Reducing costs while preserving safety - can it be done?

The sustainablity of steam railways is under threat from soaring costs, in particular the expenses of MPD and Civil Engineering. Few if any railways are maintaining their assets in a steady state...let alone improving them. Volunteers are responsible for a declining percentage of the total effort and payrolls are expanding. Supporters are notably reluctant to support maintenance or renewals. Directors are faced with invidious choices of where to spend the limited funds they have. Income stubbornly refuses to keep up with "special railway inflation" and the pressures grow year by year. Eventually someone will make a bad decision. Discuss?

 

To some extent, preserved steam traction has been relying on the legacy of BR and the skilled workers taught under that company, be it operating staff or those involved in restoring and maintaining the machines we use.
Is it in the best interests of the movement as a whole to develop a base of skilled workers (Machinists, boilersmiths etc.) to make preserved steam less reliant on 'outside' sources?
The same could be applied to workshops equipped for such tasks as locomotive overhauls. Is the only way of getting the cost down (Or at least to stabilise it) to pool resources and skills?
Railways such as Llangollen and the South Devon Railway are developing workshop capabilities to make themselves more self-sufficient and undertake contract work (The profits of which are surely reinvested in the workshops or the railway?).
Is it cost effective for every railway to follow this practice and have on-site workshops, or would they be better off saving their money and employing one of the above to undertake heavy work?
Importantly, who is responsible for keeping up the standard of work undertaken by outfits such as these?

 

Corbs, many thanks for getting behind this thread. Standards are maintained by a matrix of the insurance boiler inspectors, HMRI, and for those who thrash about on the main line, the Vehicle Inspection Body. HRA has a technical committee.

 

Thanks GFG. So are HMRI and HRA responsible for inspecting the overall standard of maintenance on rail vehicles, or is this up to the operating body?

 

It is up to the operator (the Duty Holder), with HMRI taking a statutory (but paternalistic) oversight, free with advice and very approachable but able to prosecute in extremis. Deviation from what were BR standards tends to be looked at very carefully. HRA is a trade body and has no powers of enforcement but maintains an ongoing dialogue with HMRI and advises member railways on best practice. Insurance company boiler inspectors take their guidance from pressure vessel legislation, but informally "exchange intelligence" on sinners and chancers.

 

Perhaps the first thing to do is to remember that these are slow speed tourist railways, not the main line. In most cases the run is over in an hour. Provide good catering and sanitation facilities on terra firma rather than on the trains and avoid having to pull heavy catering vehicles around. (I know of one railway tea room which has a brisk and profitable trade with passing road traffic, the possibility may exist elsewhere.) Reducing train weight means less horsepower is needed, smaller motive power means lower running costs and lower overhaul costs. However have enough small to medium tank engines survived ? It also strikes me that whilst every tiddly little railway feels it must have the capacity to overhaul Pacifics (far too many of those machines about anyway), in the "old days", major workshops capable of giving general overhauls to the biggest locomotives were strictly limited in number. It would be interesting if some centralising of major overhaul facilities would reduce costs.

Civil engineering costs are, in their way every bit as much a looming problem as things like boiler replacement perhaps worse. Whether the trains are steam or diesel hauled makes no difference to this. Reducing train weights would ease the strain on elderly rail but 150 year old brickwork crumbles regardless. I can think easily of a number of railways where the brickwork of bridges is starting to spill. Really the only thing I can suggest is be sensible about route mileage and start a contingency fund

The trouble with this sort of discussion is that the inhabitants of la-la land will think any suggestions to reduce costs is akin to compulsory emasculation!

PH

 

The good and worthy people of La La Land are hopefully elsewhere asking which engines are running somewhere this weekend, which way round they are facing, is there a box on the back, and having lots of fun doing it. Good luck to them.

I think we are seeing a centralisation of main works - Carnforth, Crewe, Tyseley, Bury. But are they reducing cost? One of those listed told me that they could not look at a big Barry wreck (Thornbury Castle in this case) for less than £1.5 million. The owner of that one is a not unsuccessful man but can he hope to get £1.5 million of fun out of it? If it secured 10 main line runs a year and a seasona; gig on a heritage line he will still be a million quid out of pocket when the certificate runs out again, and it would not be worth a million if he then sold it. It would appear - if only to provoke the Gee-Dub men, which is always fun - that we may have more Castles than the market will bear.

 

A big part of the problem is that anything to do with boilers is very labour intensive. Some of this cannot be avoided - fitting stays for example - but there must be opportunities for far more widespread adoption of cnc machining to reduce labour costs - manufacture of stays, repetitive drilling of tubeplates and the like. Trouble is, this calls for investment in equipment and training, but I think it should pay off longer term. As more patterns for expensive items such as cylinders and formers for boiler plates become available hopefully that too will helpt o contain costs as ever more expensive relacements become necessary.

 

It's the second question that is germane, though - whatever the rights and wrongs, we have to work with what we have, not what is ideal. For example, there are precisely fifteen 80xxx class 4 tanks, and precisely zero 84xxx or 82xxx tanks in existence(**). Now, there are probably fewer than a dozen preserved lines in the country that have the combination of loads and gradients that make a class 4 or bigger a real requirement. But for every other line, if they have got a class 4 pottering along pulling five Mark 1s on moderate gradients, it's not massively helpful to say they should really be running with a non-existent class 2. Ditto, for that matter, lightweight vintage rolling stock: the Isle of Wight runs a fabulous service with a class 0 Terrier pulling 150 people in about 70 tons of four-wheelers; or a class 1 O2 pulling about 250 people in about 140 tons of pre-group bogie coaches. But not many lines could get to a similar position now even if the cost justification was overwhelming.

The other issue is that many costs are fixed, not dependent on passenger numbers, traffic density or train weight. A historic station building costs the same to maintain whether 25,000 people walk up station drive annually or 250,000 - but the railway that attracts 250,000 has more chance of keeping it maintained. The same goes for every bridge, tunnel and viaduct, which will slowly fall down even if no trains run. Which is actually an argument to run as many trains as possible - provided each one is full.

Tom


(**) With a due nod to the groups at Bridgnorth and Sheffield Park

 

Not at all. Expenditure, no matter where it is to be found must be controlled. The starting point for this control should be revenue. One can discuss for ever the engineering and other running costs incurred by a railway, or even the size of the Loco's - but what is the point if the company account is bare ?

Someone, name escapes me for the moment, has made the point on a separate thread about increasing revenue by putting more bums on seats. This is probably the single most important factor about securing future financial security and therefore viability, but also the one that for some reason does not appear to be at the very top of the agenda for many. Enthusiast and volunteer numbers are unlikely to increase in the near future, the opposite is probably the model to be expected. Any potential increase in numbers must therefore come from the non-enthusiast market. As time goes by this market is likely to increase as more people find a steam trip into a relatively peaceful and idyllic past, something that only a Heritage railway can offer with any real sense of authenticity - smell of oil, sounds heard nowhere else, country stations, unchanged countryside etc. One could never confuse a Heritage railway with a theme park or even la-la land ! Heritage railways are a very valuable and unique commodity, but a commodity that requires selling. Mum, Dad and two and a half kids might not be the enthusiasts idea of what their railway is about, but if survival is the aim, they are needed in larger numbers than at present, or we face the real prospect of having no toys to play with.

If and when this objective has been achieved we might be in a position to discuss how best to ensure the survival of other important areas. Sufficient money flow through the bank, before discussing how to spend it is always helpful.

 

Hmm, sometimes it does however seem that small to medium tank engines are in abundance, but a lot of them lie out of use.

It does seem to be the trend that preserved lines tend to start off with small locos, with not much bigger than an austerity, then as they become bigger so too does the motive power.
Is this a trend that is likely to reverse with the rising cost of running large engines? Will the four and six coupled saddle tanks that have lain out of use since 1992 be brought back into common use?

 

The whole raison d'etre of the heritage railway movement is taking an un-remunerative branch line and making it viable by the use of volunteer labour. otherwise it will remain un-remunerative. I can think of only one line that doesn't fit that bill and it is the T&DSR , which wasn't un-remunerative when taken over by a commercial company. Railways that try to venture away from that ethos are going to find it hard to survive so the key to survival must surely be the continued input of volunteer labour. In terms of loco overhauls, we have centres of excellence in the likes of Bury, Crewe and Tyseley but, AFAIK, they do not have a volunteer input to keep costs down. Thus, overhaul costs at such establishments are going to be expensive and defeat the whole principal on which the movement is founded.

In idle moments, I often wonder whether the heritage railway movement should be formally combined - a sort of nationalisation - so that its many resources could be better employed. A stand alone workshops, largely staffed by volunteers, would overhaul locomotives and other rolling stock for use on the various railways. A head of motive power would allocate locomotives to the various railways as needs must to ensure an adequacy of motive power. Volunteer loco crews would be rostered where they are needed. Full time managers could look after several railways. Combining the jobs of GM of (say) the NYMR & SVR would save a pretty packet to add to the bottom line. Rather than full scale nationalisation, we might perhaps have a grouping; say one group of N.G railways, another of Industrial railways, one of S.G lines and one of Museum lines. A sort of big 4!

All this is pipe dreaming, of course, and I've just come back from the pub.

 

One important factor to take into account is that a lot of people will like to volunteer at their local railway, and location of said works will always be a factor.
In addition, the output from the works will need to be regulated just as thoroughly as Bury/Crewe/Tyseley etc.
As previously mentioned, lines such as the Llangollen and SDR are investing in their own workshops to serve the preservation movement.

 

Also, just a thought. If we are going to invest in a central resource then why not a not-for-profit haulage company?
Moving rolling stock, track etc costs thousands of pounds and the money doesn't get reinvested in the preservation movement. There are certain railway friendly operators but they cannot be everywhere at once and at the end of the day need to turn a profit.
Would such a venture be worthwhile?

 

Can I firstly thank everyone for such very high calibre, and well founded argument...not a bad start for one night!

Selling more tickets is certainly part of any answer, but the present cost burden is enough to make even the most evangelical and determined salesman throw his sales presentation portfolio in the nearest canal and get a new hobby/job.

PH and jamesquared argue against big engines on what Dick Hardy calls “bobby jobs” but I am not even sure we fully understand that, despite the apparent logic. What horses emanates from the drawbar in exchange for a given amount of coal is important...probably. But how important? Does an efficient but modest Class 2 produce the same revenue benefit (ticket sales, repeat visits, donations and bequests) as sticking a massive toy on a short train and blowing everyone’s socks off? You can clean, polish and even name the cheap(er) little engines (see Paignton) but lipstick on a pig is still lipstick on a pig. I don’t even pretend to know the answer, but I can sense that there is a question. We are not transporting people in the pence per passenger mile sense so beloved of the Institution of Locomotive Engineers or the NER’s obsession with traffic statistics. We are putting on a show and are big engines the superstars with box office pull? The Duchess was on hire to a private railway this weekend, 130 odd tons of poetry in motion, and the P Way will notice when they do their track walk this week, but did it generate enough EXTRA ticket sales to pay for all the dropped rail joints it will have created, as well as the hire fee, coal and movement costs? It might, or might not, and it was in any case an enthusiast event, not a family one, but the principal remains. Can anyone provide some actual proof one way or another? I am hopeful but will not be holding my breath...

So if we don’t understand the market we will struggle to grow it. That just leaves costs and it seems we cannot understand how to shed them either. Oh dear....

 

Alas this is true and my big, big irritation with the various "newbuild" projects around is that, with a few exceptions, they do nothing to rectify this situation. My own "Road to Damascus" came on a visit to the Island although I was thinking in the same direction already. "Freshwater" headed three well-filled L.B.S.C. bogies, an authentic pairing of a sort that far too few are able to do. I understand that, if called upon, she could take one four wheeler or bogie more, despite some stiffish gradients.

My point is that money can be made in these circumstances. Yer av'rage tourist railway would provide five Mk. 1's for the same number of visitors headed by something in Power Class 5 or above and make a deal less money. Stroudley was concerned with tare weights in the eighteen seventies and his creations are proving him right today.

PH

 

Railways that go from somewhere to somewhere have ahead start. Railways that have a location that people want to go to (eg seaside resort) also have a head start. Railways that are trying to grow quickly (in my humble opinion) will struggle to survive unless they have either of the above. There is one railway that is trying to grow and I have grave concerns that
they are trying to do too much and their plans etc are too pie in the sky.
Its all about understanding the market and the local area market and then tapping into it and maximising profit because that is the bottom line...Profit. Not a nice word but if railways dont make a profit then they will eventually die.
Its also about finding new markets and then building and growing from that. Building a team of people, say to organise a gala, and then year on year that team learns, becomes more professional and want to grow that gala for the benifit of the railway.
Unfortunatly Michael Draper will be proved right on day.

 

No disagreement with most of this but one very salient point has not really been aired. How many railways really understand their current costs and have accounting systems which provide their various tiers of managers with carefully structured cost information to actually help them make proper long term decisions? I suspect that the answer on the standard gauge scene could well be just less than one.

Second thought - Dartmouth Steam Railway aside - we should consciously avoid the word profit as it sends an unfortunate mixed message involving shareholder gain.
We should instead focus on the "surplus available for reinvestment" which is the key figure from each years results on which the future depends. On most railways currently this is the hopefully positive yet pitifully small difference between the rather large figures which constitute overall income & costs. Yes we do need more income & yes we very definitely need a much better understanding and therefore control of costs.

 

Actually, I don't think that putting more bums on seats is necessarily the panacea - the NYMR shows this. It has by far the largest number of passengers of any railway but struggles to turn a profit. As in any business, increased turnover means higher costs. Increased visitor numbers means that more seats have to be provided, meaning longer, heavier trains and larger locomotives to pull them, greater wear and tear on the infrastructure and the need to expand the infrastructure to cope. Perhaps more importantly, the extra visitors need to be provided with all the facilities needed to keep them returning, which can be beyond the available volunteers to provide, necessitating paid staff. The real trick, therefore is to either find ways of extracting more revenue from passengers or to offer them a stripped down service without peripheral services like shops and catering where it is actually rather easy to lose money if paid staff are employed and visitor numbers can fluctuate markedly according to the weather.

 

Is "profit" still a dirty word? I hope not, but perhaps it is. If it isn't at Paignton, then it isn't at Aberystwyth, Lakeside, or Snowdon Mountain either. Even the Whipsnade & Umphulozi washes its own face. The Premier league railways - std or ng - all have the begging bowl permanently outstretched but mostly for Capex. The Bridge 30 business at Grosmont was a frightening example of an understood phenomenon - structure decay - just not budgeted for at all. And NYMR are far from the only one. I have on my desk this morning a leaflet from Sheringham asking me and everyone else to chip in for the overhaul of their J15. They are not a stupid railway, far from it, but they have just had 10 years out of that quaint little machine, and apparently even that hasn't earned itself its overhaul costs. It will be interesting to see how they get on.

Very interesting comments about the Isle of Wight - I would guess most contributors to this thread are active to some degree in the heritage movement, judging from the calibre of the posts, and Haven Street seems to be the railway of choice for many of us, based in part on the astonishing quality of their carriages. I am pretty sure that only they and Tanfield can claim to be Mark 1-free zones. We often forget that visitors spend well over half their visit in the train, and formica and flourescent lights, not to mention faded Network SouthEast upholstery and alarming toilets, doesn't seem to cut it with anyone. Mark 2s are even more horrible. (Because everyone else here seems to want to disclose an interest as soon as they go across the Solent, I will too; I am not a member but they graciously lent me the plates off Royal Engineer and permitted them to go to Germany to be worn by a Reichsbahn pacific, which is fairly bizarre but didn't phase them one bit. They were business-like and very approachable).

I hope the railways not as blessed as Haven Street are paying at least a little attention to what is being said in here. Some of the more outlandish Nat Pres threads have deterred many of the "trade and professional" posters who once graced these pages, but I am sure they would be heartened by the energy and very planted quality of the contributions above.