Swanage Railway General Discussion

But therein lies the rub. It may appear to make sense to use t and t steam and diesel but if customers are "put off" by this and decide to spend their money elsewhere then the outcome is clear to see. It isnt the 5% approx of purists (rail enthusiasts) you have to worry about (because historically when push comes to shove, they have shoved) , it is the 95% of ordinary customers who may or may not decide not to travel or come again in the future.

 

Bye then,

Don't complain if the railway goes to the wall.

 

Contact the railway with your concerns.

 

But this is the issue. If family's are spending £50 for a steam train ride and end up geting a class 33 one of the ways that to me seems like a huge Waterdown experience. How many would come back?
We all want the railway to carry on running, but at the end of the day diesels put the general public who want steam off then there wont any point running the railway in the future.

Those who want diesel and die hard train lovers (like me) are only a small % of overall ticket sale.

I have a season ticket which runs out in October and tbf I wouldn't want to travel 100 mile round trip to have top and tail

 

Ah, but let's think positive, another steam railway will gain financially.<BJ>

 

Top & Tailing is not a new thing and it has been well demonstrated elsewhere that the vast majority of the public don't complain if there is a steam engine on their train somewhere. It is only enthusiasts who get anxious about what is working in what direction and for how long. Having the steam loco on the more exposed end of the train, smokebox first etc can further mitigate this perceived "damage" so that visitors can get close on the platform, have their photos etc etc.

I agree with the comment that if steam hauled is advertised and is fully substituted for diesel then many members of the public notice and can vote with their feet. However I think the prediction of mass walkouts over a 33 being on one end is a sub 1% enthusiast minority making a disproportionate amount of noise...

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The 1630 ex Swanage and 1705 ex Norden were 34070 + 5 today
The simple reason that 6 coach trains have to be top and tailed is that the loco cannot run around the train,
because of the constrains of room at Swanage station. This has been discussed here before.
If it is really a problem having a Diesel on the train, (It is not currently practicable to have two steam locos top and tailing due to high cost of coal.
I guess, One solution would be to have the 350 shunter waiting in platform 2, detach the steam loco at the inner home signal and send it into the
loop, Have the DSL haul the train to the stop blocks in Platform 2 and then put the steam loco onto the front of the train for departure.

 

Now that it is off peak season, is there no further need for top and tail 6 coach and diesel this year, so trains can be fully steam?
Perhaps just the Fish and Chip trains in October if fully booked and the Polar Express which states both steam and diesel locos in the booking t and cs (which is aimed at children and not train enthusiasts)?

 

I guess there is not an elegant solution. I also assume that the SR managment are intelligent people and that they will have considered all the options and their pros and cons - and the top and tailing is the best solution, all things considered. Last year i visited the Midhants and because of filming at Alresford, the run round was out of use and the procedure you describe was what they did. And, as a passenger, it was very tedious and slow. Any coupling and uncoupling requires an awful lot of faff t0 avoid injuring staff going between vehicles and then with subsequent brake tests etc.

 

Just because the "vast majority of the public don't complain" do not assume that they are not unhappy and will not take their custom elsewhere in the future. It will be very interesting to see this years figures in full not just from SRC but also from other heritage railways. It is all too easy to blame external factors for downturns in business without asking the question "have we given our customers the best possible experience at an affordable price?"

 

I can only assume this is sarcastic…

 

Perhaps I wasn't clear enough with my main point, which was that from experience elsewhere casual visitors mostly consider a Steam/Diesel top and tail train to be a steam service. Such operation has not led to mass drops in custom.

Surely it's self regulating in any case. If 15% of people walk away then go back to load 5 steam. If two more coach loads turn up then return to pre Covid 2x steam sets. If it stays the same then carry on T&T??

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My point is that there has to be a very considerable mismatch in expectation and what is actually presented for a customer to decide not to travel / purchase and go elsewhere. If there is only a small mismatch then this may not make any difference but it could cause a customer to decide not to repeat the experience at some future point in time. Using walkaways or complaints as a tool for measuring customer dissatisfaction is a crude tool. Very often customers do not complain, they simply take their patronage elsewhere in the future and the attraction (or whatever) is non the wiser.

 

If the next time in 2023 it's only the Fish and Chips or the Polar Express trains that will run 6 carriages top and tailed by steam and diesel locos, the passengers on these trains will not be too worried by use of a diesel loco.
But other than these, the trains on the normal off peak season timetable should be 5 carriages and one steam loco (unless perhaps there are pre-booked several coach visits when a two steam train service could be timetabled?).

 

JTFC, this is such a naive take completely bereft of data.

 

Correct

 

That’s fair. And it’s something that needs attention when looking at 2024 and 2025 comparisons to 2023.

However, i suggest that the deeply anti-diesel sentiments on here are out of many proportion to the reactions of ordinary customers.


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That moment when you discover it is too big for the turntable.

 

Agreed. Polarisation of views tends to be a feature of any enthusiast forum be it cars, films, bands, football teams..........

I think it would give Directors / Trustees / Members of Heritage Railways a great deal of insight if they visited a wide range of tourist attractions and see how other organisations meet customer expectations.

Yes some are commercial and have large resources but imho many "competitors" deliver a better experience and there are lessons to be learned.

 

Isn't it comparing apples and oranges? most of the other attractions, are of the fixed location, type, i'm not sure what you could gleam from customer experience, apart from the cleanliness of public amenities, what else would there be to compare ? , OK, things like how manage queues, but an preserved railway, is about the experience, the recreating travel from a time that now very few customers will remember, and for whom, it would hark back to the dirty trains, seats that released a dust cloud, when you sat down, floors covered with discarded newspapers, of standing next to another's smelly arm pit, we certainly are not about re creating that experience, coaches need to be clean, and have windows you can see out of, seats that are not torn and threadbare, timetables need to be up todate, if its diesel haulage, or DMU say so all you need is a blackboard,and chalk, stating departure times and whats hauling it, and arrival timesback, so people can work out how muct time they have, Staff need to look the part, and be friendly, but where needed to, for safety, be firm, " please step away from the platform edge as the train arrives, sir," or " Sorry but the yard is out of bounds, but if you wait, i will see if theres anyone that might be able to show you around,"