New imminent threat to Wolsztyn steam

Our letter-writing skills are being called on - See message below from Trevor and Howard at the Wolsztyn experience:



The Future of Wolsztyn Scheduled Steam - Rumour and Fact

Friday 27th November 2009

A minister from the Wielkopolska Regional Government expressed concern that the 3 Million PLN being spent on daily scheduled steam services in Wolsztyn might be better spent on promoting Tourism in Wielkopolska and only offering a weekend tourist service. This was his personal opinion and not necessarily that of the whole elected regional Government. This opinion was put on the Wielkopolska website and picked up by Radio Mercury Poznan. An English version of the statement is to be found on the Radio Mercury Poznan website and can be read at: http://polishrail.wordpress.com/ This was misinterpeted by some people as being an agreed policy.
In reality the Wielkopolska government meet to discuss budgets on Monday 30th November. It should be remembered that 11th hour negotiations are taking place between regional government and PKP Cargo. It should also be noted that the new timetable is currently being printed with the steam services in.

In making any decisions on changes in status of Wolsztyn depot the following facts have to be considered.

1. Currently there are no available railcars to cover the Wolsztyn - Poznan steam diagrams and an acute shortage of suitable diesel locos within all the operating companies to operate passenger trains in the winter months.

2.What would Cargo do with the depot if it did not have full time work?

3.The reason that tourists come to see the steam operation is based on the fact that it is the last steam commuter service in the world.

4. Steam locos require servicing on a time scale rather than on operating use; the operating costs are not proportional to useage and by changing to a steam tourist service there may not be as greater saving as anticipated, when all costs and benifits are taken into consideration by all parties involved.

5 The Wolsztyn Experience currently pay PKP (All Divisions) 250 Thousand PLN a year; this would most likely cease if the current operation changes. In addition, the Wolsztyn Experience and our clients bring to the local community another 500 Thousand PLN a year, this may also cease. In addition railway tourists not involved with the Wolsztyn Experience who come to see the last commuter service in the world bring an estimated 500 Thousand PLN a year. This would radically reduce if it became only a tourist railway.

6 The Wolsztyn Experiece is confident that a solution to the current situation will be found within the next two weeks.

7. Polish administrators should take into consideration that the success of tourist railways in the UK is down to UK charity tax laws - vast donations from enthusiasts - lottery funding -consideralbe UK marketing skills - and a large percentage of volunteer labour - none of these are currently available in Poland.

8 Tourist lines in Britain view the scheduled services from Wolsztyn as the ultimate world experience for steam, and with the appropriate marketing could attract many more visitors and travellers than it currently does. The Wolsztyn Experience itself spends 25 Thousand PLN on advertising and promotion, not only for footplate courses but in publicity encouraging tourism to Wielkopolska.

All enthusiasts should immediately express their views on maintaining scheduled steam service to

Wielkopolska Regional Government info@uwww.pl
The Mayor of Wolsztyn burmistrz@wolsztyn.pl
Ministry of Infrastructure info@mi.gov.pl
Ministry of Tourism info@mi.gov.pl
PKP Cargo Press Office p.apanowicz@pkp-cargo.pl
British Embassy Warsaw info@britishembassy.pl

Trevor & Howard Jones

 

I've forwarded it to the Continental Railway Circle so hopefully the letter writing will gain momentum.

 

Thanks Ralph, and Ian.

Personally, I think that the Wolsztyn operations need to move towards a more tourist-orientated experience in order to survive. However, the glory of Wolsztyn is the day-in day-out nature of the steam service, and the Poles must understand that this is what makes it unique.

Unfortunately the current steam timetable is not helpful – currently two return Wolsztyn – Poznan trains a day, of which the first leaves at 0526. This is atmospheric for the enthusiast, but hardly likely to appeal to the tourist market.

Although the Poznan line is the longest run available from Wolsztyn, the (currently steamless) Lezno line has more attractive scenery and serves an area popular amongst local holidaymakers in the summer months. If steam were concentrated on the Lezno line, could it allow for two return trips a day but at sensible times? Rail access to the narrow gauge Smiegel line is also easier from Lezno, if they manage to make a go of this as a part-tourist/part-commercial enterprise.

As has been pointed out elsewhere, the unique nature of the steam operations is not widely known outside the enthusiast world – and very badly promoted in Poland itself. Mainstream travel guides (Rough Guide, Lonely Planet etc) give scant reference to steam’s survival. Transferring operations from the hands of PKP to the Wielkapolska Local Government (as is mooted) could be a good thing, but only if they understand what they’ve got!

 

There's something wrong in this picture...


if the local government spends 3 million zloty a year on subsidizing wolsztyn...

and the WE earns 500k pln and tourism extra to this earns another 500kpln...

Thats a 2million Zloty loss on the governments investment.

That therefore defends the ministers proposition..

I have felt for a long time wolsztyn doesnt market itself properly to the wider market.

But on the recipient side of the fence..3mn + 25k from W.E. goes to PKP.. does it really cost PKP £750,000 a year, in Poland to operate 2 trains a day with a small fleet of locomotives in not the best of condition.. thats on top of service revenue and other incomes relating to a general service provision ?

There's loads of spare diesels scattered round Poland, so replacing the Steam with a diesel will probably be a neglible cost.

A far better argument imho would be a business plan to sell WE to the wider market, especially on a weekend, with sustainable viability for the future.
And a follow up argument of how much will PKP charge for local rail services if steam were removed (or how much income would the government save from PKP if it did).. and would that effect the service offered by PKP.. if anything I'd imagine PKP keeps the passenger service running from this money.. steam or otherwise, and without it there would be no service or little saving.. and thats probably a better argument.

 

Panic over. It has been announced today that state have agreed to continue with the planned timetable but will review opportunities to save costs for the future. No Ryanair flight for me next week...

Agree with posters that the whole Wolsztyn operation needs more promotion and also far better management and more reliable operation if it is to survive medium term.

 

What a relief! Totally agree about the (lack of) marketing apart from W.E. PKP really are missing a trick. On the occasions that I've done Poz-Wol-Poz, the number of enthusiasts have been in single figures if any at all. The passenger load has nearly always been locals, although there were a few linesiders around in July.

Terrific place to visit of course, the shed is a treat and the crews are so friendly. Make sure you meet Andrej! Once met, never forgotten!

 

What maybe better in the long run is to run the two trips daily, with the 2 locomotives during the daylight hours (so they pass), this gives much more oppourtunity to ride one, photograph the other, and makes fuller use of the daytime..

Though the current program of year round, and 2x daily is a big improvement on how it used to be.

Even if they reduced to 1x daily round trip and doubled up the operations at the weekends, to save those precious crew hours, the tourist element would benefit with more flexibility.. Ultimately Wolsztyn needs to take some lessons from the preserved railway model to be sucessful, but an image make over within PKP as to what it is all about is probably more important.. just because it's "the last in europe" doesnt make it desirable..maybe they should consider going the "UN World Heritage" status route to give it more credibility ?

I'm still getting my head around the circa £2500 per day (at Polish rates) "additional costs" that are paid to PKP to provide 2 steam locomotives, over and above the cost of a diesel ?..
I'm sure any steam locomotive owner in the UK would love this kind of guarenteed income. (and doesnt WE actually maintain / overhaul these locomotives at their cost ?).. an Ol49 in Poland doing 120 miles a day is probably akin to a day's operations of a B1, Std4 or other on the NYMR. (I wonder how this compares to the costs of the West Highland operations ?)

I believe Chabowka's spot hire of a train is around the £2k mark, including stock... and I'm not aware of anyone subsidizing this shed, or any operations other than internal PKP, the locomotives are spotless, under utilized and still has a full shed crew, the fleets are approximately the same size / status yet PKP maintains this shed without issue and it's handful of operations (somewhere around 50 days per year) appears to covers it's costs.

 

I don't visit Wolsztyn as often as I would if there were more trains in daylight. For most of the key months (Oct-April) only two trains run in daylight but from what I have seen Ralph's comments are correct and the early and late trains need to be hauled. Probably also why the one return Leszno line train is also still hauled?

It is far from perfect but it one of the best left so I had better go again in late March...

 

I was chatting to one of the W.E. founders in October when I was last there and he stated that there was a diminishing number of PKP steam crew at Wolsztyn. I'm sure he said 11 but I might be incorrect. This obviously will have an impact in the near future as retirements approach etc. I wonder if there are any plans to train replacements?

 

Would it not be helpful to invite someone from the regional government, their tourism marketing head, and that person's counterpart in Wolsztyn, to a UK railway that is well run but is not one of the A-listers like WSR, Bluebell or SVR? Llangollen comes to mind, or perhaps NNR, because they're both somewhat of a trek from big population centres.

The agenda could be to show them how such lines are marketed, how they are embedded into and benefit their local community, what other sources of income they have (and do not have), plus what human and material resource issues they have, and what they do about this. "You too could generate xx thousand euros a year for your local businesses" might be the theme.

Who pays for the trip? The Wolsztyn Experience, part-subsidised by anyone who's interested enough in the future of Wolsztyn, I suppose. 4-5 people for, say, 3 days ought to be affordable if they don't fly to Heathrow, Business Class. If it turns out that no-one is interested enough, well, that's the market deciding, which says it all really.

I should add that I'm not suggesting a pitch for privatisation here, but for opening their eyes to how they could fill their trains, and perhaps even afford to run more.

 

I think this is not a bad thing. I also know a good person to translate who's keen on steam and Polish oh and works professionally in railway marketing ! However my choice of promotion would probably be something like the West Highland operations rather than a preserved railway..

The West Highland is remote, mainline, scheduled, daily and well established, include representatives with Network Rail and West Coast as this would be on a more professional level and peer with PKP than a preserved line (no offence to the preserved lines). WHR / WCRC is also a much more commerical operation.

It would also be interesting for the local government to compare running costs of the WHL against PKP subsidies.

A trip to a few preserved lines wouldnt hurt though, maybe the Cambrian could also be a good advert.

If a model for the future was being sought, convincing PKP to part with ownership of the steam locomotives, and a funded company to maintain then may be a good idea, again WCRC with Carnforths roots would be a good example to demonstrate capabilties of maintaining steam locomotives for the national network and the business and professional relationships between them.

However before embarking on a promotional trip.. the first thing you need is a viable business plan showing sustainable growth and the overall objectives and benefits.. otherwise.. it's just a jolly for a few guys from Poland. The major objective that would need to be demonstrated is this isnt a business around rich kids playing trains, but a viable sector of the tourism industry.