GWSR Broadway Developments

Quite a lot of houses actually - and a lot more being built currently, but about 20 car parking spaces at the station. I was talking to one of the churchwardens recently who complained bitterly about the London commuters parking all around the village..

 

Winchcombe Station has very limited car parking (which has actually reduced in recent years) - particularly on weekdays when the builders who occupy the area adjacent to the station building are at work.

 

I doubt much will be stabled up there, as vandalism - as we have seen recently - tends to strike where stuff is left unattended. Despite 100s of yards of expensive fencing the Broadway north trackbed is still easily accessible by undesirables. I saw two figures by the buffer stops only the other day, and a hole was dug under the gates at the end.
I'm afraid I don't understand your PWay question though

 

I think you will find that there is a very good correlation between the heritage railways which are connected to the network and therefore easily accessible by train by visitors and by incoming and outgoing charters are the ones with the most visitors and in the best financial position. Of course there are exceptions. And yes, a railway needs financial stability to safeguard the future, but if making money is the prime aim I doubt that a heritage railway is the place to invest to make the best return.

 

From what I have been able to ascertain informally, there is no correlation between length of route, connection or no connection with the main line and annual surplus. To imagine there might be is pure wishful thinking. However no-one indulges in wishful thinking quite like a gricer!

PH

 

Agreed, although I reckon there is a correlation between increased passenger numbers on individual railways after extensions. It's certainly held true for the GWSR every time we've extended anyway. As our FD pointed out, every time we open a station our numbers go up 25%. The figures haven't come in for Hayles Abbey halt yet though...

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I think charter traffic is completely marginal in the income it generates - there's certainly no business case based on charters alone.

The reasons for having a connection would run, in order:

1) To open up a new source of passengers
2) To enable incoming materials (ballast, rail; also rail-borne plant such as tampers etc) to be acquired more cheaply
3) To make it easier to receive incoming locomotives for galas etc.
4) To receive incoming charters.

(1) and (2) are far more valuable than (3) and (4). (1) Is probably largely dependent on location - given journey times, and service frequency from nearby cities, I'm struggling to see the rationale of Honeybourne (nearly two hours by train to either London or Birmingham; most other nearby rail-connected towns are either small or would be easier to come by car).

(2) Can make a considerable cashable difference.

(3) is likely to happen - what, once, twice in a year, if you are lucky? Pretty marginal. I suspect it makes more difference to diesel galas than steam, as diesels tend to be somewhat more likely to be towable or drivable by rail. But even there, you might be talking about a small reduction in costs for one or two locos per year.

(4) Is likewise marginal - of the lines that have connections, how many receive or dispatch more than one or two charters per year? I suspect the WSR is probably the busiest.

I think there can be a case for a connection - but it is very dependent on location: you either need to make a connection with an easy journey from a large nearby conurbation (you could argue Alton, East Grinstead, Kidderminster are examples of that; possibly Robertsbridge when it opens; Princes Risborough probably makes sense); or else the location needs to be its own destination (and the connection may be somewhat incidental). I'm struggling to see how Honeybourne fits that, particularly given just how much new railway would have to be built, and operated, to get there.

Tom

 

You cannot go to Cheltenham and join up with the National Network on the original route as that route has been largely lost. You could have done so in 1979 when the Honeybourne Line was sold off by BR but that was then and this is now, sadly.

 

You missed one that's particular to the GWSR - race trains. They currently do a booming business in race trains, but the passengers currently have to drive to the GWSR at some point along its path. If they could have incoming service (e.g. from London) - even if passengers have to change at Honeybourne - that would be pretty big for them.

Noel

 

Well, I gather the original path through Cheltenham is now blocked, no? I seem to recall some discussion about a cut-off that would join on to the East of the original connection point, but that would mean an entirely new formation to carry the track. So without looking into the details, it sounds a bit like six of one, etc: an entirely new formation of some fairly considerable length, and the need to acquire all the land first; or a very long re-instatement, and doing a deal with Sustrans. A fairly big hill to climb, in either direction.

Noel

 

Really? Where's the evidence - if there was a market for such charter trains, one assumes that they would already be running to places like Ascot, which has a similarly prestigious race meeting with a well-heeled crowd, proximity to London and a station that is a short walk to the race course.

Even if the market existed, where is the business for the GWSR with trains promoted by someone else, in which the passengers eat and drink to the benefit of the promoter and then spend their day (and money) elsewhere? Essentially that leaves the GWSR just providing the expensive, low-margin bit: the infrastructure.

A long-serving pioneer of railway preservation I was acquainted with was fond of saying "you can't make money running trains". What he meant was the trains would almost invariably lose money, but they served as a means to get passengers to make secondary spend in higher margin outlets: your shop and cafe. Seen in that light, a business offering track access to charters where the passengers wine and dine on someone else's train and then decamp off the railway to someone else's attraction to spend their cash doesn't leave many opportunities for the railway to extract much money. It's certainly not the basis of a business model to extend to Honeybourne and have all the complication of another five miles of track to think about for the other 51 weeks of the year. The GWSR may well be doing well with its current race day offering, but if so, it is already doing so without the need of the extra mileage to Honeybourne.

Tom

 

The Paignton - Kingswear line gets quite a few charters. The famous and well patronised Torbay Express and I am sure there are one or two others besides those. The railway shops and cafeterias probably gain some business ans, I am sure, the towns of Paignton and Dartmouth. This does maintain a good relationship between the railway and the local towns.

 

4 days a year - and they basically operate as a park and ride service from Toddington with food and drink available.

 

I agree with most of that, though I'm not convinced about the Ascot argument. Depending where in the Greater London area the potential customers for Ascot races would be starting from, for many of them the train would provide only a small part of the total journey. Even a charter picking up at several places (such as, say, Stratford, West Hampstead and Hounslow) might struggle to be viable. A hypothetical charter running from somewhere via either Cheltenham Spa or Honeybourne to Cheltenham Racecourse could represent a larger fraction of the total journey length; but then the same would be true of a charter from, for example, the West Country or the Midlands to Ascot, and we don't see those running either.

 

It's easily overlooked by motorists that not everyone has a car. I don't know enough about the prospects for Honeybourne to comment. To me, it was only ever a wayside station en-route to company HQ in Worcester (Call that a city? The place closes by 6pm!).

It seems that if there exists a half way decent bus servive between Broadway Station and points on the big railway, for now at least, that's sufficient.... but.... Attempts to identify bus routes and timetables suggest to me that buses are too thin on the ground to risk a long journey to access that end of the line. If there's a better service on routes hidden behind "Website Under Maintenance" notices, I can't find it. All I see are spasmodic and sparse services from disparate operators (I'm guessing no ticket interchangability and a game of 'Hunt the Bus Stop' are highly likely). Not encouraging! If relying on public transport, a yomp between stations at Cheltenham looks a much more do-able.

It's sad that Cheltenham is on the list of populous destinations where it just isn't safe to leave stock unattended, but so far as public transport access goes, it sounds a better bet than Broadway, certainly if coming from the south. From the railway's point of view, it adds a lot of less than ideal stock movements to operate a suitable timetable.

In my case, the Bluebell is a mere 30 miles away. Unless heading there on days where there's a dedicated bus from Brighton, I wouldn't consider trying. Previous experience with fairy-tale bus timetables at Hayward's Heath on three occasions meant that's as far as I got. An expensive waste of a day. Never again! The alternative is slow local buses, with poor connections at points of enforced changes of bus, or shelling out for an unwanted diversion up to Croydon and a trip back down to EG. That represents a large chunk of time and cash I can't then spend on the Bluebell. So, guess what? I don't get up there much.

From the point of view of heritage lines, quantifying custom currently non-existent, due to accessibility issues, in a convincing manner is next to impossible. But we're here..... as opposed to there!

 

It may come as a shock to you, but your view of bus services in south Worcestershire reflects the reality of life outside London and the South East

 

And its a service which seems to be in decline at each timetable revision as cash strapped local authorities rein things in further.

 

Rather unnecessarily confrontational. Since you put it that way....No, it's disappointing when trying to plan a journey, but no more a shock than needlessly insulting responses like yours.

In nearly 60 years, I've seen more of the UK than some, less than others, but since I'm less mobile these days and don't now have a car, I do tend to look up the odd timetable when deciding if a journey is realistic. Perhaps that's unique behaviour before committing to a time consuming and expensive trip out from my ivory tower.

It may come as a shock to you that the gilded south east contains many locations "served" by a couple of buses a couple of days a week, connecting with nothing much else and useless for commuting. We've several within a dozen miles of Brighton, it's just that, evidently, they and their inhabitants aren't important. Cuts to services are every bit as real here as elsewhere.

 

One factor that may weigh in favour of NR connections (not necessarily physical, including cross-platform and next-door stations) is that increasing numbers of younger people, particularly in larger towns and cities no longer own cars. If even part of this recent change sticks as they get older, this may help the NR connection case for a number of railways.

Honeybourne would have a much better case if at some time in the future there were direct services from Birmingham (not via Kidderminster). This would put it around an hour from England's second city. I would imagine that the SVR (40 mins direct from Birmingham) *does* benefit considerably from its NR connection and the same would apply here. Unfortunately with the current setup (75-100mins + 1 change) the case may well not add up.

I agree that the Cheltenham end might be better to look at first, but I'm not sure that the difficulties of getting 'close enough' to the NR station for it to be worthwhile can be overcome. After all, if you're still going to end up getting a bus or taxi from Cheltenham NR, a 10min or 20min ride doesn't make much difference.

Anyhow, I've throughly enjoyed the extension and Broadway station rebuilding blogs and I shall visit next year as soon as Broadway opens (and periodically afterwards). Well done to all involved.