Project Wareham

Of course, putting on such a timetable would double costs of providing service when using WCR staff, so fairly self explanatory why Swanage have taken this approach of using 1 crew per day.


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Presume the DMU crew will initially be a WCRC driver and SR volunteer guard?. Eventually as more SR volunteer drivers are trained, 2 shifts a day with an earlier train might be viable?.

I also notice on the press release there could be a special timetable for events, maybe evening DMU services and somehow fitting in some trips to the river bridge for loco pulled trains during the diesel gala?.

 

I did sort of think that myself originally but if you look at it more closely, the last train gets to Wareham at 17:10 which will connect to the 17:28 to Waterloo. This gets you back to where you want to go at
Bournemouth 17:55
Brockenhurst 18:13
Southampton 18:28
Winchester 18:47
Woking 19:25
Waterloo 19:51

Now depends on the actual market but I am guessing the not the all day on the beach brigade, as these days they turn up with trolleys full of chairs wind breaks etc. Not much room for those on a 444.
A lot of people do not like eating late and holiday makers may be time constrained anyway, so beyond Southampton may give meal issues for many.
Many of the coach tours that come here only stay a couple of hours, so maybe 4 hours is not too short for many.

Even on a nice summers day the queue for the 50 always seems busy beyond 15:30.

Looking at your location this SWR train misses the Brighton train by 2 minutes at Soton so you would not get home to Brighton until 21:21. May work for you, but not many I suggest. It is only 116 miles from Brighton to Swanage which Google reckons about 3 hours by car or in this case 5 hours by rail.
Also to get the first train at Wareham at 11:19 you need to leave Brighton at 07:32, so only 4.5 hours on the way down.

On first thought someone on the coast route may seem a prime candidate, but maybe not. Still the trial should give some pointers.

Of course all the above assumes no issues on the National Network.

 

I read that as not likely to operate in special events, or at least not 4 trips. On another forum the diesel guys seem very concerned at loosing their trips to Bridge 4 during the gala for the shuttles.

 

I’m not disputing the reasons their decision, just making the point that there is also an argument for starting services earlier. Even if the same number of services were run altogether, perhaps with a gap in the middle of the day, then revenue could potentially be higher.

 

As they say on Dragons Den, revenue is not necessarily the same as profit! Earlier or later services might gain a few extra passengers, but if those passengers don't cover the extra cost of the early and late service then you are better off not running them.

 

You’d still need 2 crews for something like that, I think it’s something to do with hours worked.

 

But then again they may more than cover their costs. We just don’t know. All I’m saying is it is something that needs to be considered at some stage and analysis done of the potential costs and benefits.

 

I understand the return adult fare is £20 on the DMU

 

Good that through tickets from SWR this time. In the 2017 there were massive queues at the temporary SR ticket office as soon as the
SWR service pulled in.

 

£25 is being quoted by various media outlets. Doesn’t mean they are right though.

I’ll be interested to price up a ticket from
my local station.

 

Indeed, and if railcard discounts will apply?

 

Prices now shown on the Swanage Railway website, and it is indeed £25 return Wareham to Swanage.

However a Wareham to Corfe ticket is only £10 return. Doesn’t seem proportionate.

 

So you get the normal steam section for £15 return instead of £18, so are you saying they should be charging more from Wareham? To me seems to offer a discount incentive to use the service.

 

Good point. Particularly if they are going to allow people to make part of the journey on the steam
service on the same ticket , as they did in 2017, then it makes sense.

I suppose it just reinforces the fact that it is a tourist/heritage service, rather than a community rail service as some people seem to have assumed.

 

We will be trying it on our first free Wednesday after it starts from our local station Swanwick. That should provide all the answers as the two of us will be travelling on my son’s disabled rail card, SR aren’t showing any services yet in the days the DMU runs but we hope to travel right through and then have a steam round trip to Norden

 

SO excited for the future of this service, on high summer days a inexpensive fast service from Swanage - Corfe t 0 Wareham I believe will be very successful.

I'm waiting to find out the details about the year pass. I'm guessing I will have to pay the £10 difference between Wareham and Norden.

Many people are talking about training up swanage railway staff, has this ever been confirmed that this will happen during this period?? If i remember correctly staff that drive these services also need route learning up to Wool in case Wareham has issues

 

At a recent guards MIC we were told by the chairman that would be the case
Steve

 

This is all speculation on my part, I have no inside knowledge, or have not even chatted with anyone from the railway.
The press release, which like any press release can be interpreted in various ways says:
"South Western Railway’s regional development manager, Andrew Ardley, said: “SWR is proud to support the Swanage Railway by giving customers the ability to buy tickets through to Corfe Castle and Swanage from any one of the 189 stations on our network. This is an historic moment for the Swanage Railway and we look forward to seeing the results of this highly anticipated trial.”

Now there are various ways of reading that, one could be that SWR as a Purbeck Partner and as an SWR employee only SWR gets a mention with its 189 stations. Although one might have expected it to say something like "the ability to book a through ticket from any rail station on the national network" if it is supposed to mean the Swanage stations are available for through ticketing.

It could also mean that the 189 SWR stations (or at least the manned ones, as I am not sure all TVM's would get updated to provide tickets by April 4 or are even able to, or if anyone could find them if they did) would provide a "ticket" to allow travel on the SR.

I have no idea on railcards, but it would seem to be a bad move in my view as that makes the revenue even less. For example an £18 Swanage to Corfe or Norden return would be cheaper using a railcard to buy a return to Wareham and only use the portion to Corfe or Norden.
Of course a true through ticket does leave the railway open I suspect to DR claims if the DMU runs late. A Waterloo to Wareham off peak day return is £74.30, not sure the SR would be wanting to refund £18.57 or more if the DMU was late on the return leg to Wareham. Other destinations and lower refunds would apply of course as well.

Having said all that who knows, if the NYMR is prepared to sell an annual pass with free child travel for £40 then anything is possible in this strange 2023 world.

 

My reading would lead me to assume that the SR element will be an 'add-on' in the same way that things like 'PlusBus' tickets are. As a non-franchised operator, I don't think railcard discounts would be mandatory on the SR element unless SR bought in to them.