Bluebell Railway reports a loss of £220,000

Went yesterday. Took a child with me to make sure it was 'organic'.

Decided, strangely, to go to Horsted Keynes to start the journey. Worst bit was an extremely condescending one-side leaflet designed to show people how to exist on a pres line - nonsense. Staff seemed okay there, but then got on the train to Sheffield Park and the seats in the Mk1 compo were threadbare - really not good considering it was something like £42 for 2 adults and a kid. It just didn't seem very polished for what people say is a 'premier railway'.

Move on to Sheffield Park, and there's something akin to 5 platform staff for 5 trains (?) in a day. Far too many, all then standing about as if in a 'gang' which just looked bad. Some were rude; and then into the Bessemer Arms for lunch which was just chaotic. Staff getting off trains or volunteers there for a day off (!) blocking the food queue for customers and then cutting the line to get chips - and all in a cramped, dated place. Beer was warm and flat and I wouldn't have a drink in there again!

Time to go back to Horsted via East Grinstead. Tried the opposite end of the train where another Mk1 'Compo' is available. Slightly better, but a bit grubby. Used the toilet in the station about 60 seconds before departure time (2 pints of Coke and a tea hit me and I didn't think I needed it on the station), so decided to flush a bit of p*ss on the track without toilet tissue or what not. Immediately, station staff on the case and giving me grief through the window. Didn't look good at all. Journey to East Grinstead was uneventful.

Get to East Grinstead, bit rubbish. Very quiet - maybe the summer holiday travellers from London were travelling earlier to make the most of their day but either way the train wasn't exactly "full". Now, granted, the Load 6 appeared to be mostly full but when you've got 1/2 people on each table of 4 you could get away with a 4/5 coach which, when you consider the size of the Bluebell and the steaming costs I assume they need some full, long trains (8/9 coaches worth). We then went back to Horsted and jumped off to go home with no fanfare - shame.

What struck me, and has always struck me on the rare occasion I've been there, is:
- Not seen a single on-train or station staffer under 50 and they've usually been a bit rude and 'up themselves'. That's no good.
- This is a railway with a metric tonne of proper vintage coaches: Bulleid, Maunsell, four-wheelers and such. Perhaps if they went more down the route of "really vintage coaches and reasonable-sized locos" it would give them a real selling point (and I suspect the Mk1s are worth a lot!).
- I just wish they'd stop looking so plastic and excessively daft. It's a blooming steam railway - I don't want to see endless computer screens and the like. And have some half-decent events... Diesel might help!

And then there's the Haywards Heath malarkey. If they can do it, then I'm sure it would be lovely. But they can't even make a connection from East Grinstead work well...

good review
suspect the toilet flushing was more a test than full necessity
but well done anyway
yes when my son was about 3 or 4 i had a look through the open door on a birdcage brake van and go told off rather [thats a private area ]than encourage to enjoy and admire the i think adams van my son is now 29
https://www.bluebell-railway.co.uk/bluebell/pics/1601.html

I can’t fault the guys on the footplate for letting the boy have a look during the ~8 minute stop at Horsted; it made his day. Then again, they were all 25-35 years old!

The station staff I encountered at Horsted were so wooden. One of them I recognise from a previous visit as being a bit of a douche - Sheffield Park was the worst mind.

The thing that gets me is this absolutely mad “different stations, different periods” thing - staff at Sheffield Park going aboutnin LBSCR stuff and Horsted Keynes as if SR. It was all just odd.

To be honest. And having been on the ELR, SVR, bluebell, GWSR, swanage, watercress and a couple of other smaller ones in the last year, and this isn’t intended as a sleight, their offering is set in the 1980s.

Not in respect of the services, not in respect of thinking up events. Which tend to have ben well monetised.

But in respect of the high margin cafes. They mainly stink of fried food. One way or another. And yes, in Britain 35 years ago, that was fine. It isn’t now. Even with an older audience that is now approaching or,past pension age (as a fair bit of visitors still are...). The offering is typically pretty poor.

There are always people who bring their own food, always those who can’t afford to pay for better food, and that’s fair enough, but generally it’s profitable, and it would attract so much more revenue of it wasn’t just plastic wrapped muffins, badly undercooked bacon sandwiches, cheapo awful bulk sausages in cheap bread and catering chips. Lots of catering chips. The UK now has a wealth of decent bakeries, coffee, food, that they could source from or let use their mainly attractive premises.

I know it’s easy to cook and the volunteers who staff the caffs do their best, but it doesn’t fit with twenty first century Britain. Yes, I love a dirty bacon and sausage sandwich as much as anyone, but not The grease filled air you have to eat it in. And it has to be cooked properly ....

(I’d also add the scruffiness of some of the fundraising magazine vans and stalls. The ELR in particular feels like a flea market. But others are top quality for this..... SVR and Watercress and GWSR for a start)

Oh, and At the bluebell, the high platform ticket cost is daft. Just puts people off

The thing which strikes me about the Bluebell over many years is that it is a lottery. Visit A can produce lovely vehicles and delightful people. Visit B characterless, tired, Mk.1s and surliness. Sadly, visit B seems to be more representative.

A couple of instances. I buy a ticket watched by a group of staff at the barrier. When presented, it is examined front and back as if it were a forgery and a space reluctantly made for me to squeeze by. Then there are the incessant loudspeaker announcements including one particularly annoying but recurring one to the effect that latecomers should make sure they shut the door behind them. Platform staff are there for just that, i.e. escorting latecomers to a seat and shutting doors, ideally with a smile. It should be part of the experience.

Basically, if running a branchline, a bit of care is needed to ensure you are producing the atmosphere of a branchline, even on busy days.

Actually, you’re right on the revenue protection. It’s excessive. And it isn’t friendly. The people are polite enough, but it’s overbearing.

Paul Hitchcock said:

The thing which strikes me about the Bluebell over many years is that it is a lottery. Visit A can produce lovely vehicles and delightful people. Visit B characterless, tired, Mk.1s and surliness. Sadly, visit B seems to be more representative.

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I work on a railway that mainly operates Mark 1s, but does have older vehicles available. However, the Mark 1s are used 90% of the time because they're easier to operate and maintain, and the older vehicles can be problematic if operated all the time. Use of the older vehicles, when it happens, is usually well-publicized.

The Bluebell is, of course, very unusual in having a lot of pre-nationalization coaches available, and it's a shame if they're not using them to a decent extent - it's one of the things that really sets them apart from other railways, where the Mark 1 is the bog-standard offering. Not that there's anything wrong with a Mark 1 - they do the job, and are now largely history on the main line - but it's nice to ride in something different.

The Bluebell does make good use of their Pre-MK1 stock, which is lovely. Usually on two train days they have one MK1 set and one other set out, so you can easily travel on the older coaches if you wish.

Journeyman said:

I work on a railway that mainly operates Mark 1s, but does have older vehicles available. However, the Mark 1s are used 90% of the time because they're easier to operate and maintain, and the older vehicles can be problematic if operated all the time. Use of the older vehicles, when it happens, is usually well-publicized.

The Bluebell is, of course, very unusual in having a lot of pre-nationalization coaches available, and it's a shame if they're not using them to a decent extent - it's one of the things that really sets them apart from other railways, where the Mark 1 is the bog-standard offering. Not that there's anything wrong with a Mark 1 - they do the job, and are now largely history on the main line - but it's nice to ride in something different.

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Mk.1s were thought to be the "easy" way out although recent happenings have proved this less true than had been imagined. One line utilises exclusively pre 1924 carriage stock so it can be done. Of the two rakes, both in regular use, one has seven vehicles all pre 1900 with some of very great interest. Time for a general catch up I think.

I’ve visited the Bluebell Railway on 4 occasions during the last 5 years. These have usually been on either the Sunday or Monday of the May Day Bank Holiday weekends. I have to say that it is one of my favourite preserved railways. To me it just seems to have a good feeling to it, lovely countryside and just a nice place to spend a day in a lovely part of the country.

Three of those occasions I have been staying in South London and have travelled down to access the Bluebell Line by train to East Grinstead. As mainline trains to East Grinstead are every 30 minutes even on Sundays and Bank Holidays there is never long to wait for the Bluebell Line train or the connection on the way back. This year I visited on the Bank Holiday Monday and travelled up from Brighton using to 270 bus to from Hayward’s Heath to Keynes Station. Nothing connected leaving me with long waits for a train on arrival and for the bus back in the afternoon.

Most of my experiences of the Bluebell Line are very positive or I wouldn’t keep going back. Just a few negative points. As already mentioned the poor connections between the 270 bus and trains at Horsted Keynes, but that is probably not the fault of the railway.

Secondly it states on the Bluebell Website and on Metro Bus Website that there is a £2.50 reduction in ticket price if you travel by bus and show your Metro bus ticket or Keycard. The man in the booking office at Horsted refused me the discount saying that he knew nothing about it. He didn’t even know what my Keycard was and thought it was some type of bus staff discount card. As there is no mobile signal at Horsted I was not able to show him the details on the website on my phone, but he didn’t look the type who had ever used a mobile phone! I mentioned it to a member of staff at Sheffield Park but he didn’t seem very concerned.

Lastly, even though it was a Bank Holiday Weekend, shortage of staff meant no refreshment facilities at Horsted Keynes. It’s a lovely old large station but very quiet with little to do between trains. As the trains pass here, it’s very busy for a few minutes and then can be very quiet and almost deserted for often well over an hour. One of my visits was on an unusually hot day and the only place I could find anything to drink was the cold water tap in a very old, somewhat primitive men’s toilet.

You don't really go looking for good quality website design in the world of railway preservation, but the Bluebell website is particularly poor. It follows that table format that websites used back in the '90s, and is stuffed with blue hyperlinks and small grainy photos from the dawn of digital photography. From a user journey point of view it is a bit hopeless. Perhaps it reflects the parochial and archaic views of the organisation?

Alanko said:

You don't really go looking for good quality website design in the world of railway preservation, but the Bluebell website is particularly poor. It follows that table format that websites used back in the '90s, and is stuffed with blue hyperlinks and small grainy photos from the dawn of digital photography. From a user journey point of view it is a bit hopeless. Perhaps it reflects the parochial and archaic views of the organisation?

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I imagine you are referring to https://www.bluebell-railway.co.uk and not https://www.bluebell-railway.com ? The .com version appears to be aimed at your average visitor while the .co.uk one appears to be for the enthusiast (and lovers of retro websites).

geo said:

I imagine you are referring to https://www.bluebell-railway.co.uk and not https://www.bluebell-railway.com ? The .com version appears to be aimed at your average visitor while the .co.uk one appears to be for the enthusiast (and lovers of retro websites).

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Which just shows how utterly muddled they are. Two official websites?

43096 said:

Which just shows how utterly muddled they are. Two official websites?

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No, one official website.

The second one is, as the previous poster noted, aimed at enthusiasts who require detail that would clutter the official website - no different to the websites locomotive groups have at other railways to compliment the official sites.

JonathanH said:

No, one official website.

The second one is, as the previous poster noted, aimed at enthusiasts who require detail that would clutter the official website - no different to the websites locomotive groups have at other railways to compliment the official sites.

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It doesn’t look like that, though. At a first look they look like duplicates.

If it looks like a duck, swims like a duck and quacks like a duck, then it very likely is a duck. Same applies here.

43096 said:

Which just shows how utterly muddled they are. Two official websites?

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Just so

43096 said:

It doesn’t look like that, though. At a first look they look like duplicates.

If it looks like a duck, swims like a duck and quacks like a duck, then it very likely is a duck. Same applies here.

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Just so.

Just done a search for Bluebell Railway using bing
first up comes .co.uk - 'Bluebell Railway - one of the best family days out...'
second comes .com - 'Bluebell Railway Official - heritage steam trains and days...'
Using the usual method of clicking the first result that comes up, the casual punter goes to the very amateurish .co.uk site asking for donations and volunteers and various links, some to .co.uk and some to .com
Yes, .com does have useful links from the top of the page, but .co.uk from the search headline suggests to use this if you're a family looking for a day out.

Why on earth is the railway so fractured it needs two different websites with double the effort to maintain them? Plus two web domains to pay for when the railway is loosing money. Surely it needs every penny?

geo said:

I imagine you are referring to https://www.bluebell-railway.co.uk and not https://www.bluebell-railway.com ? The .com version appears to be aimed at your average visitor while the .co.uk one appears to be for the enthusiast (and lovers of retro websites).

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Indeed, I stumbled on the former website rather than the latter. Two websites is baffling enough and a third dedicated to their museum is borderline lunacy http://www.bluebell-railway-museum.co.uk/resp/. The more modern website is a bit more Web 2.0, but is still a bit cluttered and busy. The temptation is always there to dump your Twitter and Instagram feeds on the side of pages, but nobody looks at these!

If you accidentally navigate to this fourth website then you are trapped: https://bluebell.vticket.co.uk/index.php. 'Home' doesn't take you back to their main site but circles you back to the 'vticket' site index.

If it was up to me I would:
1/ Change the 'enthusiast' site to redirect to the the 'visitor' site
2/ Relocate the 'enthusiast' site under an appropriate link + sub-urls on the main site. Adding one 'enthusiast' link under the main menu would *not* clutter the 'visitor' site.

Possibly initially have the 'enthusiast' site to have a short delay on the redirect to let display a message letting enthusiasts know where to find their content, and after 6 months or a year, just redirect straight away.

In my opinion this would lead to a more visitor friendly experience.

I went to the bluebell today for my second visit and it was pretty good. The coaches were restored well and the countryside views were decent when the sun was out. The bluebell railway should probably shelve expansion plans though, maybe even selling some of the land they own for the ardingly expansion.

I note from the railway press that there still remains NO reason given as to the resignation of Chairman Dick Fearn & General Manager Julie Jones. Odd that both resigned at the same time too. Mr Fearn was full of himself when in office now he seems to have disappeared & gone very quiet. Why?
What is the Bluebell is hiding or ashamed of because I find the situation highly suspicious. Using the 'Freedom of information Act why hasn't an explanation been demanded?
All a bit too hush-hush yet somehow typical of a heritage line that always had the whiff of arrogance & self-satisfaction. One of many reasons I ceased working there as a volunteer.

PUFFINGBILLY said:

I note from the railway press that there still remains NO reason given as to the resignation of Chairman Dick Fearn & General Manager Julie Jones. Odd that both resigned at the same time too. Mr Fearn was full of himself when in office now he seems to have disappeared & gone very quiet. Why?
What is the Bluebell is hiding or ashamed of because I find the situation highly suspicious. Using the 'Freedom of information Act why hasn't an explanation been demanded?
All a bit too hush-hush yet somehow typical of a heritage line that always had the whiff of arrogance & self-satisfaction. One of many reasons I ceased working there as a volunteer.

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The Freedom of Information Act only applies to public bodies.

yes it does seem very strange that 2 senior members of staff quit at the same time.
if you ask me it all comes down to money. the bluebell burned most of it's money building the extension to EG, doesn't help that steam engines aren't as reliable as diesels.

PUFFINGBILLY said:

I note from the railway press that there still remains NO reason given as to the resignation of Chairman Dick Fearn & General Manager Julie Jones. Odd that both resigned at the same time too. Mr Fearn was full of himself when in office now he seems to have disappeared & gone very quiet. Why?
What is the Bluebell is hiding or ashamed of because I find the situation highly suspicious. Using the 'Freedom of information Act why hasn't an explanation been demanded?
All a bit too hush-hush yet somehow typical of a heritage line that always had the whiff of arrogance & self-satisfaction. One of many reasons I ceased working there as a volunteer.

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If you are a Shareholder I am sure the information would have been available, but like in many companies, information does not have to be made public.

Llanigraham said:

If you are a Shareholder I am sure the information would have been available, but like in many companies, information does not have to be made public.

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Agreed that information doesn't have to be made public, but for organisations that rely heavily on volunteer support it is wise to be as transparent as possible. In the absence of official information, the rumour-mill will soon start generating false information that will likely be far worse.