Are Tourist Railways "welcoming" enough?

I can see both sides of this, had Paul said at the beginning, that the IOWSR had received this accolade, there would have still be some who would have said your just bigging up your railway, , he's damned what ever way, but it has hopefully opened up a very needed discussion about how railways deal with publicity and attracting potential custom, for some its things like trip adviser, for others its things like this official paid for route, a lot as to depend on what works best for you, for instance, if many of your competitors are in that scheme, are you missing out on potential business? i would say the discusion should not be a bout personalities, but on the merit of paid vs free, what gives you the best return on your time? does a set standard of guidelines score better than random remarks left by a visitor on trip advisor who will have only seen it though their own set of standards? for instance ask 100 people, you get 100 different answers, ask one set of questions of a trained assessor, you will get one reply based on a set of guidelines , which would be the most accurate?

 

To your final question, neither or both. With one assessor, you get one person's assessment at a point in time according to a specific checklist. If it's a good checklist, excellent; if a poor checklist, then you're stuck. For example, I stay away a lot in hotels for work; my experience is that the star ratings are all about the facilities hotels offer and have very little to do with the actual quality of the hotels, their staff, or the training that the staff exhibit. Quite often, the difference between 3 and 4 stars is whether there's a pool; nothing to do with the actual quality of the hotel.

A random self-selecting survey like TripAdvisor will give a different picture. People will comment on what matters to them and, if there are enough comments and ratings, patterns will emerge that will give an idea of what impress or depress visitors. There will be a few who just want to stick the knife in; others will praise anything regardless of quality; those are easily spotted and set aside - if I can do it when looking for somewhere to stay/visit/eat, so can the management of the attraction reviewed.

 

Then you reveal yourself to be firmly in the tourist railway camp, rather than the heritage one. Perhaps someone should also take a box of matches and visit the unrestored wooden bodies at your favourite railway. They too are eyesores if visible and clearly you see no future for them, even if there is a steady stream of restored examples emerging from the C & W workshops.

I have said before, most railways need future projects. There is a line of LNER carriages in the long siding at Pickering, for example, but it is gradually diminishing and yielding carriages that are now earing their keep. How are they supposed to do that if they have been gas-axed, and where are they supposed to be kept in the meantime?

 

It seems to me that most of the lines which have been rebuilt or purchased from the state are in the tourist category. Most passengers seem to go for an enjoyable day out, hopefully on a train hauled by a steam locomotive. They fit the category of tourists.
"Heritage" is a much used word but no one ever questions whose heritage are we commemorating and seeing. European locos and stock running in England? Ex GWR locos running all over the UK, many on lines they never ran on even in BR days? The list could go on.
Heritage, can result in many cases - and not just railways in preservation - in being a historical distortion.
As is customary on this board..... ducks behind the castle parapet!

 

I don't think that's entirely fair. 'Heritage' is indeed a broad and loose term and open to a large degree of interpretation but most railways, even the smaller ones, manage to at least have some sort of historical notes on their website or on display boards somewhere on site, and they generally paint their vehicles in historically appropriate liveries to give some impression of times past, so immediately there is a nod to the heritage angle, even if they don't make a big thing of it. Increasingly, too, the more established railways are growing their heritage credentials with things like vintage train restorations or interpretive museums.
This is not to say that there are no compromises, and indeed some are necessary either because of what artifacts are on site or because of what pays the bills, and the more commercial railways are full of them, but there are very few railways which I would consider to be pure "tourist" railways. Maybe for example the Snowdon Mountain Railway and the Lakeside & Haverthwaite just about fit that label, at the level of a basic train ride, but even they have historical information on their websites.
Also you can hardly categorise a railway purely by what its visitors are primarily in the area to do. If you did then the IOWSR would be unashamedly a "tourist" railway whereas say the Nene Valley would be a faithful historical recreation of its heritage. Whereas the reality is probably the reverse of that.

Other railways are available to pick on as examples, by the way, no criticism of either of those two intended!

 

This thread makes very interesting reading , especially when compared with some of the somewhat contrary responses on a different thread regarding a heritage attraction that certain visitors did not find very welcoming...

Ultimately people will find reviews based upon what appears at the top of a google search, be it trip advisor or whatever.

 

I think there are some really fascinating points in this thread, and once again PH has opened up a thought provoking line of conversation. Sad some people have to be cynical about his underlying reasons for starting the conversation.

For me I am with Tom. Trip Advisor and other social media is a far more important thing to be concerned about. Like it or not this along with Faceache and twitter etc is increasingly how people seek to make "informed" decisions, and people are more likely to take these into account than "official" schemes, which unless they are like a "michelin star" dont have much legitimacy for most people. I think that people are able to weed out the moaners etc and take the "overview". Fact is though if you have 80 reviews and 40 of them are critical, you have an issue that will be picked up by prospective visitors. If you have 10 bad comments, they will be treated with an appropriate weight.

 

It's also important for any attraction to respond to any public comments on websites (including TripAdvisor), whether they are positive or negative. That can help to reduce the impact of critical critical posts. It also shows that the attraction has interest in their customers' views. There are numerous websites where customers might make comments (Google, Facebook, Twitter, TripAdvisor etc etc), so it needs someone to track these down and review/respond regularly.

 

Pretty much the point I was hinting at.

How many people say "I'm going there because VisitEngland have awarded it x,y,z" or alternatively say "I'm not going there because they haven't got x,y,z"?

And then ask the same question of TripAdvisor, Facebook etc, a much greater number use these reviews in planning their days out.

 

Looking at the full list of participants posted above, it's noticeable that accolades are quite rare anyway. I am too lazy to work this out myself, but statistically, is the number of accolades awarded to railways actually about average?

 

I think it is rather cynical and unpleasant to accuse PH of trying to raise this discussion only to plug his preferred railway. As someone has said above, he was damned either way whether he mentioned it or not.
I am rather disappointed by moderators resorting to ad hominem comments. I thought the role of moderators was to keep this forum civil and courteous?
Presumably Paul thinks these issues are important. He is right. That is also why he supports railways which take this seriously, and why railways where he is active take this seriously.

 

Post 65 deals with this point. In my mind calling a tourist railway a "heritage" railway is akin to calling a shop a "boutique".

PH

 

TBH I would doubt anyone on this forum would use the ratings as a way of evaluating whether or not to visit a railway. It would be interesting to know who they think their target market is. I think most people would nowadays use trip advisor or something similar to get a range of views. I'm sure most people would be wary of a trip advisor report that was all good or very good.

 

There are supposed to be over 1000 participants (needless to say I have not counted) and these have to meet quite stiff criteria. 71 accolades have been awarded this year of which 31 are "gold". Of the latter, there are ten or eleven gardens, arboreta or houses with accent on their gardens such as Blenheim and the occasional stately home with multiple attractions such as Beaulieu. Also there are a couple of fortresses (Tower of London and Lincoln Castle), various museums, a monkey sanctuary, Paultons Park (Peppa Pitg included) and a certain steam railway. Slimbridge Wildfowl Trust as well. It "would be nice" to have more steam railways this year rather than less.

Paul H

 

Some holders of the status obviously feel it is worth prominently displaying on their website:

https://www.yorkshiremuseum.org.uk/visitor-information/

Steven

 

I might well, actually. Though, to be fair, to help form a view of how likely my family are to tolerate the visit...

 

I doubt the general public care one iota whether you, I or anyone else on this thread considers a railway to be "tourist" or "heritage." What will be important to them is if they enjoy their visit. Different people have different expectations, such is human nature, and on the same day there is a very real chance that some will give a railway a "thumbs up" but others will give it a "thumbs down," Visit England or Tripadvisor accolades notwithstanding.

 

But the point is that that the factors which influence whether they enjoy are not are much more likely to be whether or not people smile at them, answer their questions, give than a decent cup of tea, somewhere to sit down our of the wind, etc. Rather than what we are interested in - what loco is running. It is sometimes worth asking someone who has a lot of experience in these matters to take a look.

 

I'd agree with that.

The question is then - , if you are running an attraction, what is the best way to gather the feedback about whether you are doing the first thing right? On the one hand, you have the collective feedback from hundreds of people who have seen your operation across a large number of operating days; who have come into contact with the vast range of your staff; have seen you on good days and bad; and are giving feedback about the things that are important to them, as people working out whether they have received value for their own money and time. On the other hand, you have the feedback from maybe one or two people, on one day, gaining a picture only of how things were on that one day they visited. Which do you think will give you more valuable feedback?

Tom