Steel Steam and Stars 4 - March 6, 7, 8, 13, 14 and 15 2015

Taking both of the above quotes and putting them into the same place is probably a valid way of looking at what Andy B has said. 6880 are very lucky to get Wells so soon after overhaul. The crab is only just into traffic, so why should ELR want to hire it out at the moment. The other 2 suggestions, very good suggestions they are too, but both locos are owned and operated on comercial railways rather than heritage railways.

 

I know they aren't owned by the railway, but what about 4270 and 7820 who've both been all over the place this year? Would it have been better for hwsr to keep them there just for the first year for people who can't wait?

 

That's slightly different as they are privately owned, so all the owners want to do within reason is make money to cover debts from previous overhaul, or towards the next.

No real hard and fast rule for getting locos as each is very different, but some fit into defined catagories of being hired or not.

 

I do wonder whether the "size matters" approach (a WC & a 9f in this case) actually produces the best financial result. Locos of this size are costly to move and require high steaming fees as well as plentiful coal. In reality they are quite out of place at 25mph on modest loads.

In contrast locos like the Beattie well tank, L&Y 0-6-0, H class 0-4-4t as examples are much easier/cheaper to move, are more unusual (we will be tripping over Bulleid Pacifics almost everywhere in 2015!) and much more appropriate to the scale of the LR operation.

Time for a different approach?

 

Definitely not size, but the unusualness of the locomotive is what counts, or even an unusual livery. If Swanage's M7 was going along in Drummond green that would do it for me

 

I seem to recall that its already been established that a Bulleid is cost-effective for its size after the SVR monitored coal consumption for a year. And there's no prizes for guessing the type of locomotive I'd be more than happy to trip over! The only thing better than one Bulleid is a shed of them...

 

Possibly true, but the killer costs for a gala are transport costs - and demonstrably, a tender engine (any tender engine ...) is going to cost more than a small tank engine.

The baseline has to be that the visiting engine attacks at least enough extra clientele over and above a regular operational day to cover the hire fee and transport costs, spread over the operational days of the gala (and possibly any extra photographic charters that can be organised). A tender engine is straight away going to be several thousand down on a tank engine on account of two extra lorry moves for the tender.

Tom

 

What if two tender locos cam from the same railway, nearby, or maybe en route - could you use 3 loaders, one for each loco and one for both the tenders? Would this fit/be a big no no?

 

I think you would run into the problem that almost no railway is likely to want to have two engines away simultaneously! Most railways are tight enough for motive power that having even one engine out on loan is quite an ask: having two away would probably go below acceptable limits to continue running the service while allowing for failures, minor maintenance etc. for most railways.

Tom

 

Yes I suppose, but what about low loaders 1 and 2 go to railway A to pick up a loco and tender, loader 1 with the loco goes straight to destination railway, loader 2 goes to railway B to pick up tender of another loco, goes to destination railway with low loader 3 just going to railway B to take the loco, 25% less cost presumably if routes didn't have to many diversions. I remember an Idea I had a while ago of several heritage railways in a region clubbing together to buy their own low loader to reduce costs, but was told it would be too expensive...

 

The Midhants let 34007 and 31806 go to the WSR Spring Gala, although I was surprised they allowed it.

 

I did say "almost no railway" Currently, the MHR seems to be in a rare position amongst major railways of having a relative abundance of operational motive power, relative to the demands of its regular service.

Tom

 

Perhaps not good form to answer your own questions, but....

For the benefit of anyone else who was hoping for clarification, I've found the Thread for SSS2 and, within that, someone queried how the additional days arrangement worked. Assuming the rules for SSS4 are the same, when you purchase one 1-day ticket (per person), you can purchase any number of additional days up to a maximum of 5 (per person). Please note that the "all six days" ticket is discounted and is cheaper if you want to go for more than four days.

So, if like me you want to go to one three day weekend, the "long weekend rover" equivalent is one 1-day ticket plus 2 additional days (total £50.00 with Gift Aid, £42.00 without).

 

Could someone explain how they can offer to accept gift aid on tickets? Please correct me if I am mistaken (very likley!), but from what I can see on the Governments website (http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/charities/gift_aid/basics.htm#2), surely gala tickets would come under this?

"Payments that don't qualify for Gift Aid
These include:

• payments received in return for goods or services - these are not gifts - for example payment for admission to a concert, payment for a raffle ticket, an entrance fee for an adventure challenge event etc "

 

I also found a question about this whilst trawling through the SSS2 thread. If I've remembered this correctly, the tickets are a set price, but if you purchase them "with Gift Aid", you are including an additional (optional) donation when you pay. In the example I posted, the cost of 1-day + 2 additional days is £42.00. The "with Gift Aid" figures I quoted include the additional donation when buying these tickets, so the total paid is £50.00. You are correct that the payment for the tickets is not a gift and therefore don't qualify for Gift Aid, but the additional £8.00 does qualify, assuming that the donor pays sufficient tax.

 

daveb has pretty much got it right.

For SSS4, to buy tickets you buy a 1-day ticket at 1 price, and then buy "x" amount of additional day tickets at a second price per each additional date desired. Should you choose to buy the 6-day ticket, a further discount is given.

The GA is exactly as DaveB says, and his example of the 3-day ticket is as clear a you'll get. 6880 will only be able to claim GA on the optional excess of £8, not the whole £50.

 

Quite, having just spent some £400k on 7820 we were keen to bring some £££'s in towards 3850's rapidly looming overhaul, our time spent on the WSR and NNR was all useful additional income over and above contracted income from the GWSR.

Got to agree with Andy B, gala costs are becoming prohibitive, the return transport bill for one of the above mentioned visits was not that shy of a 5 figure sum...., you need a lot of 'bums on seats' to recoup that sort of outlay, and that is long before any kind of steaming fee, coal, oil, water and the like has been accounted for. What is starting to happen and is likely to become more common in the future is an engine visiting 2, maybe 3 railways in quick succesion before returning to it's 'home' line, this gives the hiring railways the opportunity to split the cost of the middle leg/s of the transport between themselves. You can expect to see such with a proposed spell away from the GWSR for 7820 next year.

 

I wonder if falling oil prices will help with both transport costs and influencing coal prices in 2015.

 

Probably very little. If you look at diesel pump prices, they have only fallen 10% or so since the peak, and diesel represents only part of the haulage cost (there is salary of the driver(s), depreciation of the lorry etc). So at most, it is likely that the fall in diesel will only result in a fall in low single figure % of the actual haulage charge - not enough to be really significant.

As for coal - if you look at the accounts of a railway I am familiar with (and I am sure others are similar), the coal bill is only again single figure % of the gross annual expenditure. So a fall in coal price of, say, 10% would only make tenths of a percent difference to the annual expenditure - it's in the margin.

Tom

 

I think you under-estimate the effect of coal prices on steam railway results, Tom.

Coal prices tripled in a decade, and for lines running a reasonable level of mileage, that would be at least a 6 figure increase in costs. Whilst coal bills overall may be less than (although possibly quite close to) 10% of costs, the net profit margin of most railways, even after including the commercial, secondary spend activities, will be quite a bit less than 10% (even franchised operators reckon on around a 5% margin, although the cost structures are completely different), so a noticeable change in Coal prices does have quite a dramatic effect on the actual "bottom line".

This also highlights the risks of costly Gala events - many of the multi-guest line-ups must be costing in excess of £50k in haulage and hire fees (before basic running costs like Coal) and the average ticket prices (once child, Senior Citizen and probably some form of members discounts are taken into account) will probably like between £10 and £20 per head, so in excess of 3,000 fare paying passengers are probably needed just to cover those costs, let alone other running costs and start heading towards a Profit. The constant desire to "raise the bar" is starting to make a line-up that will get noticed unaffordable, and I do suspect we may have already had the peak of the Mega-Gala format and the amounts a small number of lines have thrown (with often variable actual financial results) at Galas in recent years has "sown the seeds of that format's own destruction". A "mega-Gala" that either doesn't appeal or is affected by external factors, like weather, would have a noticeable adverse effect on the host Railway's finances for the year in question, I am absolutely sure.

It perhaps fortunate that no railways should be trying to fund the development of the line from operating surpluses, but many still have some distance to go to generate from operations the funds needed to maintain fully the track, land buildings and rolling stock they already have.

Perhaps the most useful effect of lower oil and petrol prices will be making getting to steam railways cheaper for the car-using passenger.

Steven