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Edmonson tickets a lost "cause" for ever?

Discussion in 'Heritage Railways & Centres in the UK' started by steamdream, May 5, 2011.

  1. flying scotsman123

    flying scotsman123 Resident of Nat Pres

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    Again, good job you do, how would heritage railways know how to proceed without you?...

    I talk to passengers too, and everyone likes having their cardboard ticket punched, no matter their age. Sometimes I feel you only talk to passengers who back up your own personal beliefs!
     
  2. Jamessquared

    Jamessquared Nat Pres stalwart

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    I’m curious where you get those numbers from. Upthread, a figure of 2.2p per Edmondson was given: for a mid-size line selling say 100,000 tickets per year, that is £2,200 per year. I suspect you’d need rather more than ten years to restore a carriage!

    In any case, using an EPOS system will also have costs that I suspect amount to rather greater than £2,200 per year for the same line. So I think you are setting up a false equivalence. Rather more germane would be if you could demonstrate that an EPOS system justified its additional costs over and above the cost of using Edmondson.

    More generally, really we are in the theatre business, and Edmondson tickets are part of that theatre. I don’t think that (as a movement, not singling our individual lives) we pay enough attention about how to maintain an illusion of the past. Tickets are a part of that illusion, not least because they are amongst the first experiences the customer has, and should help set the tone of what is to come.

    Tom
     
  3. paulhitch

    paulhitch Guest

    First paragraph Tut tut once more.

    I have heard rather interesting views on other places which I have never repeated here.
    Of course the cost of a carriage restoration would pay for a lot of tickets.

    PH
     
  4. 30854

    30854 Resident of Nat Pres

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    Errrr ..... Am I the only one feeling a wee bit perplexed by all this?

    I'll cheerfully concede Steven's point about what you can do with the sort of database he's speaking of. Where I depart from his logic is over quite why you'd insist on keeping an admittedly nice ornament from the past as part of the hard-nosed approach our lines need to survive in the modern world, for reasons which are, frankly, beyond me. To interrogate a database effectively, you need an effective database, of which Edmonson's system wasn't ever intended have been a component.

    Could Edmonson's historic system be extended with some custom-made A-D interface to permit the system to be less an ornament and still a vital part of the field of play? Quite likely .... but you're committing a hell of a lot of resources to a cause with, at best, a fairly marginal justification IMO.

    By all means, "issue" the things, if for no better reason than to preserve the always amusing sight of a five year old who'd very obviously tear the TTI's throat out before allowing his souvenir to be mutilated by a ticket punch! They're a great keepsake and at pennies a throw, a cheap enough component of heritage operations ..... especially when you consider printing them is often more of a "cottage industry" these days, keeping otherwise redundant historic machinery gainfully employed and that every one which makes it beyond the bin in the car park continues to serve as a reminder of a day out and ..... more importantly ..... a permanent advert, every time anyone claps eyes on it.
     
  5. pmh_74

    pmh_74 Well-Known Member

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    Might I suggest that if a railway has an appeal going to raise funds to restore a particular carriage, it will be more successful in doing so if the people to whom it is appealing have the overall general impression that this hypothetical railway is "doing things properly", and small details like having proper tickets (and a polite member of staff in a proper uniform punching a hole in them) plays a big part in that? The notion that you can equate a saving on the one area to spending on the other is frankly nonsense.
     
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  6. Greenway

    Greenway Part of the furniture

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    Having dealt with people - customers and those who were in need of urgent assistance/help over a very long time in my various occupations (nearly sixty years) - paid and voluntary - I know that the answer given will always depend on how the question is asked and the attitude presented by the questioner.
    For the most part people will tell what they think you want to hear. Yes, there will be a few who tell you the truth - maybe have a moan - but they are in the minority.
     
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  7. michaelh

    michaelh Part of the furniture

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    When I use my SVR Working Members Pass to travel on your railway, I just show said pass to the TTI,
     
  8. michaelh

    michaelh Part of the furniture

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    The Puffing Billy Railway issues a computer printed ticket which must give them the EPOS statistics, but passengers are also asked if they'd like a souvenir Edmonson ticket - which presumably is officially just a "freebie" and not part of the accounting system.
     
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  9. johnofwessex

    johnofwessex Resident of Nat Pres

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    BUT........................

    I suggest that the Dartmouth Steam Railway & Riverboat Company is a very different operation from any other heritage railway I can think of.....................
     
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  10. 21B

    21B Part of the furniture

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    One of the reasons for moving to EPOS is also online booking. Allowing people to exchange the "online" or EPOS ticket for a souvenir or "real" Edmonson ticket is a small investment in helping to achieve the right atmosphere in my view. Personally I thought that the enormous length of printed material I received at a certain railway on a small island just to the south of Portsmouth was an astonishing waste. I dont recall the details, but the fare structure meant that it was somehow cheaper to buy separate tickets for each member of the family and even with a first class upgrade (or whatever it was that was extra). All I remember is thinking as we came together why cant I just have one bit of thick paper with all my entitlement printed on it instead of eight (ten with the credit card receipt and the receipt). Didnt detract froma nice day, but seemed excessive.
     
  11. Reading General

    Reading General Part of the furniture

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    I was on a line recently who issued me with an Edmundson and then I was berated by the ticket collector for not producing my receipt which he told me was actually my ticket! Presumably the Edmundson was a souvenir. The thing is , no-one told me and I binned the receipt. Crazy system. I think it was the South Devon
     
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  12. Robin

    Robin Well-Known Member Friend

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    Pretty much the same business model as the Lakeside and Haverthwaite - shift people off the railway and onto the boat as fast as possible. Not an Edmonson ticket in sight at either.

    No criticism intended, both seem very successful at what they do.
     
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  13. huochemi

    huochemi Part of the furniture

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    I could not find any terms and conditions on the SDR site, so even more unreasonable if it was them. I notice incidentally that the NYMR have overhauled their T&C and have obviously had some thoughtful input into the process. Other railways may want to copy these. https://www.nymr.co.uk/Pages/FAQs/Category/terms-conditions
     
  14. Robin

    Robin Well-Known Member Friend

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    The Nene Valley certainly does this; their Edmonson ticket is marked "Souvenir". It does seem a bit odd I agree. The only reason I can think of for doing it that way is a small saving in printing costs because you only need to print one type of Edmonson ticket rather than multiple types for adult/senior/child/single/day rover etc. In fairness, whenever I have visited, the NVR ticket office has always clearly explained that I would need to produce the paper receipt.
     
  15. BrightonBaltic

    BrightonBaltic Member

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    Have to say, as one of the younger members of this forum (a few weeks shy of 27), I couldn't give a monkey's toss about the tickets. I always bin 'em at the end of the day anyway, so why should I care? If EPOS enables greater operational efficiencies to be made, to assess passenger numbers (and thus coal consumption, another thing I remember the DSR&RC raising) in real time, then fine, get on with it. I really do NOT regard the tickets as an essential part of the heritage experience, and I suspect that 99.999% of the general travelling public couldn't give a pig's arse about it either, as long as the carriages are clean and comfortable and there is steam (note: NOT diesel!) haulage by a clean, shiny locomotive...
     
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  16. Spamcan81

    Spamcan81 Nat Pres stalwart

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    You're wasting your breath mate. :)
    It does make me chuckle when PH berates railways for doing things that don't truly reflect how things really were - big engines on little railways, too may Mk.1 carriages, too many suitcases etc. displayed on platforms - yet when they use Edmonson tickets just as they did in the days of yore, they're berated for doing something that does reflect how things were. As for saying carriages won't be restored because of the cost of buying/maintiaing the Edmonson system, EPOS systems are not cheap and are totally useless in the event of a power cut or software crash. The latter is not a rare event in my experience.
     
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  17. Platform 3

    Platform 3 Member

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    As another relatively young member (at 35) I have to say that the Edmondson tickets are a big part of the experience, and children seem to love them to. I always feel much more comfortable on railways that have them.



    Sent from my SM-J330FN using Tapatalk
     
  18. Jamessquared

    Jamessquared Nat Pres stalwart

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    I’m curious as to how EPOS can monitor coal consumption, but maybe modern systems are getting increasingly sophisticated...

    As for passenger numbers: finding out on the day is too late: you are already committed as to which locos and carriages you will use well before the station is even unlocked to welcome the first visitor. Online booking gives some advance warning, but even so, if you are open every day for a week, you aren’t going to adjust motive power midweek just because Wednesday looks quiet, because doing so (letting the current service engine cool down while you light up a smaller, one to match the predicted traffic) would be more costly than ending up over-provisioned for a day.

    Given the lead times of keeping locos and services available (planning in routine maintenance etc), the core service plan for the year will typically be done the previous year, based on historic data and knowledge of the business. It isn’t done on the day - it’s far too late to say to the ops department “we only need a small loco and 200 seats today” when the loco crew signed on four hours earlier to light up...

    Tom
     
  19. Bean-counter

    Bean-counter Part of the furniture

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    Wish I could double 'like' this! Spot on Ian.

    Steven
     
  20. Bean-counter

    Bean-counter Part of the furniture

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    Edmonson tickets and big named locos may not be something that many (though by no means no) 'normal' passengers would complain at the lack of but, rather similar to more historic coaching stock, whilst they might not realise their absence, their journey is undoubtedly enhanced by their presence and they appreciate them when they are present. Why do you think Crich issue visitors with an Old Penny to 'buy' their tram ticket from the conductor? It is all part of the 'experience', and we are in the entertainment business - pretty much none of our passengers have to travel, they choose to, even if 'tourist travel' is often a factor for longer lines (which I accept @paulhitch has no experience of).

    I would perhaps no be so opposed to EPOS as well as 'proper' tickets if I could understand what supposed benefits spending £10,000s on terminals, software and training (and annual support fees and possibly extra paid staff if volunteers find it all too much and cease to act as Booking Clerks, as is their right). I have worked in accountancy for over 30 years, spend 25 of them as a Railway Trustee and half of as the ultimate 'can carrier' for financial matters. The systems I have experience of, based on Edmonson ticket books (or reports from an electronic ticket machine which must have been in effect a primitive EPOS system), e-mailed information and spreadsheets meant that before 5pm each day, the takings at the Booking Offices were known and trends could be monitored. Passengers counts took longer to be collated (a choice - they could have been done more rapidly) whilst 'systems' to check a paper file of party bookings and match train lengths and motive power to expected loaded existed 30 years ago (it was called Ops and MPD sitting down and talking to each other!)

    I was told EPOS enabled a Booking Clerk to warn passengers of the train appeared to be full, based on an 'guessimate' of 'average' seating capacity (unhelpfully, not all coaching sets had the same number of seats!), party and advance bookings but of course ignoring when train returning passengers may be on, whether everyone buying on the day intended to use the first available train and by later departures, the fact that day tickets allowed more than one journey! For some scenarios of operations, EPOS may be able to give a realistic idea of loadings, or indeed anywhere if you make it a Jacobite type 'everyone pre-books for a specific train and seat and does the whole journey. Again, for some lines, this would work and probably does - although even the Swiss mountain railways for which 'up' journeys are booked on a specific departure give freedom as to when you come 'down'. The only sample reports I have seen from EPOS actually took longer to actually see which was the basic information (£ taken and tickets sold) from a myriad of figures.

    Preserved railways don't have vast finance departments to process, collate and present this sort of information (and even if they chose to do so, there is an undeniable cost), and many of those in management or board posts would readily admit to being both too busy and not suitably trained to interpret detailed financial reports readily, so I think @marty's comment about how effective EPOS sales teams are is very relevant - for many lines, it seems to me that a full EPOS installation will cost probably enough to do a reasonably major carriage restoration without any clear idea as to what form the 'payback' will take. EPOS may be able to tell you all sorts, but the staff on the ground will be able to tell you loadings/overcrowding/over-provision far quicker, allowing those measures which can be taken (shortening trains, using a smaller locomotive from the vast range that most lines don't have available for traffic etc.) and other measures (significant timetable cuts or amendments) are unlikely to be make and are quite major changes not undertaken lightly.

    So, EPOS fans, I still await the details of why these systems are worth the £10,000s they cost. I am all ears!

    Steven
     
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