Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends - Time to say "Goodbye"?

With a Peppa Pig World theme park only 30 minutes drive from the MHR, it’s no surprise these events didn’t attract the numbers.

It may be more successful at others railways further away from the theme park.

 

Peppa is very successful at Bolton Abbey, as is Paw Patrol but I suspect these characters are short lived compared with Thomas (still popular after being created in 1946!)???

Will

 

I'm not convinced that using any external character (such as Peppa Pig) is viable in the long term. For any such character whose brand is strong enough to really drive additional visitors, the costs and restrictions are likely to be not dissimilar to using Thomas - for the simple reason that that is how popular brands work. So putting on, for example, a Peppa event may drive additional users, but will come with costs and restrictions; the more successful the event, the more onerous those costs and restrictions are likely to be. The brand owners of those characters aren't charities. I also suspect that - Thomas aside - there are very few brands with a railway connection that are strong enough to really drive traffic. I don't see many railways falling over themselves to promote Ivor the Engine events, for example.

This thread started with mention of a home-grown event on the IoWSR. That feels more sustainable to me, in that you are less dependent on standards and conditions set externally; and the home railway benefits entirely from any upside, while downside risks are minimised by having no external licence holder to pay.

(Being mischievous): The efficient way to run a railway is to have even traffic each day rather than extreme peaks and troughs. I wonder whether concentrating on having a few blockbuster events each year distracts attention from what the quality of the offer is on a rainy weekend in March? Improving the overall experience such that you reliably sell fifty otherwise empty seats on 100 days per year is probably better value for money that having a couple of weekend blockbusters selling 5000 extra tickets but costing a considerable amount of effort and money to promote.

Tom

 

Bravo!

 

Whilst this is one side of the discussion there is the related view that heritage lines should present examples of traction currently operating on the network since that gives (future) enthusiasts an opportunity for a close-up view of them hence better able to appreciate them when viewed at working speed on the network. That was the basis of the characters I proposed using in my railway stories hence my concern at the lack of interest.

This "characterisation" is one of balance between setting an imaginary environment such as Thomas and its locomotives and the real environment where real locomotives can be sampled at close quarters. This is obviously a question to be answered by the marketing arm of heritage lines but I sense a move to the "real world" where expenses don't include the (rip-off) licensing fees demanded by commercial marketing companies looking to protect income streams rather than provide entertainment value.

 

The net benefit of Thomas to the railway I'm involved with would have equated to around 8500 extra visitors on normal days based on 2017 figures. If you averaged that out during the year we wouldnt have the extra capacity to carry the necessary passengers during peak times (summer school holidays etc.)

 

I "like" this, but disagree somewhat with the analysis. As a visitor to preserved railways, my observation is that the peak demand is high, needs little incentive, and increases may actually be counter-productive; but that the shoulders of the season require a bit of encouragement, which events provide. There is also the challenge of giving those extra visitors the reason to go - which a one off event provides in a way that normal running does not.

None of that negates the vital importance of having a good understanding of the extra income an event will bring in, as opposed to the costs of putting it on.

 

I wonder if there is a broader problem of over-saturation of events. For example it seems almost every weekend of the year there is a diesel gala, a war on the line, a spring gala, a summer gala, an autumn gala, a Thomas event and so on and so forth. I wonder if there is not some element of diminishing returns.

Maybe I am cynical and jaded, but perhaps a few years ago I would look at a line up and think 'wow' whereas now, most line ups are just a bit 'meh'. (And god save us from war on the line events.)

 

Is part of that due to the number of railways there are?

I've just tried to count up the number of railways there are within a couple of hours travel time from my house - I think it's probably about 20. Even if each line only holds one or two special events per year, that means there is easily one weekly during the peak season.

 

Each event targets a different demographic though. You got your gricer galas (they are what would in commercial terms be considered "whales") diesel galas target the clag-heads (a whale subgroup made up of people who seem to be 50 and under generally) the war events target a rather dedicated fanbase on their own with costumed public (known in the reenactment community as "farbs") all of whom keep entire beer tents afloat and also aim towards families and then finally you have Thomas/Paw Patrol and Pepper Pig who are almost exclusively for the families with under fives.

 

Absolutely on both accounts. I think that if I were in one or another demographic I could find an event almost every weekend, but this is where my point about overkill comes in. I don’t have the time or the money to go to every event so it’d be something with a ‘wow’ factor to get me to travel. perhaps because some events are done so often they no longer have the wow factor they might have done once because all the events are so similar to each other and to previous events. If I don’t go to this gala I can go to another one next week or next year and have pretty much the same experience.

But maybe I am an outlier here in the customer base and some people will always travel to see certain locos, dress up, look at a butchered industrial with a painted face.

I am assuming that railways must make more money than they would do otherwise because they wouldn’t run them if they were making a loss.

 

I would personally say this is the point though, people these days are less flexible with work schedules and having more frequent events allows for people's flexibility. For example, I am currently in North Yorkshire on holiday, and the NYMR autumn gala is currently on with LNER motive power on display. Back home near Birmingham it's Tysley's open weekend for the GWR enthusiast, and far far to the south the L&B is enjoying the first time a Manning Wardle type has graced its rails since the 1930s.

Obstensibly those are three very same events. All three are Galas of some sort. But all three are offering very very different experiences.

On top of that, if there is something you don't like events wise, you could go to another railway as they rarely overlap the same event for the same weekend.

 

I agree that in a cash and time poor world, choice is a good thing and you can always find something going on. Ok, to play devil’s advocate, all three are worthy events but alternatively, if I am cash and time poor I can only go to one. If spaced out across the year maybe I could go to two, but then this this follows on front what may have been happening last week and maybe happening next week. If Tysley for example only opened once a decade then worth going to, if it is the same a last year with slightly different locos is it worth my while? This is a first for the L&B but what will be the draw next year? LNER at the NYMR, nice but is this sufficiently special? A.n.other railway might well have an LNER weekend next week. And so on and so forth.

I am assuming that they are all worth the railways’ while because no one is going to volunteer, pay the hire fees etc etc for a weekend that loses money. I am not going to criticise the model if it works and brings in punters, but I do wonder if there might be a tipping point of over-saturation, of events becoming dull and repetitive, and whether we might see what have been money makers turning into money losers. Perhaps you can drink from well too often?

 

Presumably events like Thomas, Santa etc wouldn't happen unless they made money; Santas are also a good way to get people onto the line in December. I suspect "enthusiast galas" would still run even at a loss though purely because the railways like them - and generally they do cost a lot, not just in cash terms but in the effort required in additional staffing levels.

Personally I don't really see the excitement around galas compared to a normal operating day - I am more likely to look at the calendar and say "ah the Yelverton & Bromsgrove Railway is having their gala this weekend, best not go there then". But then again maybe I am atypical; I've only once gone out of my way to see a specific loco in steam somewhere. Incidentally I think it was only a normal operating weekend, but the line in question had 7 locos in operation - bigger than some railways' galas!

Another thought: there seemed to be much uproar when the Severn Valley's September gala slot was taken up by an event (Pacific Power) not considered suitably gala-ish by the cognoscenti - but when the chips were down it brought in much more money than the "regular" gala the following year. The SVR has this year been trying out a new type of event aimed at older children this year: "wizard trains" which were run as prebook-only trains in the charter paths on regular operating weekdays in the school holidays.

 

Perhaps this puts a bit of a damper on the ‘only people who go to railways are a small clique of train spotters and tourists who want something to do on an afternoon’ argument favoured by the more reactionary.

It shows that I) the hardcore are diverse and broad church, ie the people who will travel miles for a diesel gala may not also travel to Pacific power, may travel for a LNER gala but avoid a gwr gala like the plague, and despite this, there are enough people are hence markets out there for lines to make money. Ii) the railway tangential events - Pippa, Thomas etc, bring in a different market again to the war on the line events, to the ale, gin, dining trains.

 

I understand how we got from TTTE to the appropriateness of WWII re-enactments, but all the same the WWII stuff seems like it it's far enough afield to deserve its own thread... Mods?

Noel

 

I had BR period locomotives and stock at a pre grouping station in my mind when I wrote that. But I think you reinforce my point, there is a fundamental tension between authenticity and entertainment at such events, and in especially sharp focus.

Your air show point is also interesting. I have no problem with aircraft of any force, including Imperial Japan, Luftwaffe or Soviet Union, displaying. But the moment the display starts to involve combat re enactment, I lose interest. The format feels artificial and the excitement contrived. Indeed, the same used to be true of battle dioramas at much enjoyed childhood trips to the Royal Tournament.


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