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Discussion in 'Heritage Railways & Centres in the UK' started by EdwardPH, Nov 8, 2011.

  1. EdwardPH

    EdwardPH New Member

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    Hello,

    I've always wondered what the most popular heritage railway locations (in terms of visitor numbers) are in Britain outside of the National Railway Museum?

    Is there a top ten, for example?

    Cheers

    EdwardHP

    p.s. sorry if I'm posting in the wrong area - I'm new to the site today.
     
    EdwardPH, Nov 8, 2011
    #1
  2. richards

    richards Part of the furniture

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    Welcome to the forum, EdwardPH. I've moved this thread to the "Heritage railways and centres" forum.

    But I don't know if there are any published visitor numbers for the UK. Anyone else any ideas?

    Richard
     
    richards, Nov 8, 2011
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  3. guard_jamie

    guard_jamie Part of the furniture

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    NYMR gets over 300k a year, which puts them at least 50k ahead of their nearest rivals, if not more at the moment. SVR used to get in the region of 250k a year, WSR is over the 200k. I would be very interested to know how many passengers the PDSR carries, but have never seen it mentioned.
     
    guard_jamie, Nov 9, 2011
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  4. Jamessquared

    Jamessquared Nat Pres stalwart

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    Annual numbers at the Bluebell are about 175,000 I believe, putting us not quite at the top but I'd imagine in a notional top 10.

    Tom
     
    Jamessquared, Nov 9, 2011
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  5. Martin Perry

    Martin Perry Nat Pres stalwart Staff Member Moderator Friend

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    I think that the FR/WHR must be somewhere near the top?
     
    Martin Perry, Nov 9, 2011
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  6. steamdream

    steamdream Member

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    the Plym Valley rly??????:evil:
     
    steamdream, Nov 9, 2011
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  7. Bean-counter

    Bean-counter Part of the furniture

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    NYMR in 2010 was 355,000 passengers. We added 1,000 for non-travelling visitors but frankly that is proabbly way too low. As we don't operate closed platforms, and Grosmont has a level crossing in the station, people who "visit" the line could be a very high number!

    AFAIK, the top 5 for last year was:

    NYMR 355,000
    SVR 225,570
    WSR 214,053
    Swanage 210,000+
    P & DSR 187,500? (Not including boats)

    Not sure where Festiniog is these days but I would say in the top 10. Bluebell sounds as though it is also well in there. KWVR I believe is well up there, around 150,000 mark - I know last year was up 7% but no actual figure was quoted in the newspaper article I found on the web!

    The Lakeside & Haverthwaite always had pretty high figures - over around 130,000 mark I seem to recall.

    Steven
     
    Bean-counter, Nov 9, 2011
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  8. Rumpole

    Rumpole Part of the furniture

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    Swanage Railway in 2010 carried 202,069 passengers.

    As Steven said with the NYMR, Swanage don't count non ticket purchasing visitors. Given that the stations at Swanage and Corfe are situated right in the centre of popular tourist destinations, it is highly likely that the number of casual visitors seeing the trains is significantly higher than that.

    As I understand it, this figure also only includes SR tickets. I don't believe (although I'm happy to be corrected if I'm mistaken) that it includes passengers on incoming main line railtours.
     
    Rumpole, Nov 9, 2011
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  9. Gav106

    Gav106 Well-Known Member

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    This would be a very interesting article actually. I would be very interested to see no's for lines.
     
    Gav106, Nov 9, 2011
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  10. DJH

    DJH Member

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    Whilst a slight deviation steam centres and museums would probably make interesting reading as well.

    MoSI visitor numbers were over 600,000 over the last year. info on website.
     
    DJH, Nov 9, 2011
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  11. West Somerset Wizard

    West Somerset Wizard Guest

    You first have to define the question. What defines a "visitor"? Perhaps the OP would care to establish that definition before we go any further.

    Steve
     
    West Somerset Wizard, Nov 10, 2011
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  12. Orion

    Orion Well-Known Member

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    That's a surprise, a very welcome surprise as I had no idea that the numbers were so high. Excellent news!
     
    Orion, Nov 10, 2011
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