009 micro modeller

What about the ones where you can generally get on and off at all the stations, but an extension beyond the last station simply takes you to a run round loop where you cannot get off, before returning back the way you came? This is what Brecon Mountain was like before the extension was fully open, and I think Nene Valley similarly at one stage - in both cases it was clearly possible to do some sort of point-to-point journey on the rest of the line though. I particularly enjoyed the last bullet point… 😅. On the rest of it though, as @Chris M suggested earlier, even if other aspects of the NYMR are allegedly not being run well I sort of doubt that they’d do something like this without taking proper advice, especially if they have (or used to have) people working for them who come from charity or museum backgrounds, and who should know how Gift Aid works. I’m not sure that a structure involving a PLC and a charity, rather than two charities, is the most logical way to do it, but as before I think the main issue is the operational/capacity implications of a system where people are able to ride again at no additional cost, as well as the high initial price putting some people off. I can’t remember which railways or how they do it, but as I recall there are other heritage lines besides the NYMR which collect Gift Aid on fares.

Does that mean though that it was still more focused on tourism than public transport for those living locally? I thought there was also the idea/hope at one stage that it might actually be used by local people travelling in and out of Swanage. A good point but how reliable/punctual are the buses between Wareham and Swanage? I’m not familiar with them but in my own local area they tend to be vastly slower and less dependable than the trains (but these are National Rail trains, so possibly not a relevant comparison to Swanage).

Same body shape as the metal Dinky one?

LNER ham salad for me.

I thought in some cases there had been issues complying with charitable objectives if giving money to a PLC company. Though unlike the WSR/S&D Washford situation (where this point was specifically brought up, though I think there were plenty of other contentious aspects), if it’s the supporting charity for a heritage line’s operating company then a clear case should be able to be made that such a grant is in support of said objectives (assuming that the charity does actually have control over the operating company). One of the museums I currently work for has two charitable trusts, one of which similarly has no staff etc. and whose function is simply to own the collection, thus safeguarding the collection in the event that the other trust (responsible for the everyday operational side, ticketing, maintenance, paying staff etc.) gets into debt. There are one or two subsidiary companies (not charities) to carry out specific functions. I understand that a similar structure is used in other heritage organisations, the reason being that previously there have been cases of museums that did not split their organisational structure in this way having to sell collection objects to repay debt incurred by the operational side. There are also what used to be local authority-run museums that have now been spun off to independent charitable trusts, but the collections continue to be owned by the local authority (I think York works like this). One of the differences with some heritage railways (probably due to the way they were originally set up) seems to be the use of PLC companies (which may imply shareholders who may disagree with what the supporting charity wants). So a rather unique situation then, as the train ride part was British Rail, rather than a heritage railway. Not that that affects the overall point being made. Exactly, and I wasn’t suggesting they hadn’t, just pointing out that elsewhere there are other structures that can also be used to legitimately collect Gift Aid. I wonder where they draw the line though? Could they get away with it by continuously running the train up and down the line until the meal service has concluded? I can’t find the original quote to respond directly (or is it from elsewhere, rather than this thread?) but am unclear what specific difference registering with the Museums and Galleries Commission would make (and in any case it was wound up in 2000). Similarly for the small number of heritage railways where the entire line is an Accredited Museum (which is a distinction largely to do with collections management and other professional standards and not really relevant here) it doesn’t really mean that their trains operate entirely within a ‘place of entertainment’.

Wasn’t there a similar discussion about cruise ships or similar, which are also ‘excursions’ but not exactly public transport. Santa Specials seem an oddly specific thing to list. Isn’t it more usual, on heritage railways, for it to be the trading/operating company that gives grants to the charitable trust? Obviously that way round wouldn’t work in this case because of the Gift Aid angle but I’d just observe that some other museums have two charitable trusts (one operations and one collections, or similar), so both are charities and can claim Gift Aid, rather than the more convoluted arrangement here.

Picking up on this again, I suppose another consideration is that not everyone will visit again within a year of their original visit, even if they are an annual pass holder. You could even look at what percentage of people visit again, how many times, from what demographics or areas of the country etc. etc. and what effect this has overall. But that’s the sort of visitor data you probably only get if you’ve already been running the annual pass scheme for a few years.

That’s what I thought. And now that I think about it the only places that I’ve visited (and nowhere I’ve ever worked) that did something like this were selling the annual pass at a slightly higher price than the day one (probably by an amount equivalent to the 10% donation, and eligible for Gift Aid, but not actually requiring Gift Aid to be used), which is different from Gift Aid where the actual price paid by the visitor is the same as a day ticket, as we’ve been discussing. As above, this is the main issue that I had with it as well. If it was on a small, fairly short railway that had relatively low visitor numbers and plenty of unused capacity (such that most trains run half empty, perhaps) and felt that it would benefit substantially from secondary spend etc. from returning visitors then it would make sense, but I was under the impression that the NYMR isn’t really like that and that capacity is sometimes quite tight. I’m also reminded (by analogy) of a Nat Pres discussion about people who bought shares in heritage railway companies ages ago, really as a form of donation, but where the cost of servicing the shareholders/donors now substantially outweighs the value of the original donation. As a heritage charity (where community engagement, education etc. is important as well making money - indeed in a lot of cases it should be the reason why they need the money, not the other way round), the cost is also one more barrier to entry for a lot of potential visitors (as similarly discussed elsewhere within several museum organisations that have to charge for admission because they need the funding from admission charges, but still dislike the way that this prices people out). On the other hand, if the organisation really needs the money there may have to be a point where it is calculated that selling to a smaller number of people who can and will pay the higher price is more financially viable than selling to more people at a lower price. The annual pass system is used in other museums and tourist attractions so I don’t really have a problem with it from that perspective, it’s just that in the NYMR’s operation the cost of providing extra capacity can be directly attributed to the visitors who then use that capacity (some of whom will now be repeat visitors with annual passes riding “for free”, so to speak), whereas in other kinds of museum operation adding in more visitors and needing to serve them will not particularly create capacity issues or obviously and immediately increase costs in the same way.

In fairness, I’m not sure changing trains particularly appealed to enthusiasts either in this instance. Is there a particular reason why they didn’t go for the ‘through service provided by a TOC’ option (whether SWR or someone else)? The focus so far seems to have been on the SR doing it all itself with its own stock.

Indeed (and it should hopefully be fairly obvious that it can’t be compulsory), but the question was about whether they were requiring people to Gift Aid in order to make what would have been a day pass into an annual one, for the same price. I’ve seen some places that have done this in some form but the organisation I work for doesn’t - we simply sell either day tickets (to people who are unlikely to return within the year, e.g. tourists, and who don’t want to leave any personal details) or annual ones (which are the same price, but you obviously need to leave some details so that the annual ticket can be traceable for future visits, if the physical ticket is lost, to check expiry date etc. - you only need to give a postal address if Gift Aiding though). Possibly overthinking this a bit. I find the annual ticket idea easier to understand by comparing it to other museums that have the same kind of annual ticketing. The NYMR is the museum in this instance and it has multiple entry and exit points, i.e. stations in this case (plenty of museums have multiple entrances - at the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich for instance I’ve sometimes walked in one side, around and through it and out the other side, arriving by train into Greenwich but then walking through the park and leaving from Maze Hill). The fact that you get around the NYMR “museum” by train rather than walking (or whatever) isn’t particularly relevant from that point of view. The odd bit for me (as covered earlier in the thread) is that many museums that include some sort of train or ride do not allow people to have endless repeat rides on it at no additional cost, even when they are otherwise free admission or have annual tickets. Some do, e.g. the DVLR at Murton Park, but presumably they wouldn’t if it was presenting capacity problems. I’m also thinking back to my (imagined, completely theoretical, though I quite fancy a model railway based on the concept) example of an old mineral railway restored as a heritage line, where you get on at a park and ride station (where the only car park and visitor entrance is) and ride along the line to the museum, built into old industrial buildings in a remote location and only publicly accessible by train (and these are the only two stations). In this example it would seem sensible to sell an annual ticket that gives access to the museum for a year, assuming that it’s the museum that makes up the main part of the visit, and the railway could be said to be within the museum (as opposed to the other way round, with a relatively small museum attached to a heritage railway). But it would equally make sense for that annual ticket to include unlimited train travel, since it would be literally impossible to visit the museum without going on the train. But there are several key differences between this theoretical setup and the NYMR.

A shame but an interesting read. I’m still left wondering whether it’s the basic concept of a service to Wareham that’s the problem, or more that in the form that it’s currently practical to run the service ends up not being particularly convenient or easy to use. While it doesn’t really provide quite the same public transport function as originally intended, would a more organised and frequent programme of visiting railtours (perhaps on summer Sundays or similar, when there’s hopefully a bit more capacity on NR for them but also people are more likely to visit Swanage) work well as an alternative to the trial of a regular scheduled service?

The only explanation I can think of is that plenty of charities/museums that do something similar technically sell their tickets through a ‘trading company’, but in the example I’m most familiar with the organisation responsible for the operational side is itself also a charity (just separate from the collections-owning charity, for fairly obvious reasons) rather than a plc, so that issue wouldn’t apply in the same way.

Why would they be, if tickets aren’t? It’s arguably either a form of season ticket or a form of rover ticket (but valid for a year rather than, as more traditionally, a shorter period). For Gift Aid I gather that it needs to be made into an annual pass (or some similar benefit) in order to be considered a form of donation and qualify for Gift Aid. I can’t remember if charities can reclaim VAT in this specific sort of context (I know they can for some things obviously) so not sure if that would be relevant. I find it unlikely that they’d have gone down this route (not to mention the multiple other museums with similar annual ticketing systems) if it did just cancel it out.

Had another go with this yesterday (no photos though as they don’t particularly show anything new). The pickups work better on the Kato-based design but the springing is causing a bit of an issue, in that it gets pushed down a lot under the weight of the standard gauge wagon. It’s also a bit top-heavy and I wonder if I’d be better off going back to and improving my original design? The issue there was lack of precision and the axle design meaning that not all wheels were used for pickup. Are there any 009 or N gauge wheels with the insulators in the middle of the axle rather than on one side? Or even completely uninsulated, which I could work with as well?

Yes. Though that would require people to know that that is the name of one of their locos. But that’s arguably a less obscure point of reference than slate sizes.

Ah yes, didn’t spot that at first but a nice touch. I wonder how many people will notice though?

Why is this a bad thing? It does suggest that TT120 is bringing in people who for whatever reason (probably lack of space, given the comparison with 00, though that assumes they don’t want to do N gauge for some reason) haven’t been ‘in’ the hobby before (though they might follow it and have a small amount of stock in a larger scale but not have anything actually running yet). As a narrow gauge modeller I find 009 to be a good size, with the presence and detail of 00 but N gauge track geometry so it takes up less space. Whenever I’ve looked into doing even a tiny layout in standard gauge 00 it has quickly become apparent that the space required for an equivalent track layout is substantially larger than 009, even if really simple, small radius and only designed for short 4-wheeled locos and stock. So TT could be an option for me in future (and even more so for those strange people who only like standard gauge and therefore don’t see 009 as an option 😜). But anyway, with the number of people melodramatically predicting ‘the death of the hobby’ (or perhaps it’s just the death of traditional RTR, which isn’t really the same thing), surely it’s good to see more newcomers?

Also there are the Docklands Light Railway engineering locos - seemingly fairly normal industrial shunters but I’m not sure if they’ve had their wheels re-profiled to match that of the passenger stock (which is more steeply coned to run on the sharp curves, though obviously they don’t have any street running).

Another line that I hadn’t heard about before. Also good to see that there are some 2’ gauge miniature lines still in operation (as opposed to smaller gauges, which seem to be more popular for theme park lines these days, and as distinct from ‘proper’ narrow gauge heritage railways). Although I can’t work out why so many of them seem to be in Scotland.

Is this because (rather like the Snowdon Mountain Railway, which iirc only sells single tickets on a stand-by, walk-up basis) they ideally need that capacity to be available for people to make full-line return trips, and then they can sell walk-up single tickets around that based on what space is left? If (as has been suggested elsewhere) the trains are full to capacity at busy times then, in some ways, this seems quite sensible from the point of view of increasing income (if they can’t increase capacity). Do you have to gift aid in order to make your ticket into an annual pass or are they all annual passes anyway now?

Was it only on unpaved track then? That might explain why they didn’t need the gauge difference. Interesting - I knew they’d worked on the outer, ex-railway sections but didn’t realise they’d made it to the city centre.

I’m not sure about this, or that it applies to all the modern tram networks. I thought Sheffield Supertram used a compromise profile on the tram-trains and a tramway one for the other trams (a horse tram from the old Sheffield system has run on Supertram, as has a works tram from Berlin iirc). I think Manchester Metrolink uses a more railway-like profile because of how much of it is on converted heavy rail lines (not all relaid initially), but they’ve also had stock from the ELR running on parts of it. The issue of the wheel profiles being incompatible also doesn’t seem to apply globally - e.g. as covered elsewhere on RMWeb there are some trolley/interurban museums in the US that also operate some very heavy electric railway locomotives, all DC overhead obviously but sometimes running off a lower voltage than the one they were designed for (a bit like if Crich operated an EM1, which obviously they don’t/can’t).

Didn’t Portsmouth use a similar tram gauge? I don’t know if this was for the same reason though. Blackpool seems to have worked main line coal wagons over the tramway with no such adjustment (as the tramway there is standard gauge). I was under the impression that it was to do with the different wheel profiles and possibly the shallower flangeway provided by grooved tram rail. Hence my question about what gauge the loco itself would be as it’s not clear whether it would need to have tramway or railway-spec wheels (presumably dependent on what type of track it spent more of its time on, though having a powered vehicle, as opposed to an unpowered wagon, running on its flanges doesn’t seem like a great idea). Of course, in model form we could largely ignore this minor detail and have a very interesting layout.

I had a look, apparently they did run over the tram network (and continued to do so on a retained section of track after the passenger trams stopped running, with the electric loco modified to run off the replacement trolleybus twin-wire overhead). Given that Glasgow trams were 4’ 7 3/4” gauge to accommodate standard gauge railway wagons (with their different, railway rather than tramway wheel profile) running in the flangeways, I can’t work out what gauge would have been used for the shipyard’s internal sidings or the loco itself. It would make an interesting and unusual prototype for a micro layout though.

Interesting. Were the wagons for the shipyard hauled over the tram network (as I think they did elsewhere in Glasgow) or are the two tracks in the old photo just coincidentally parallel at this point?