those run by very reputable business, such as English Heritage, effectively employ casual / temp labour on basically minimum wage rates. I'm not condoning that practice, but is ludicrous to suggest that the viability of the heritage railway industry should be judged against the national average wage that is skewed by high wages in some industries in some parts of the country.

With regard the 1% figure - that's small, but really it depends how tightly you slice your particular niches. If you took out accommodation, catering and theatre/cinema how big is the industry then, and how much does each little niche (museums, art galleries, nature reserves, historic buildings etc) occupy? "Leisure" is a very broad concept, made up of thosuands of attractions that are mostly individually small but collectively big.

I also don't think you have made your point about mainline somehow being more important. As has been pointed out, it is just as reliant on volunteer input and charitable giving as any heritage railway. At least if I choose to donate my time / money to a preserved railway, I am reasonably confident that any surplus from my efforts will be reinvested in developing the heritage attraction I am supporting. Whereas presumably by your criterion, the fruits of the labours of volunteer staff who support mainline steam are ultimately enriching the owners of what you seem to consider to be proper businesses...

Tom

 

ok let me spin it a different way...
firstly i neglected to include the 2500 paid staff the industry has, but as I started, lets for now lets continue without them..

if 18k volunteers were paid approx 50% of the industries revenue £92m revenue, then were looking at a salary of £2500 a year.., or £47 per week, little over £1 per hour.
Alternatively if (and is a really big if), we assumed the industry was break-even at £92m in costs excluding labour, plus 18k volunteers...
then the £426m salary bill + £92m revenue = £518m (£520m)... then it's 10m passengers would need to be paying £51.80 for each ticket, before it made a profit...

I suspect in real life we'd be looking at either £100 per ticket as a viable business... which strangely enough.. is the cost of a standard railtour ticket...

Of course if your paying less than average wage.. even if it were £15k a year your still looking close to £80 per ticket.. and we know the industry isn't break-even at £92m in costs vs revenue.

to be taken seriously and protect itself from the loss of willing volunteer labour in the future, the industry will probably need to double its passenger figures and double it's ticket prices... but when you consider legoland charges £46 a head.. maybe thats in some measure a direction of the future...

Which ever way you look at it...mainline steam seems closest to the real costs of operation and heritage railways well.. it's a social club.

 

Quote as many figures as you like but in every industry there are big and small players. And Rupert Murdoch wouldn't have got where he was without the paper boy.

 

They said hopefully 2015 return at worse 2016... they said the same last year so thought putting 2016 was a safier bet

 

Okay, so we have an administrator who doesn't like heritage railways - fine. Probably if in the centre of London, I can see that you are more likely to encounter mainline steam than a heritage line in your daily life. Still not sure that it would be a significant enough advert for a a heritage line to outweigh the lines own marketing efforts and be a major gainer of business but, hey, I don't live in London!

I still struggle to see however why mainline steam is the top of the tree and heritage lines a lower life form - and I don't think our own resident "Lord Sugar" has made any real case for it being so.

The nearest I can see to his reasoning is because mainline steam is a viable business and heritage railways aren't.

Firstly, is he so sure about mainline steam? I suspect many of those involved would tell you "there are easier ways to make a living". Stating one or two businesses are making a commercial rate of return on assets doesn't make the whole sector any more viable than heritage railways - there are a couple of commercial operations within that sector who are not volunteer lead or orientated.

The attempted calculation of whether heritage railways would be viable with entirely paid staff is not really relevant but also starts from an incorrect position - the number of volunteers needed to run the sector. Despite the beneficial effects of early retirement, it will take a number of volunteers to cover each turn required over the course of a week, whereas it would only take a couple of staff to cover 7 days. It is certainly true that the diversity and quality of heritage railways depends on every single volunteer involved, but some sort of steam service could be run with far fewer workers than the number of volunteers quoted. You wouldn't have the range of locos, carriages, restored stations and general ambiance which I think is a major part of a heritage line's usp. In other words, yes, the heritage rail sector couldn't survive without its volunteers and charitable financial support - but in the hard business world that seems to be all some can comprehend, you wouldn't be even trying to find 18,000 volunteers putting to varying numbers of days and hours per year, but a rather smaller number of permanent staff.

None of that changes that heritage railways do need gifts - both of time and cash - and other external assistance to survive. The market would never support the fares necessary to avoid this. The product would be "different", much more "efficient" and in some ways probably more like mainline steam (i.e. a limited number of pre-booked trains which, when they are full - tough - try again next week).

But look round "the leisure sector" - there are an awful lot of organisations in there who rely on external funding (much of the art sector), volunteer input (many heritage attractions) and other "goodwill" of a non-business nature (would people making rational "business-based" decision really pay Premiership ticket prices or buy "authentic" replica kit? And that is to businesses usually propped up by millionaire owners)

Where any organisation aiming to have the "leisure pound" spent with them (and this includes both heritage railways and mainline steam) are all in the same position as Merlin and co is they all compete for a slice of the same market. The public will need convincing based on the same criteria as to whether to spend their money at Flamingoland or the NYMR (I choose this as being as good a geographically adjacent example as you could probably find). Their individual interests, budget and what they aim to achieve during a holiday all contribute but I bet neither "oh, its a social club, we'd better support the NYMR even though the kids want to go on a roller-coaster" nor "I saw a steam train from the office window last week, lets go on one" are going to play much of a part in that decision.

Steam competes for the leisure pound - and yes, it does compete with people "do this for a living" (i.e. purely to make a return for shareholders). Clearly, some on here think that is the only "proper" motive and the motive of "preserving steam" and "giving people a good day out" is comparatively worthless. This is of course the key defence to the "social club" charge - being part of a heritage railway is like being part of a family, and every volunteer and member will have slightly different motives, but preserving something for other to enjoy must be a major part of all of them - and I personally find that rather more laudable than "doing it to make money". And I suspect many involved in mainline steam have similar motivation.

I would also suggest that any railway facing a difficult discussion with their bank manager or a tricky negotiation for a grant knows where to come for a letter stating "don't treat them like a business - they're only a social club". That should get you a long way!

I do have to say even the best of us can have "off-days" in terms of competing on the quality of experience and services, and, reading the pages of this Forum, I don't think mainline steam can claim to be free of such issues and achieve 100% customer satisfaction either!

Steven

 

Is this Mainline v Heritage battle still going ?, there's a place for both and lets leave it at that, we're supposed to be talking about the good things, be it a Duchess at near 80 with 13 on or a Terrier chuntering along on a few 4 wheelers.