How could heritage railways encourage more visitors to arrive by public transport?

[RT4038]

This thread has discussed a number of other methods that don't involve discounted tickets...

But nothing that is likely to make anything other than a negligible difference though.

 

[eldomtom2]

But nothing that is likely to make anything other than a negligible difference though.

Well, I don't believe there have been any actual studies in the effectiveness of different methods.

 

[John Luxton]

The Ffestiniog used to have very good connections, with the trains listed in the National Rail timetables and therefore showing up as options in journey planners. All fallen apart now though. At least the Quarryman seems to have proved popular.

That Quarryman departure does connect, on the days it runs, - just - but there was only 5 minutes connection time heading towards Porthmadog. - Too generous a wait on the way back as I did it in June when I had an Explore Wales Pass.

The service from Llandudno lost a couple of minutes due at Dolgarrog due to someone loading their bike in the wrong door for exiting there. I did make it just as did three other passengers.

Problem was big queue in the shop / ticket office with people making non ticket purchases, with departure time looming I saw the guard and he came round to issue a ticket. I presume the others had prebooked but if you are paying that seems risky should the train depart. Being a member it isn't an issue. I didn't plan on the trip but just found myself at Llandudno Junction with time to do it.

All FR need to do is make the FR departure 5 of 10 minutes later and the return working a similar 5 to 10 minutes later then connection will be easily made with the late afternoon train with a reduced the long wait!

I did mention it to the guard and he suggested I wasn't the only person to make this comment - but got the feeling he knew the powers that be were not listening!

 

[paul1609]

That Quarryman departure does connect, on the days it runs, - just - but there was only 5 minutes connection time heading towards Porthmadog. - Too generous a wait on the way back as I did it in June when I had an Explore Wales Pass.

The service from Llandudno lost a couple of minutes due at Dolgarrog due to someone loading their bike in the wrong door for exiting there. I did make it just as did three other passengers.

Problem was big queue in the shop / ticket office with people making non ticket purchases, with departure time looming I saw the guard and he came round to issue a ticket. I presume the others had prebooked but if you are paying that seems risky should the train depart. Being a member it isn't an issue. I didn't plan on the trip but just found myself at Llandudno Junction with time to do it.

All FR need to do is make the FR departure 5 of 10 minutes later and the return working a similar 5 to 10 minutes later then connection will be easily made with the late afternoon train with a reduced the long wait!

I did mention it to the guard and he suggested I wasn't the only person to make this comment - but got the feeling he knew the powers that be were not listening!

As you're a member have you suggested it to Paul Lewin? I'm pretty sure you'll get an answer even if it's an explanation of why it hasn't been done.

 

[cav1975]

The Isle of Wight Steam Railway is trying. This is the promotional facebook post for this weekend's beer festival (my bold).

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This weekend join us for Beer and Steam!
Choose from a huge selection of real ales, there are even a few ciders for those with a sweeter tooth. You’ll have the opportunity to try local brews from Yates’, Goddards and Island Brewery alongside ales from Yorkshire, Somerset and more.

Entry to the festival is FREE; the bar opens from 11am until 5pm.
If you wish to board the steam train, usual operating day fares apply.

Travel to the festival: leave the car at home and travel on Island Line from Ryde, Brading, Sandown or Shanklin, connecting with steam trains at Smallbrook Junction. Alternatively, there are regular Southern Vectis - the island's buses buses to Wootton station from Ryde and Newport, with onward connections to the rest of the Island!

Find out more here:

Goddards Brewery Yates IOW Brewery / Yates IOW Wholesale / Cork Heads Wines & Spirits IOW

 

[paul1609]

The Isle of Wight Steam Railway is trying. This is the promotional facebook post for this weekend's beer festival (my bold).

Log in to Facebook

Log in to Facebook to start sharing and connecting with your friends, family and people you know.

www.facebook.com

This weekend join us for Beer and Steam!
Choose from a huge selection of real ales, there are even a few ciders for those with a sweeter tooth. You’ll have the opportunity to try local brews from Yates’, Goddards and Island Brewery alongside ales from Yorkshire, Somerset and more.

Entry to the festival is FREE; the bar opens from 11am until 5pm.
If you wish to board the steam train, usual operating day fares apply.

Travel to the festival: leave the car at home and travel on Island Line from Ryde, Brading, Sandown or Shanklin, connecting with steam trains at Smallbrook Junction. Alternatively, there are regular Southern Vectis - the island's buses buses to Wootton station from Ryde and Newport, with onward connections to the rest of the Island!

Find out more here:

Goddards Brewery Yates IOW Brewery / Yates IOW Wholesale / Cork Heads Wines & Spirits IOW

It's perhaps not surprising to advertise public transport to a beer festival?

 

[lyndhurst25]

I have just noticed that the Keighley and Worth valley Railway is offering a discount (10 or 20%, depending on which leaflet or webpage to believe!) in association with Transdev Buses. You do have to ask for a “Transdev Treats” voucher from the bus driver though, rather than just showing your bus ticket at the railway. Various other attractions are also included in the scheme e.g. the Bronte Parsonage museum, Harewood House.

Things to Do - Transdev

www.transdevbus.co.uk

Keighley & Worth Valley Railway

The Keighley and Worth Valley Railway is a 5-mile-long heritage railway line in Keighley, at the heart of the Worth Valley.

www.transdevbus.co.uk

The KWVR also do through ticketing from the national rail network.

Directions - Keighley & Worth Valley Railway

Whether you are coming to the Railway by road, rail or bus, all you need to know is right here. On the Road Keighley & Worth Valley Railway is around 40 minutes from Leeds and 25 minutes from Bradford, and five of the six stations along the line have parking. STATION ADDRESS PARKING Keighley...

kwvr.co.uk

One thing that encouraged me to use public transport when visiting the KWVR in the past is that Keighley station car park used to have a terrible reputation for car crime! Not sure if that still is the case.

 

[A S Leib]

The other thing that doesn’t help is that many heritage lines with mainline connections often have very poorly timed connections - in recent memory the Bluebell, Ffestiniog, North Norfolk and Ecclesbourne Valley Line all suffered from this though I’ve not checked the latest timetables.

When I went to the Ffestiniog Railway last month there was a connection time of around five minutes at Blaenau Ffestiniog; I think the incoming train from Llandudno was late but the Ffestiniog Railway service was held (and the two minute connection at Llandudno Junction was more concerning).

There are some heritage railways where public services are frequent enough that there probably isn't much of a need to try to make connections well-timed e.g. Severn Valley, Epping Ongar, East Lancashire, Keighley & Worth Valley.

 

[Blindtraveler]

Simple answer to this, for those that don't have mainline connections, provide some kind of incentive for local public transport operators to serve your destination. You are probably less likely to get the big boys in other words the stagecoaches and first groups etc to be so cooperative but if there is a local town service for example in the hands of a local independent either tendered or limited commercial operation that feeds in and out of say a core into urban x numbers root or code service you could work with them to suggest that they vary their root either as booked or on request to serve the heritage line station, as it's a local company they will be equally key to support other local businesses of which your heritage railway and it's associated trading activity is such a business and as I say you could well have other businesses on site either providing services such as cafes or renting shop units or whatever

 

[Bletchleyite]

When I went to the Ffestiniog Railway last month there was a connection time of around five minutes at Blaenau Ffestiniog; I think the incoming train from Llandudno was late but the Ffestiniog Railway service was held (and the two minute connection at Llandudno Junction was more concerning).

There are some heritage railways where public services are frequent enough that there probably isn't much of a need to try to make connections well-timed e.g. Severn Valley, Epping Ongar, East Lancashire, Keighley & Worth Valley.

Two minutes isn't a connection, but if there is a legitimate one the branch train is normally held.

 

[duncombec]

attached is the screenshot of the 'how to find us' page of my railways website [...]

Which might help if it was accurate. The link to Hastings hasn't been numbered 340 for about a decade. It also misses the 312 to Rye... and might it not be helpful to say where the bus stop is, especially as it is the very far end of Tenterden town centre, after a chunk of people will have alighted in the town?

Compare the current offering with, e.g.:

"By Train - The nearest mainline train stations are at Headcorn and Ashford. Bus links operate from these stations to Tenterden (see below). Please note that service 12 buses from Headcorn no longer server the station forecourt, but there is a stop on the main road immediately at the top of the station approach road.

By Bus - Service buses operate to Tenterden from Ashford International (2 or 2A), Hastings (29), Maidstone and Headcorn (12), Rye (312) and Tunbridge Wells (297). The nearest bus stop is The Vine (the last stop for all routes except 297), which is at the top of Station Road, a few minutes walk from our ticket office."

 

[Phil56]

I think a major problem is that Sundays are probably the busiest day for heritage lines, but the "real" railway services are often poor on Sundays, especially if the heritage railway is on a branchline. Cost also has to be a factor. Often the cost of a family of four is a lot more than the cost of petrol. Also loss of flexibility - when the heritage line is often just an hour or two, people with a car can do other things the same day whereas if you're limited by the rail network, you're going to have difficulty finding something else to do the same day, especially if the other "attraction" isn't on the railway network. None of these issues are restricted to heritage railways - lots of "attractions" face similar problems.

I think we have to accept that public transport, in lots of places, simply isn't good enough to be a substitute for driving.

 

[A S Leib]

I think a major problem is that Sundays are probably the busiest day for heritage lines, but the "real" railway services are often poor on Sundays, especially if the heritage railway is on a branchline. Cost also has to be a factor. Often the cost of a family of four is a lot more than the cost of petrol. Also loss of flexibility - when the heritage line is often just an hour or two, people with a car can do other things the same day whereas if you're limited by the rail network, you're going to have difficulty finding something else to do the same day, especially if the other "attraction" isn't on the railway network. None of these issues are restricted to heritage railways - lots of "attractions" face similar problems.

I think we have to accept that public transport, in lots of places, simply isn't good enough to be a substitute for driving.

To give one example, the Beamish Museum is a five minute drive from the Tanfield Railway. Without one, the options are either a fifty-plus minute walk, going through Stanley (two buses or a 35-minute walk and a bus) or going into Newcastle and back out again (over two hours). It's definitely close enough that visiting both is possible in a day; it's just impractical to do so without a car.

 

[BlueLeanie]

Before being critical of individuals driving to a heritage railway tourist attraction, perhaps be mindful of how dirty and inefficient the trains that they will be travelling on are. If the visitors were truly interested in the environment, they wouldn't be going on a coal fired steam train or claggy 1950s diesel.

Besides that, there is a tendency to assume that we all live a short stroll from a station. The reality is most of us are a drive away from the nearest station, and you can expect to crawl through a 20mph zone with traffic calming to spend £10-£30 on parking your car before even buying a rail ticket.

£10 will buy you 125 kWh of overnight car charging or 300 miles of clean fair weather driving and you'll probably be able to park for free at the attractions you visit that day.

 

[Paul Hitchcock]

Before being critical of individuals driving to a heritage railway tourist attraction, perhaps be mindful of how dirty and inefficient the trains that they will be travelling on are. If the visitors were truly interested in the environment, they wouldn't be going on a coal fired steam train or claggy 1950s diesel.

Besides that, there is a tendency to assume that we all live a short stroll from a station. The reality is most of us are a drive away from the nearest station, and you can expect to crawl through a 20mph zone with traffic calming to spend £10-£30 on parking your car before even buying a rail ticket.

£10 will buy you 125 kWh of overnight car charging or 300 miles of clean fair weather driving and you'll probably be able to park for free at the attractions you visit that day.

Not so in all cases.

 

[Parham Wood]

I don't think bus operators will be very interested in either creating new routes or changing routes or providing additional services to serve preserved railways. The number of people that would use these services would be low (may be different in years to come if private car driving becomes a lot more expensive but that is a complete ball game changer). Bus operators are under extreme cost pressures and councils are also in the same situation so it is more a case in many areas of services being cut due to lost council funding. For my local railway the East Somerset there is a limited bus service between Shepton Mallet and Frome on Mondays to Fridays but no weekend service. No way will they be interested in a weekend service without council funding and it would be totally uneconomic for the railway to fund such.

I think it is a wonderful idea to try to encourage more public transport use to preserved railways, but as it stands most people find it more convenient and cheaper to arrive by car, often due to where the stations are located and where the public are coming from. Where stations are located on good bus routes i.e. in urban areas where people could travel to them from the local city/ NR station fairly easily I am sure some do. However if it involves a bus change or even rail to bus change many will find it quicker, cheaper and more convenient by car. All railways can do is details bus and rail links on their website and perhaps work with these providers to try to improve connections. Offering a discount for people arriving by public transport is a good idea but it has to be commercially viable, ie you need to create more additional revenue than it costs to provide the discount as I don't see it is the preserved railways' responsibility to fund this at a loss.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Quite a number of years ago, we visited the Midland Railway Centre in Butterley. My wife at that time was the only car driver and we were living on the rural border area between Prestbury and Mottram St Andrew with no local buses within a two mile radius and the nearest railway stations being Wilmslow and Prestbury. My wife drove there and back in her Land Rover Discovery. (She died on 8th November 2021 in her nursing home).

I would be most interested to know what public transport we could have used to travel to the Butterley area from our area.

 

[Krokodil]

Before being critical of individuals driving to a heritage railway tourist attraction, perhaps be mindful of how dirty and inefficient the trains that they will be travelling on are. If the visitors were truly interested in the environment, they wouldn't be going on a coal fired steam train or claggy 1950s diesel.

It's not just about the environment, it's about accessibility. A quarter of households have no access to a car, a proportion that should increase if more can do everything they need without one. Remember that every car taken off of the road is a slightly shorter traffic jam for the rest.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

It's not just about the environment, it's about accessibility. A quarter of households have no access to a car, a proportion that should increase if more can do everything they need without one. Remember that every car taken off of the road is a slightly shorter traffic jam for the rest.

Does the "every car taken off the road" presupposes that the numerical falling-off status quo will permanently apply?

Does this aspiration extend to a similar reduction in small, medium and large sized commercial road vehicles?

 

[Narrowgauge725]

Heatherslaw has a two hourly bus service timings do work from the Etal end but not Heatherslaw. Still this thread has made me think it worth a post about the bus service that is there. I do remember a young couple who had come from Edinburgh on the train to Berwick then bus to us we were making sure they made it back in time for their bus.

 

[robert thomas]

Quite a number of years ago, we visited the Midland Railway Centre in Butterley. My wife at that time was the only car driver and we were living on the rural border area between Prestbury and Mottram St Andrew with no local buses within a two mile radius and the nearest railway stations being Wilmslow and Prestbury. My wife drove there and back in her Land Rover Discovery. (She died on 8th November 2021 in her nursing home).

I would be most interested to know what public transport we could have used to travel to the Butterley area from our area.

Every time I've visited the Midland Railway Centre I've caught a train to Derby and then a bus onwards to Butterley. From memory there was a bus every 30 minutes.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Every time I've visited the Midland Railway Centre I've caught a train to Derby and then a bus onwards to Butterley. From memory there was a bus every 30 minutes.

Yes I know that, but I would still have needed to find a form of public transport that would take me from the areas of either Prestbury or Wilmslow on to Derby. What routes are you aware of that will meet that requirement?

 

[robert thomas]

Yes I know that, but I would still have needed to find a form of public transport that would take me from the areas of either Prestbury or Wilmslow on to Derby. What routes are you aware of that will meet that requirement?

Prestbury to Stoke and Stoke to Derby both by train.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Prestbury to Stoke and Stoke to Derby both by train.

So that would mean either driving by car (as we did) direct from home to the Midland Railway centre or driving to Prestbury station (about 2 miles away), then waiting for a train to Stoke, then waiting for a train to Derby from there, then taking the bus you referred to in an earlier posting to Butterley. There are not easy time scheduled rail services on either of those routes that will not entail much time waiting for connections

 

[43096]

So that would mean either driving by car (as we did) direct from home to the Midland Railway centre or driving to Prestbury station (about 2 miles away), then waiting for a train to Stoke, then waiting for a train to Derby from there, then taking the bus you referred to in an earlier posting to Butterley. There are not easy time scheduled rail services on either of those routes that will not entail much time waiting for connections

Let’s be honest, if you have a car then that journey (like many others) you’re going to by car. Despite what public transport enthusiasts think, the car is by far the most convenient method of transport for the majority of journeys.

 

[robert thomas]

So that would mean either driving by car (as we did) direct from home to the Midland Railway centre or driving to Prestbury station (about 2 miles away), then waiting for a train to Stoke, then waiting for a train to Derby from there, then taking the bus you referred to in an earlier posting to Butterley. There are not easy time scheduled rail services on either of those routes that will not entail much time waiting for connections

I'm not suggesting that it's a seamless journey. I'm just answering your questions.

 

[ChrisC]

Every time I've visited the Midland Railway Centre I've caught a train to Derby and then a bus onwards to Butterley. From memory there was a bus every 30 minutes.

The Midland Midland Railway at Butterley is very well served by buses in comparison to many heritage railways. Trent Barton Nines pass by which run every 15 minutes between Derby and Mansfield. The Nines don’t go from Derby Bus Station but from Corporation Street which makes it a slightly even longer walk from Derby Station. For anyone travelling from the north the Nines also run every 15 minutes from Alfreton Station to Butterley. In addition there is an hourly Trent Barton Comet service which runs between Chesterfield and Derby.

To come back to the original point. No, it is not an easy journey from a village near Prestbury, and it would make it a very long day out. Although Butterley is on a frequent bus route it isn’t always practical for everyone to travel there by public transport. I about 15 miles east of Butterley and can drive there in less than 30 minutes. By bus, it would take me almost 2 hours as I would need to use two buses and travel via Mansfield.

 

[Krokodil]

Does the "every car taken off the road" presupposes that the numerical falling-off status quo will permanently apply?

Does this aspiration extend to a similar reduction in small, medium and large sized commercial road vehicles?

I don't understand exactly what you're getting at? Each family who arrives by public transport is a family not in front of you in the queue for the car park.

And yes, the more freight carried by rail the fewer lorries trying to overtake each other at 55.5mph on a two-lane road. Not that freight has anything to do woth this topic, it's been a long time since the Ffestiniog and Talyllyn used to receive coal by rail, and that's not going to change.

So that would mean either driving by car (as we did) direct from home to the Midland Railway centre or driving to Prestbury station (about 2 miles away), then waiting for a train to Stoke, then waiting for a train to Derby from there, then taking the bus you referred to in an earlier posting to Butterley. There are not easy time scheduled rail services on either of those routes that will not entail much time waiting for connections

You are aware that most of the population doesn't live in a remote village in Cheshire, right? Encouraging the 90% of the population who live in towns and cities to use public transport where possible does not mean that you can't continue to use the most suitable method for your circumstances.

 

[Paul Hitchcock]

I don't understand exactly what you're getting at? Each family who arrives by public transport is a family not in front of you in the queue for the car park.

And yes, the more freight carried by rail the fewer lorries trying to overtake each other at 55.5mph on a two-lane road. Not that freight has anything to do woth this topic, it's been a long time since the Ffestiniog and Talyllyn used to receive coal by rail, and that's not going to change.


You are aware that most of the population doesn't live in a remote village in Cheshire, right? Encouraging the 90% of the population who live in towns and cities to use public transport where possible does not mean that you can't continue to use the most suitable method for your circumstances.

No amount of grim finger wagging will encourage people out of private cars unless the train becomes distinctly better than it tends to be in the age of the ironing board seat.

 

[Titfield]

No amount of grim finger wagging will encourage people out of private cars unless the train becomes distinctly better than it tends to be in the age of the ironing board seat.

I even wonder what level of bribery is required given the mixed results of the "free bus pass" for senior citizens.