Tornado

60007 leaves on the 12/13th Dec to work a Steam Dreams job.

Reference using them all/missed opportunities, etc - I’ve seen a lot of people calling on the NVR to do some kind of giants of steam style event…Not actually sure many will have thought of the huge cost involved. I’d be willing to bet that for the A1/A4/Jubilee any railway wouldn’t see much change from £4000 per day in steaming fees, so £8k there. Probably £7k in coal for the weekend, water/oil/utilities, etc. I would think just the 3 locos for an event would be a £22.5k outlay total. So really needing to make £45k to make it worth while. Probably £40 a ticket at least per day.

 

Remember that just because a loco is stabled at a railway, it isn't necessarily available for that railway to use...I suspect the guys have been negotiating long and hard just to get this limited use of Tornado added to the program.

 

Maybe they have a NP froth ban in place!!!!

 

https://www.a1steam.com/tornado/news/tornado-details/october-etcs-update

Is the 22V referred to in the 3rd paragraph a typo which should be 24V?

 

Oh, I'm aware of that.

 

If you look at the pictures of the load bank in operation in the other update it shows between 24 and 27V - I'd expect the latter figure when charging batteries. After all, cars don't charge their batteries at 12V, do they? It's usually 13.8V but it can also depend upon battery chemistry and construction too.

 

me thinks you probably overestimate their abilities.

 

Who is it a missed opportunity for? Remember, Santa Specials are all pre-booked and by and large the public don't care that much whether it's Tornado or Bahamas or Sir Nigel Gresley or a Danish Tank on the front - they just want a steam engine that goes puff puff and choo choo. These services will also be mostly, if not completely, sold out by the time the first service of the season leaves Wansford, so it's not like there's an opportunity for enthusiasts to grab a last minute ticket. They probably also limit access to stations to just travelling passengers so enthusiasts probably can't nip onto the platform to take a few photos and maybe grab a coffee or something from the station shop/cafe. So the only way the enthusiast, who is the customer who would be influenced most by the motive power, can benefit from a 'Giants of Steam Santa Special edition' is by photographing it from the lineside, which doesn't offer the railway any additional income from what becomes a more expensive service to run.

You could argue it's for the benefit of the crews as they get the opportunity to 'play with' a larger variety of different and interesting engines, which is a fair point, but then consider that you may not have enough crews available to reliably have 2 or 3 sets of crews a day for several weekends in a row in the busy pre-Christmas season when many volunteers will also have other commitments on and possibly be wanting to do some pre-Christmas stuff with their own families.

Plus consider that the Nene Valley is doing a new form of Santa Special service this year with paid actors giving an immersive experience so their base operating costs are already higher - throw in two more pacific locomotive hire fees and coal and water bills and you start to make the operation more financially risky. One of the main points of a Santa Special season from a railway's bank account's perspective is to bring in a big chunk of money at a higher than average rate or revenue per passenger to help fill the coffers for the upcoming winter season where services are less popular or stopped, maintenance may well be done and yet utilities, insurance and other bills remain the same or increase because you're having to pay more to heat your buildings. Throwing in two extra expensive locos in a way that doesn't actually improve the operation or income potential from your Santa Special services seems to directly contradict that.

If all 3 locos were still going to be at Wansford into the New Year I would be more inclined to agree that it would be nice to see the three of them running together and that the railway could probably justify the expense due to the extra passengers it would attract. But as Gresley is going within a fortnight (and possibly Tornado/Bahamas - I might be wrong there), nice as it would be to see them all running together, I cannot fault the railway's decision to not pursue it

 

Bahamas is there until early January, Tornado until the 20th of this month (at least).

 

Cor, I forgot that - y'know, what with being a member of the NVR an'all that.

 

Also, in Santa season, do you want crews to be on an unfamiliar engine in the dark. One more thing that could go wrong right when you don't need it.

 

I'd suggest that the SR are underselling in that case although, hopefully they will have done their sums and are happy with the bottom line. I can only guess at these but they are educated guesses. I don't know how many trips they do but lets say five which means 10 people at £345 is £3,450 income. A couple of tons of coal, say £700; hire of loco, say £1,600; water and lubricants, say £100; That's £2,400 in direct costs before you consider any staff costs. Even volunteers should be costed into any equation because they are giving their time to benefit the railway and not so that six people can have a cheap experience. At a minimum I'd be costing volunteers out at £100/8 hr day and probably more. You would certainly have to include them if they were paid staff. Someone else with better knowledge of the railway will have to have a guess at how many people are needed to make the day happen. Then there's wear and tear on everything to take into consideration.
All pure speculation on my part but, hopefully, it illustrates things.

Edit: 2857Harry has suggested £4,000/day for a celebrity loco, which is considerably more than my £1,600, which was for a Bulleid/U class. I'm a bit out of touch on big loco hire fees but when even a small industrial can command £500/day, loco hire is not a cheap business.

 

Six trips, so 12 participants I thought from past times. Although on the recently released set some show as two available, some as one available and others as "limited availability please call" so I am not so sure what the numbers are this time around.

 

I read @2857Harry 's bucket maths as £4k a day for all 3 locos, so a bit less than your £1,600 per loco. I'd be surprised if it was much more than £1000 for a heritage railway only loco for your Swanage footplate calculations. It does sound like good value though to me, I wonder how quickly they sell out.

 

I was suggesting around £4000 for all 3 locos to be fair!

 

Thought I’d gone mad then, but just checked I did say for all 3.

Most big engines nowadays will be well above £1000 for a day. I know of some small locos that are getting near to that per day.

 

I'm out of touch with large loco hire these days but some non-main line locos were commanding £800 twenty and more years ago. In the back of my brain I have it that 60007 was asking £3K a short while ago but it could simply be me dreaming. As I said, I know of a couple of industrials that ask £500/day for hire and get it. And they aren't big ones.
Do some more sums: In a 10 year ticket the Bulleid will probably be in steam 100 days/year so that's 1000 steamings and at 70miles/day that would be 70,000 miles. About right. At my £1,600/day that's £1.6m. Overhauls of big locos are now approaching £1m, main line locos even more but there's also all the maintenance needed during that 10 year period, not to mention such ancillaries as insurance. We are also talking some time in the future and inflation will take its toll.
Actual hire fees are going to be confidential but if anyone can give anonymised indicative costs it would be interesting.

 

I would suggest that most loco owners can only dream of £1600 a day as a hire fee.

 

£500 to £1200 per day excluding FS and possibly a couple of other very “special “ locos, and depending on duration of running etc

 

There is the rather important element in the hire fee of "what the market will stand". Whilst an owner may need x amount a year to keep their pride and joy running the potential hirers may not be able to generate enough revenue to meet this. Also there is more to hiring out a loco than income as it needs to be operated professionally and run over track that won't cause excessive wear and tear. I remember Bob Meanly having a lot to say about his experiences with hiring engines from Tyseley.