Coronavirus, now a Cost of Living Crisis: The threat to railway preservation

[Northmoor]

1 minute ago, AMJ said:

Some just use it for Satan trains in December 

 

Unfortunate typo but one of the funniest for a while!  Presumably they'll be hiring in a Class 66/6 etc.

[Phil Parker]

16 minutes ago, AMJ said:

 

I have said that even a basic shop for a railway needs, membership (new & renewal), donations, exclusive items such as stock books and histories etc.    Wonder if they are not wanting to have someone posting out items as active members are often busy doing many tasks.

 

Fulfilment is the toughest part of the online shop - people now expect Amazon levels of service with items arriving next day, but that would mean paid staff sitting around to handle orders every day. If those staff have other jobs on the line, at some points you'll have to decide what they drop to handle posting stuff - do they open the cafe or ship those Thomas sets?

[jonhall]

2 hours ago, Phil Parker said:

 

Fulfilment is the toughest part of the online shop - people now expect Amazon levels of service with items arriving next day, but that would mean paid staff sitting around to handle orders every day. If those staff have other jobs on the line, at some points you'll have to decide what they drop to handle posting stuff - do they open the cafe or ship those Thomas sets?

 

I'm also aware that at least one employee in the Bluebell shop has been made redundant due to Covid, and I'm sure there are others at other railways.

 

People buy from preserved railway to either have a memento from the day out (they are currently not visiting), due to pester power to keep kids quiet (also not happening) or because they want to support the railway (in which case I suspect they are doing so by donations). The preserved railways want to maximise their income for their charity, they don't want, or need, to be a pile-it-high merchant, and as we see all the time on here, online buyers want bargain basement prices and Amazon like delivery, neither are a market that does a preserved railway much good. 

 

Buying for a preserved railway shop must be pretty difficult, I did notice (despair? ) last time I went to Swanage, that someone had bought a lot of postcards - not a problem so far, I imagine even these days, postcards from Swanage get sent quite a lot - but I don't suppose may people buy a postcard 'advertising' the Embsay railway at Swanage! I suspect a well meaning volunteer who is not a railway enthusiast (and Swanage have a reasonable number of those, who are 'supporting a local charity' that just happens to run trains) bought what appeared to be a pretty picture, without thinking it through.

 

 

Jon

[Nova Scotian]

I would say I have very middling standards and expectations so far as fulfillment. If I order in late November or early December I'd like it to be shipped within a working week, for arrival within a working week of that (eg. 2 weeks total). I don't need something *now* - it's a gift, it's "special" and it's for a set time. I'm not ordering from Tesco for immediate delivery.

 

Swanage is their closest railway, which is why I looked there first. I've bought a couple of nice things there previously for myself and kids - but mostly more "generic railwayana" and the usual fridge magnet type stuff. I would buy more, and pay a LOT more for something designed for them by someone local and produced locally. I am probably in a very small minority though.

 

Only one Chirstmas present I ordered in Canada came from major retailers (other than some stuff for my kids which can't really be included given the value/nature). The UK I found more challenging, partly because I've been gone so long, but I think also e-commerce has been so much stronger there than here that only those who are "slick" with their online model are successful. I tried the usual platforms (ebay, etsy, etc) for local suppliers, and searched through places I wanted to support in Dorset for if they had online retail. It was relatively unsuccessful. I am willing to accept some blame for that as I've been gone too long.

Edited December 10, 2020 by Nova Scotian
Silly grammar mistakes

[RJS1977]

8 hours ago, jonhall said:

 

 

Buying for a preserved railway shop must be pretty difficult, I did notice (despair? ) last time I went to Swanage, that someone had bought a lot of postcards - not a problem so far, I imagine even these days, postcards from Swanage get sent quite a lot - but I don't suppose may people buy a postcard 'advertising' the Embsay railway at Swanage! I suspect a well meaning volunteer who is not a railway enthusiast (and Swanage have a reasonable number of those, who are 'supporting a local charity' that just happens to run trains) bought what appeared to be a pretty picture, without thinking it through.

 

 

 

It's not impossible (indeed quite likely) that those postcards were donated. When I first got involved in trying to preserve HP1, I was given a large quantity of postcards of one of the Earley Power station locos.  I tried selling some at our exhibition, and donated others to the Cholsey & Wallingford Railway shop, but in the end I had to bin most of them.

 

Likewise a friend of mine "inherited" a garage full of books on Compound locomotives from a friend of his who had published the book and passed away before he could distribute them. Whilst we did sell a few at the C&WR (both in the shop at Wallingford, and in the ticket office at Cholsey), our biggest sell was at another of our exhibitions, where my friend brought several boxes along saying we could sell them for £2 each on the ticket desk. We sold a reasonable number, then one of the stand holders became aware and bought the rest of the stock we had with us (two boxes, I think). Last I heard of him, he hadn't managed to sell any, apart from some he offloaded to another trader who hasn't managed to sell any either....

 

And I bet many railway clubs and heritage railways are very familiar with people turning up with a boot load of old railway magazines and 'donating' them....

 

 

Whilst C&WR have in the past operated mail order (when we commissioned 100 private owner wagons from Dapol), it's a big step up from just operating a shop on running days  - as has been mentioned, it really requires paid staff to take the orders and post them out, as well as ordering in more new stock. So fair play to those railways which have managed to put their shops online - who incidentally also often seem to stock a decent model railway range

[jonhall]

9 hours ago, RJS1977 said:

 

 

It's not impossible (indeed quite likely) that those postcards were donated. When I first got involved in trying to preserve HP1, I was given a large quantity of postcards of one of the Earley Power station locos.  I tried selling some at our exhibition, and donated others to the Cholsey & Wallingford Railway shop, but in the end I had to bin most of them.

 

 

Alas these were brand new multiple copies of the same and not just Embsay but also other railways. I just don't recall which - they had definitely been bought in error, the Swanage shop doesn't deal in secondhand.

 

Jon

[Northmoor]

So, reopening my own thread, was my pessimism misplaced?  Maybe.

 

The return of visitors (and leisure travellers in general) is to be expected; just like after WW2, when people had been restricted from non-essential travel for so long, travel is what they wanted to do.  Not having been on foreign holidays for a couple of years and for many middle-class professionals, working from home has saved them a lot of money on commuting, so they've been able to spend it on leisure now.

 

The much predicted non-return of (especially older) volunteers; has it happened?  I don't remember reading too much yet about railways struggling to staff services.  The struggle to operate steam during this year's drought has got more press attention.

 

However, now that the preserved railways have survived the restricted trading of the pandemic, they are hit with a new sucker punch: a customer base whose disposable income is evaporating fast and you'd probably have to be on the 90th percentile of earnings to not notice the rise in the cost of living.  The railways won't be bailed out with government grants this time.  Right now I would be worried if my railway had a big overdraft, because interest rates are going one way for the forseeable.  This matters; the Watercress Line was nearly bankrupted by its debt in the late 80s, having borrowed to finance the Alton extension.

 

Oddly enough, during the recession of the late 70s and early 80s, a lot of today's preservation schemes opened.......

 

[woodenhead]

You forgot Welsh coal availability - hopefully Ffos-y-fran gets a 2 year extension otherwise there aint no coal.

[Northmoor]

2 minutes ago, woodenhead said:

You forgot Welsh coal availability - hopefully Ffos-y-fran gets a 2 year extension otherwise there aint no coal.

There's no shortage of coal in the world, we'll just have to pay more to ship it here.....  Not all British locos were designed to run on Welsh coal.  The closure of FFos-y-fran is significant, but I suspect the blocked application for a temporary opencast site near Widdrington was a bigger loss to steam operators.

You're right though that it's just another cost pressure on heritage railways.

[Nova Scotian]

3 hours ago, Northmoor said:

There's no shortage of coal in the world, we'll just have to pay more to ship it here.....  Not all British locos were designed to run on Welsh coal.  The closure of FFos-y-fran is significant, but I suspect the blocked application for a temporary opencast site near Widdrington was a bigger loss to steam operators.

You're right though that it's just another cost pressure on heritage railways.

Cost and availability of coal right now is an issue - likely to ease in the spring, but it's at least three times as much per tonne as pre-Russia.

[Johann Marsbar]

Most places (rail and other preservation/museum operations) have seen a drop in available volunteers - quite a significant one in some cases.   It's not just the older volunteers who have stopped participating as a number of younger ones found other things to do with their time when the various Covid restrictions were in place.

Our museum has been struggling to fully staff the place on our Open Days this year, and that's with reducing the number of days that we are open to the Public into the bargain.

 

[6990WitherslackHall]

8 hours ago, Nova Scotian said:

Cost and availability of coal right now is an issue - likely to ease in the spring, but it's at least three times as much per tonne as pre-Russia.

Some railways are experimenting with more eco-friendly coal. The North Yorkshire Moors Railway is using something like this having trialled it with Standard 4 tank 80136. I think it was covered on the news. 

[Boris]

1 hour ago, 6990WitherslackHall said:

Some railways are experimenting with more eco-friendly coal. The North Yorkshire Moors Railway is using something like this having trialled it with Standard 4 tank 80136. I think it was covered on the news. 

It's the artificial ovoids I've been using on my open fire at home for years, they're great on my fire but the results are very variable on steam locos, it's a totally different firing technique that some have struggled to adapt to.

 

It's not just passengers who are struggling with rising living costs, volunteers are in the same boat, I can think of a number who have cut their turns from 4 a month to 2 a month because of fuel costs and it may yet get worse.  The Wensleydale has had to cancel some days operation this year because of a lack of volunteers (sourced from their official facebook page) and I think some other railways have had to scale back things like shop opening or booking office hours for similar reasons.

 

It still blows my mind though that some preserved railways still can't get the basics right though, clean and warm trains aren't a big ask most of the time, getting the whole customer experience (yes I hate the term too) right is more important than ever now and too many places still haven't realised it!

 

 

[Michael Hodgson]

14 hours ago, woodenhead said:

You forgot Welsh coal availability - hopefully Ffos-y-fran gets a 2 year extension otherwise there aint no coal.

 

I got my last supply of Welsh steam coal wearing a rucksack and walking down Snowdon following the line !

[6990WitherslackHall]

1 hour ago, Boris said:

The Wensleydale has had to cancel some days operation this year because of a lack of volunteers (sourced from their official facebook page) and I think some other railways have had to scale back things like shop opening or booking office hours for similar reasons.

I know the NYMR had to cancel some special events such as the Swinging 60s, Diesel gala and the one guest loco visit that happens not long after the start of the operating season.

 

The wartime weekend was cancelled due to what was going on in Ukraine but the town of Pickering (the terminus of the railway) are holding one anyway.

[Boris]

22 minutes ago, 6990WitherslackHall said:

I know the NYMR had to cancel some special events such as the Swinging 60s, Diesel gala and the one guest loco visit that happens not long after the start of the operating season.

 

The wartime weekend was cancelled due to what was going on in Ukraine but the town of Pickering (the terminus of the railway) are holding one anyway.

They've had to hire in diesels instead of steam this year which has been ace for the diesel neds, not so much for the travelling public.  Diesel gala is always a marginal one anyway, unless you get the right diesels people don't come and those diesels are generally from outside the 150 mile radius of the hosting railway.

 

Pickering aren't hosting a 40s weekend because they've seen how much it actually costs to run and realised what a hit the NYMR takes on it every year.  The organisers then blamed the inability to finance the weekend on the NYMR?!?!?!

[Colin_McLeod]

15 hours ago, Nova Scotian said:

Cost and availability of coal right now is an issue - likely to ease in the spring, but it's at least three times as much per tonne as pre-Russia.

A lot of things have increased since 25th December 1991. It is 30 years ago after all.

[6990WitherslackHall]

3 hours ago, Boris said:

Pickering aren't hosting a 40s weekend because they've seen how much it actually costs to run and realised what a hit the NYMR takes on it every year.  The organisers then blamed the inability to finance the weekend on the NYMR?!?!?!

Why have they blamed something on the railway which is clearly not their fault?

[woodenhead]

16 minutes ago, 6990WitherslackHall said:

Why have they blamed something on the railway which is clearly not their fault?

It's called deflection.

[6990WitherslackHall]

10 minutes ago, woodenhead said:

It's called deflection.

Fair point

[Boris]

1 hour ago, 6990WitherslackHall said:

Why have they blamed something on the railway which is clearly not their fault?

I'm not entirely sure to be honest, the rant on facebook was extremely long and attracted a load of replies.  I think the supposition was that the NYMR was going to open its coffers and still pay for a large part of the weekend even though it would only benefit the town rather than the railway, and unsurprisingly the NYMR politely declined which made the NYMR managers public enemy number 1 on the site in question, then of course a number of the more verbal reenactors jumped on the bandwagon ranting about a lack of Germans and then a lack of Pickering 40s weekend.  The thread was eventually deleted.

 

Funnily enough a large number of people regard the event as the PICKERING War Weekend rather than the NYMR war weekend and only a small minority actually pay to get on the trains which may also be a final nail in the coffin.  The bill for the whole thing was well into 5 figures when I used to be involved in organising it years ago and I wouldn't be surprised if that figure was approaching 6 figures now. 

 

Another issue was the lack of open space physically in Pickering (to benefit the shopkeepers etc) and the only other spot which has a decent open space is the cricket/recreation ground which has a limit of about 150 people on site, again the supposition being the NYMR and the former trout farm site owner would allow them to use their car parks as display space for free/minimal cost. 

 

The event on paper looked outstanding they had provisionally booked some of the better 40s singers and some of the larger and better WW2 reenactment societies, none of which are cheap but they suddenly realised even for a basic event the outlay was to be around £25k and nobody wanted to take the risk and fund the thing.  They might have been more successful if they started small and built it up but they wanted big and showy from the beginning and had an unfortunate reality check early this year.

 

 

[Ben B]

On 28/09/2022 at 07:40, Johann Marsbar said:

Most places (rail and other preservation/museum operations) have seen a drop in available volunteers - quite a significant one in some cases.   It's not just the older volunteers who have stopped participating as a number of younger ones found other things to do with their time when the various Covid restrictions were in place.

Our museum has been struggling to fully staff the place on our Open Days this year, and that's with reducing the number of days that we are open to the Public into the bargain.

 

 

Regarding young volunteers, its a thing we're dealing with in Scouting too. At one point (recently, just pre-covid in fact) our group had 4 older leaders, 2 middle-aged (me and my wife, in mid late 30's), and 4 young leaders aged 19-25. Those younger 4 have all left now, because their jobs just weren't compatible. Late-notice shifts, having to move away to find better-paying work, or needing second jobs in the evenings to make ends meet. Even I struggle to get there with a supposed 8-5 job, which frequently overruns, and due to the shortage of leaders those of us left are running two sections a night.  I know other groups in the area struggle too- the only vaguely succesful ones in terms of recruiting young leaders are in Uni areas, but the problem there is the turnover as the students graduate and move away.

 

Personally I can't see it changing any time soon- it feels like generally jobs are less flexible than they used to be, and the need to maximise income means it's harder to justify free time spent working for free somewhere. We do Scouting as a family, so we can volunteer together, but I know I wouldn't have wanted to dump my wife all weekend looking after 3 young kids on her tod so I could spend all day on the local railway by myself.

 

With the kids all hitting their teens I started volunteering on the local line this year, deliberately picking a project with Archives (without regular shifts), and still struggle to fit in doing it after work (2 jobs), scouting, and ferrying the kids to extracurricular activities. And with an immense student loan to pay, and a succesion of jobs without proper pensions since Uni, I fully expect to have to stay working well into my 70's...