Swanage Railway is planning to run a regular service, though not a year round service. It has 4 dmu coaches, I diesel, I steam engine fully registered to run on the main line and five Mk1 carriages almost ready to carry passengers on the main line. It is well advanced in the process of becoming a TOC. that would have been achieved with a Dmu running an initial service to Wareham in 2020 had Covid and lockdown not intervened. ORR have been slowly making greater demands on heritage railways in recent years in all aspects of operation and Swanage Railway has decided to operate as one railway and to adopt the requirements of a TOC in all of its operations. There is still some uncertainty about how much can be achieved in 2020 but there is every expectation that a significant service will operate to Wareham during the tourism season in 2021.
Hmm:
1) For the regular traveller (as opposed to heritage / tourist traveller) a year round service is obviously desirable if not essential.
2) For the commuter self evidently services have to operate at convenient "commuting " times not the 10:00 - 17:00 typical of heritage railways. Services should operate at the same times each day and not vary as much as some HRs do. Many HRs simply do not offer the frequency.
3) For commuters / regular travellers fares must be at national network levels not the higher per mile fares charged by heritage railways.
4) Commuters / regular travellers would expect through ticketing at through ticket fare levels. Dont see how HRs can do that without compromising their yield / take. Combined with point 3 above thats a double whammy.
5) Regular Travellers would expect the fare structure e.g. age at which child fares apply to be the same. Some HRs have very different fare structures with child fares at different ages and a different ratio between single and return fares. Swanage Railway return fares for example are day return fares and not period return fares.
6) Regular travellers would expect network railcards to be valid on all services. AFAIK Heritage Railways dont accept network railcards.
7) Regular travellers would expect real time information both at stations and onboard. Heritage Railways do not provide that afaik.
8) Regular travellers would expect delay repay. Can Heritage Railways manage that?
9) Regular travellers would expect on board wi fi. How many HRs provide that?
10) Regular travellers would expect on board toilets which work. AFAIK e.g. Swanage Railways DMUs and Mk1 coaches are not tanked thus the toilets would have to be locked off when on network rail metals. Should HRs be discharging effluent onto the track ( irrespective of ownership) in any case?
11) Regular travellers may require assistance e.g. disabled passengers. Can HRs provide that? On SR afaik wheelchair passengers have to travel in the guards compartment which is not exactly a great experience.
12) Regular travellers may question the environmental benefits of using public transport if it means travelling in a 1960s DMU powered by 4 quite frankly dirty Leyland 680 or equivalent engines.
13) Can heritage railways train volunteer staff (and indeed will heritage railway volunteer staff be willing to be trained) to meet the demands of regular travellers. By and large (and I accept this is a generalisation) heritage rail passengers having a day out are far more tolerant than regular travellers who can get very demanding very quickly if there is a delay.
14) If HRs employ staff will these staff expect to be paid at National Rail pay rates?(I very much doubt that HRs have the volunteer resources to run a year round service).
15) Can a heritage railway cope with mainline TOCS seeking every excuse to pass delay attribution to the HR?
16) How will HRs do their engineering / track maintenance work when they are used to the traditional HR winter shutdown?
17) Given the issues with Llangollen as an example, are HRs capable of undertaking such a demanding task given the resources they have currently?
18) Will HRs be able to cope with significant numbers of complaints if they have a really bad day? Bear in mind that as part of being a TOC HRs have to sign up to the Rail Ombudsman scheme which can cost significant sums if complaints are escalated?
Further to the above:
1) the PLI (Public Liability Insurance) Cover level on Network Rail is much higher. This would translate into much higher premiums.
Thinking of Swanage in particular:
2) The core business is between Norden and Swanage. Adding in Wareham services which may have limited demand could cause issues of prioritisation. If you had to delay one train: a) train to Wareham with say 30 Wareham passengers or b) train between Corfe Castle and Swanage with 120 passengers. The problem could be that it would be more costly in financial terms to delay the Wareham (delay repay and delay attribution) but the alternative is to upset a greater number of passengers.
3) A further complexity would be delay repay. If a train that runs Swanage > Corfe castle > Wareham is delayed. Theoretically only the passengers going to wareham would be entitled to delay repay and not those just going to Corfe Castle. (Try explaining that to disgruntled passengers)
I genuinely think that the risk: reward ratio of operating on the mainline is simply to much risk and too little reward.
It could test an HR to breaking point and given what we have seen with WSR and South Devon it wouldnt take much to push one over the edge, as Llangollen has already demonstrated.
Many HRs believe that given their wide public support and importance to the community they are "too big to fail". Well they used to say that of football teams......
