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Standees on heritage railways

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adc82140

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I went on the Swanage railway today. On one leg of the journey, the train was packed with people having to stand.

I am a great fan of the SR, and visit regularly. However I can't help thinking today they underestimated the demand. It is half term after all. I didn't mind standing in the guards van, but I think it may put off casual visitors who after all have parted with 15 quid a head.

What are your thoughts?
 
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Cowley

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I went on the Swanage railway today. On one leg of the journey, the train was packed with people having to stand.

I am a great fan of the SR, and visit regularly. However I can't help thinking today they underestimated the demand. It is half term after all. I didn't mind standing in the guards van, but I think it may put off casual visitors who after all have parted with 15 quid a head.

What are your thoughts?
Are they limited by platform lengths/available coaching stock?
The weather can also play a part with a lot of lines - bad weather can make a trip in a warm train attractive for holidaymakers.
 

Belperpete

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I went on the Swanage railway today. On one leg of the journey, the train was packed with people having to stand.

I am a great fan of the SR, and visit regularly. However I can't help thinking today they underestimated the demand. It is half term after all. I didn't mind standing in the guards van, but I think it may put off casual visitors who after all have parted with 15 quid a head.

What are your thoughts?
Surely they should stop selling tickets when they have sold as many as the train will hold. Can be a bit difficult with the return leg, where people may choose to return on a later train, but experience will tell roughly how many will tend to do this.
 

yorkie

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Surely they should stop selling tickets when they have sold as many as the train will hold.
do they sell tickets for specific trains though? If not, how does this work with flexible fares?

Also were there actually more people than the train could hold? It isn't mentioned that anyone was unable to board.

I'd imagine a refund would be available if anyone was unable to board or chose not to stand.
 

Midnight Sun

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Are they limited by platform lengths/available coaching stock?
The weather can also play a part with a lot of lines - bad weather can make a trip in a warm train attractive for holidaymakers.

The limited factor is the platform length at Swanage due to the compact layout, Five coaches in the main platform, Three in the bay. Longer trains would require a station pilot to release the engine. This would allow seven coaches to be platformed. The platform cannnot be lenghten due to no space. So normal service trains are based on a five coaches plus engine.

swanage station.jpg
 
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adc82140

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It is a tricky one to call. In a way, it's a "good" problem for a heritage railway to have. One of the problems was that one carriage was reserved for a single party. I understand that a 5 carriage train is the maximum the station can reasonably hold. There were only 4 trains running in each direction all day. That's probably enough during off peak weekends, but I wonder if they should have planned a diesel service to fill the gaps during this week. It was destined to be busy. A lot of other heritage operators are not running this week, the mid hants being the closest alternative, and they have got their Flying Scotsman event, which whilst a great event will put off turn up and goers like myself.
 

bishdunster

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Extra diesel service not possible as being low season the passing loop at Harmans Cross cannot be used, it being obstructed due to scaffolding in place for work on the signal box. Presumably the unprecedented demand was due to a combination of poor weather and a coach pre-booked for a group.
 

E759

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A lot of sprawling goes on on heritage railways. A family of two will take a bay of four, a family of four/five will take two bays of four. Three in a corridor compartment and no one else will enter. Compartment coaches create the most humorous situations (“Oh, I though this was my compartment”!). A lot of these passengers rarely travel by train so aren’t attuned to seat etiquette.
 

Journeyman

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It is a tricky one to call. In a way, it's a "good" problem for a heritage railway to have. One of the problems was that one carriage was reserved for a single party. I understand that a 5 carriage train is the maximum the station can reasonably hold. There were only 4 trains running in each direction all day. That's probably enough during off peak weekends, but I wonder if they should have planned a diesel service to fill the gaps during this week. It was destined to be busy. A lot of other heritage operators are not running this week, the mid hants being the closest alternative, and they have got their Flying Scotsman event, which whilst a great event will put off turn up and goers like myself.

Agreed, I won't go anywhere near Flying Scotsman simply because you can guarantee the place will be unbearably crowded.

I don' think heritage railways are any different to any others, at times they are likely to be very busy, and short of introducing some sort of reservation system, there's not much you can do.
 

Cowley

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The limited factor is the platform length at Swanage due to the compact layout, Five coaches in the main platform, Three in the bay. Longer trains would require a station pilot to release the engine. This would allow seven coaches to be platformed. The platform cannnot be lenghten due to no space. So normal service trains are based on a five coaches plus engine.

View attachment 74198
Thanks for that, and as @adc82140 said there were 4 trains out running on a line that’s only around the 10 mile long mark it sounds like they were pretty much full to capacity.
Good for them I suppose.
 

Belperpete

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do they sell tickets for specific trains though? If not, how does this work with flexible fares?

Also were there actually more people than the train could hold? It isn't mentioned that anyone was unable to board.

I'd imagine a refund would be available if anyone was unable to board or chose not to stand.
On most heritage railways, particularly when running a very limited service, it is a fairly safe bet that anyone turning up at the booking office wants to travel on the next train. The railway should stop selling tickets as soon as they have sold as many as the train can hold, or the train physically becomes full. In this case, they knew that one coach was reserved, they should be able to estimate from experience how many places are likely to be taken by those with flexible tickets, and making an allowance for the sprawl factor, gives the number of tickets that you should sell. It is not exactly rocket science.

As the OP pointed out, charging someone standing in a brake van the same fare as someone with a comfortable seat and a good view is not good, and it is likely to get the railway poor reviews on TripAdvisor and social media. Yes, passengers should be able to get a refund if they don't want to stand, but those passengers have already queued to buy a ticket and may have waited awhile for the train, and now have to waste further time to get a refund, so are not going to be happy.

Yes, the SR may have under-estimated demand. It can be very difficult to predict demand in advance. And even if you do predict the demand, it is not always practical or economic to match supply to demand. However, the critical thing is how you manage it. To get to the situation where people are having to stand in the guards van indicates that they lost control.
 
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The railway should stop selling tickets as soon as they have sold as many as the train can hold, or the train physically becomes full.
It is not practical to do that because there will be people who bought online, who can turn up for any train, plus people returning, using a ticket bought at another station. Then there are day rover tickets, so there is no way to make this work. Bear in mind also that running more services may not be possible because insufficient volunteers are available. Believe me, they do try as hard as possible to make a great day out for everyone, but without a crystal ball and a magic wand, it isn't always that easy.
 

adc82140

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This was pretty much my point. I think they're stuck between a rock and a hard place. Of course, they want their attraction to be popular. Punters pay the bills. But too popular and it leads to negative tripadvisor reviews (for right or wrong).

I didn't realise that the Harmans Cross loop was unavailable, so therefore they would have been running at full capacity.

Perhaps they could have supplemented the service with a vintage rail replacement bus :p
Actually in all seriousness, if a vintage bus was on as well, I'd have given it a go.
 

Journeyman

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If I'd shown up at a heritage railway after a long drive only to be told I couldn't travel because they'd filled all the seats, I'd be far more annoyed than I would be if I had to stand.
 
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yorkie

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On most heritage railways, particularly when running a very limited service, it is a fairly safe bet that anyone turning up at the booking office wants to travel on the next train. The railway should stop selling tickets as soon as they have sold as many as the train can hold, or the train physically becomes full. ...
But what if it's not the first train of the day and rovers have already been sold? Also how would you know which trains people will be using their return portion on?
If I'd shown up at a heritage railway after a long drive only to be told I couldn't travel because they'd filled all the seats, I'd be far more annoyed than I would be if I had to stand.
Exactly.
 

E759

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Can go wrong at an all ticketed event too. Mid-Hants sold more tickets than there were seats in Coach F on the Friday Flying Scotsman trains. I donated my seat and stood in the vestibules at the front of the train. But I did overhear some embarrassing entitled conversations along the lines of “I was here first so I’m having your seat and not moving”. Really felt for the volunteers who were on the receiving end of the cock-up.
 

Journeyman

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But what if it's not the first train of the day and rovers have already been sold? Also how would you know which trains people will be using their return portion on?

Also, many railways have multiple stations where people can board. How are you supposed to co-ordinate information on tickets sold? You'd need some sort of complex management system for it.
 

Journeyman

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Can go wrong at an all ticketed event too. Mid-Hants sold more tickets than there were seats in Coach F on the Friday Flying Scotsman trains. I donated my seat and stood in the vestibules at the front of the train. But I did overhear some embarrassing entitled conversations along the lines of “I was here first so I’m having your seat and not moving”. Really felt for the volunteers who were on the receiving end of the cock-up.

Gah, what it is about Flying Scotsman that makes people behave like such idiots? This is why I'm happy to stay well away from it.
 

Richard P

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Heritage railways have in reality limited windows of opportunity to make real money, i.e. bank holidays and school holidays which is why they've pretty much all also created themed events throughout the year. The challenge for them I am sure is supply and demand and I suspect that demand is almost always determined by the weather. Hot, dry summers generally equal poor numbers, a wet summer is invariably a god send.

The issue does seem to often revolve around pre-booked locked out coaches for organised trips and when these combine with bad weather then the residual seating comes under pressure. I was on the NYMR last summer on a wet day and the 10.00am service from Pickering was to put it mildly, overcrowded. Standing room only in every carriage and not a seat to be had - the situation was made worse by also having to wait for 30 minutes at Levisham for a late running service from Grosmont that had failed to make it up the bank to Goathland. There were some seriously annoyed customers on board and I am sure a few claims for money back would have been experienced by the NYMR - an adult return to Grosmont was around £25.00 from memory so it's not cheap.

I absolutely take on board the unpredictability of numbers on any given day and maybe systems aren't sufficiently robust to restrict the number of tickets sold. What was though on this day abundantly clear 10 minutes before departure was the train was full yet the NYMR kept on selling tickets with impunity in full view of the packed carriages
 

181

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I absolutely take on board the unpredictability of numbers on any given day and maybe systems aren't sufficiently robust to restrict the number of tickets sold. What was though on this day abundantly clear 10 minutes before departure was the train was full yet the NYMR kept on selling tickets with impunity in full view of the packed carriages

And as people have said above, if they hadn't, customers (although presumably not the same ones) would have been annoyed by that too. Perhaps the solution is to say 'we can sell you a ticket, but you'll probably have to stand' -- that way people can make an informed choice about whether to buy a ticket.
 

Merle Haggard

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The Paignton & Dartmouth Steam Railway (which is possibly more of a commercial undertaking than a 'heritage railway') seem to limit ticket sales to seats available. One has to file past the ticket office to get on the train, often after queueing for 5 - 10 minutes.
I could theoretically do Northampton - Paignton and back, and have a reasonable day there, if everything runs to time, but with a less than 10 minute connection at Paignton. When I asked about the practicability of buying a ticket and getting on the train in that short timespan, I was told that it was unlikely they would still be selling tickets that shortly before departure, because they stop when the number of passengers that have passed through the barrier equals the seating capacity of the train.
Of course, on ordinary days 'heritage railways' generally speaking encourage by price the purchase of tickets valid for travel all day, so it would be an impossible calculation to ensure no train has passengers in excess of seats
 

duffield

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I don't think there is a good case for not selling tickets when services are busy; you just need the ticket office staff to say that (e.g.) 'the next service may be very busy and you may not get a seat' before taking your money.
Personally I'd usually still buy the ticket and take my chances.
 

paul1609

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Where your railway has a destination where people get off and spend the day factors like the weather can have a huge effect on the train loadings on the return journey which is really beyond the railways control. Ive been the fireman on our vintage train with the P Class when a sudden shower at Bodiam Castle sent 300 people suddenly wanting to return to Tenterden. There was a 5 coach train an hour later but most of the punters insisted on standing in the vintage coaches for an hour journey instead. I had to walk down the train at Wittersham to collect the token and it really was like something out of Indian Railways.
Strangely they all seemed to really have a happy experience with it. The ascent of Tenterden Bank with all that weight on wasn't my most exciting.
 

The_Train

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Gah, what it is about Flying Scotsman that makes people behave like such idiots? This is why I'm happy to stay well away from it.

Is that sort of behaviour the fault of Flying Scotsman or the fault of humans and the society that we live in?

I'm not sure that heritage lines can do anything about it if too many people turn up. It's not like a cinema, theatre or football ground where there is a ticket for each seat and once they are sold out no more are sold. As has been said, there's that many connotations to ticket sales that it's just not possible to monitor how many have been sold. If people are going to complain then so be it, it's the British way after all :lol:
 

paul1609

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When we do Santa specials and Thomas events we do sell tickets for a particular seat on a particular train and when there sold out there sold out so it is possible. On the other hand we are unlikely to ever host Flying Scotsman.
 

The_Train

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When we do Santa specials and Thomas events we do sell tickets for a particular seat on a particular train and when there sold out there sold out so it is possible. On the other hand we are unlikely to ever host Flying Scotsman.

For special events it's easy to do, particularly if it's a service that does a run out and a run back and that's it. I suppose it's of particular importance for services aimed at kids as well. You could easily do if for FS as well. Just sell tickets for each return service and allocate tickets to a specific train, same as an advance on the national network.

I don't know which railway you work for but I doubt they do this sort of thing for trains working their standard daily timetable?
 

pdeaves

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When we do Santa specials and Thomas events we do sell tickets for a particular seat on a particular train and when there sold out there sold out so it is possible.
In that situation, you are also unlikely to have a random number of people leave 'somewhere down the line', hang around for a bit and all want to return on the last train.
 

Titfield

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A capacity (number of tickets available) is set for each departure. The booking system is linked so each booking office is selling from the same inventory. This works very well for the outward journey but self evidently as others have described issues can arise if a large number of passengers decide to travel back on the same departure.
 

Llanigraham

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The Paignton & Dartmouth Steam Railway (which is possibly more of a commercial undertaking than a 'heritage railway') seem to limit ticket sales to seats available. One has to file past the ticket office to get on the train, often after queueing for 5 - 10 minutes.
I could theoretically do Northampton - Paignton and back, and have a reasonable day there, if everything runs to time, but with a less than 10 minute connection at Paignton. When I asked about the practicability of buying a ticket and getting on the train in that short timespan, I was told that it was unlikely they would still be selling tickets that shortly before departure, because they stop when the number of passengers that have passed through the barrier equals the seating capacity of the train.
Of course, on ordinary days 'heritage railways' generally speaking encourage by price the purchase of tickets valid for travel all day, so it would be an impossible calculation to ensure no train has passengers in excess of seats

That doesn't seem to apply when joining the train at an intermediate point. We've regularly turned up at Churston, bought a ticket and caught the next train.
 
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