Tackling the Volunteer Problem
For almost 70 years, volunteers have been an indispensible part of the heritage railway movement. However, with many volunteers in or approaching their twilight years, there is an urgent need for new, younger volunteers to join the ranks in order to learn
As heritage lines begin to reopen, Nicola Fox investigates the pressing need for railways to attract new volunteers from the younger generation.
The railway preservation movement is 69 years old this year. What started with a group of volunteers in a Welsh valley has now grown to in excess of 200 railways and railway centres of differing gauges across the UK.
Thousands of volunteers give their time to run and maintain hundreds of miles of railway. Some railways are fortunate to employ several members of paid staff, but the life blood of almost all heritage railways is their volunteers – a veritable army of them.
In a parliamentary debate in June 2019,
Lord Faulkner, president of the Heritage Railway Association, gave the following figures: Railways attract 13 million visitors a year, employ around 4,000 staff and depend on more than 22,000 volunteers.
‘Productive’
Lord Faulkner rightly highlighted how much volunteering on a heritage railway has to offer people, regardless of their age: “For students, a steam railway offers a living example to support so much of the school curriculum.
“For older volunteers, steam railways offer an active and productive activity for people who might otherwise have a sedentary lifestyle.
“They unite people from a wide range of backgrounds and a wide geographical area, supporting social cohesion.”
As a long-standing volunteer myself, I’d have to agree. In this digital age, railway volunteering can offer a stark and beneficial contrast to our computer-led lives. Not to mention heritage railways often act as a training ground for the national network.
However, the reason Lord Faulkner was speaking on this debate was because the long-term future of the railways could be at risk. As the original volunteers begin to step back because of age and infirmity, the number of volunteers rising up the ranks is not enough to replace them.
An All Parliamentary Group report from
2018 – Engaging the Next Generation: Young People and Heritage Railways – found young people (under the age of 18) comprised only 5% of the current UK volunteer railway workforce.
Since university and later life commitments can easily draw people away from volunteering, often securing a volunteer’s interest and commitment before this age can be make or break. However, with only 5% of volunteers falling into this category and an ageing workforce, there is an undercurrent of concern running through the industry.
What happens when there simply aren’t enough volunteers to maintain a service?
In the early days of preservation, heritage railways were few and far between. However, by the mid-1970s many heritage lines around the UK had risen from the ashes of Beeching closures. Big names such as the Severn Valley, Bluebell, Keighley & Worth Valley, North York Moors were all flourishing, running busy services and starring as locations in television programmes.
Expansions
Lines grew more numerous, existing lines extended their operations, and as the preservation movement spread, so did the volunteer staffing requirements. This continued throughout the intervening decades, to this day, where new extensions are announced on an annual basis it seems, if not more frequently.
The ubiquitous nature of the preservation scene and the expansions achieved by so many lines, mean the railways have become a victim of their own success, and unless volunteer recruitment is addressed there will come a time when volunteer numbers are too few to meet service requirements. This situation has recently become more pertinent than ever in light of the Covid-19 pandemic.
This issue is not one that should be taken lightly by our railway organisations. Many may be looking at their current operation numbers thinking: ‘We’ve got enough volunteers to cover our service, we’re doing fine’, without realising that sooner or later they’re going to find themselves falling short.
The key to succession planning is knowledge; the first step must be to run the numbers, find the gaps in the organisation and then set about filling them appropriately, and there are many ways to do the latter.
A number of railways agreed to talk with
The RM about what they’re doing to future proof their organisations and ensure stable volunteer numbers and have kindly shared their findings. The Churnet Valley Railway’s (CVR) extension plans to reach the market town of Leek are in full swing, boosted recently by the award of a grant for £1.4million from the European Agriculture Fund for Rural Development. However, before even the first length of new track had been laid, the background work had been done to establish what the increased volunteer requirements of running to Leek would be. Speaking back in early 2019, Jack Ilczyszyn, one of the CVR’s permanent staff, said: “The railway’s getting ready to grow and we need the volunteers to grow it.”
For the first time the CVR will be accessible for those without a car, making it easier for local people to volunteer, and several people have approached the railway to offer their services at the proposed Leek station. Jack knows however, they can’t just wait for people to come to them: with only four paid staff, the CVR is fully dependent on volunteers for the day-to-day running of the railway.
Partnering
While employing the usual tactics – “we’re creating more enticing posters and social media videos to remind people what we do”, – Jack is also trying a new tack and partnering with local government authorities to draw people in and offer them the benefits of volunteering.
“We’re currently working with the council; there’s an astonishing number of groups and businesses helping people to get volunteers in, so we’re working with them.”
Five years ago Noel Hartley, now the operations manager at the Keighley & Worth Valley Railway (KWVR), was looking through the railway age demographic and noticed ‘the number of grey hairs on heads’.
Realising this may present a problem in the future he delved deeper. “I found out 75% of our
drivers were over 60. Because of the time it takes to train drivers that was one of the most high risk areas; you could be looking at a ten-year lead time.”
With no upper age limit (although medicals apply) there is no tangible cliff edge that the railway is headed for, but based on current figures, Noel calculated future attrition: “We’re looking essentially to replace a seventh of our drivers annually as drivers retire. I think we’ll lose 25% of our drivers before they get to 70 and the rest before they get to 80.”
Because the rate of passing out was not equal to the retirement figures, the KWVR updated their training system to make it more efficient.
Now, five years down the line, quadruple the number of fireman qualify per year and double the number of drivers.
If Noel’s figures were wrong and more drivers continue volunteering into their seventies than expected, what is the worst case scenario? The railway will have a surplus of operational volunteers… as they say, a nice problem to have.
As has been previously established, an area every railway needs to continuously monitor and invest in (be that time or money) is the recruitment of young volunteers.
Apprenticeship
are something Phil is also aware may impact the ability of many young people to volunteer now, in a way that didn’t happen 20 years ago.
“You could come up for the summer and life wasn’t that expensive. These days, uni students or A level students come either side of the summer period then spend the middle six weeks doing a job.”
To help, the Ffestiniog offers volunteer accommodation at £2.50 a night, but sadly there is little they can do about the cost of fuel/train tickets and food.
Legislation
Railway (TR).
The first graduates from 2019 are already volunteering, having received a condensed one-year version of the course to account for their knowledge from the previous year’s volunteering. Matthew was proud to recall how the graduates “flew through” their rules exam.
This programme was born out of unfortunate circumstances, but the end result has been 16-year-old volunteers coming in with a more in-depth knowledge than previous volunteers of their age may have had, enabling a faster progression through the ranks. Such is the popularity of the scheme that Matthew has been inundated with requests to run more days – from parents and the trainees alike.
The Talyllyn received recognition from the HRA for their efforts in the form of an award nomination, and other railways have been sitting up and taking notice. Matthew said:
“The programme has received much interest from other railways and the railway is already supporting some other heritage railways to develop similar schemes of their own to allow young people to become involved.”
More and more railways are formalising their approach to dealing with volunteers, often appointing an officer to handle the task.
The North Yorkshire Moors Railway (NYMR) has gone one step further and used Heritage Lottery Funding to appoint Marcus Aldrich to a three-year, full-time paid position within the organisation as head of volunteer development, something the railway believes to be a preservation first.
Appointed at the end of 2019, Marcus hails from an aviation background, and comes to the role from a practical rather than emotional position, having no memory of steam engines. He describes himself as a trouble-shooter by profession with experience “managing people in very challenging circumstances”.
Pedigree
Although he hasn’t volunteered in the railway sector, Marcus helped out at the 2012 Olympics and the 2015 Rugby World Cup and worked on the volunteer set up for the Syrian refugee programme: a worthy pedigree.
Full of praise for the existing volunteers – “I’m humbled by the work, I’ve seen people give up time to do” – Marcus brings a new perspective. As a non-enthusiast he is acutely aware you do not need to have an interest to volunteer on the railway, and is ensuring his strategies will incorporate targeting techniques for all age groups and interest.
He adds: “We’ve got to think about the message and the language we’re using and managing people’s expectations. Do I have to be interested in trains to volunteer? And so on. I think there’s so much more opportunity for people, if I can remove those perceived barriers to entry.”
Aware also of the mutual benefits from volunteering, Marcus’ policy of attracting the non-enthusiast type extends to an outreach programme: “I’m setting up outreach into disadvantaged communities and to middle-aged people who can’t find meaningful work, to help get them skilled and back into work.”
Ask not what you can do for your railway, but what your railway can do for you!
The results of Marcus’ approach are yet to be seen, but it speaks volumes that the NYMR are taking the issue seriously enough to employ a paid member of staff to ensure the on-going volunteer recruitment and management.
The Kent & East Sussex Railway (KESR) has taken a similar tack, releasing a video as part of their volunteer recruitment in January this year. In addition to the usual high-profile roles, (eg: driver fireman, guard, signaller) the video also shows crossing keepers, Pullman attendants, on-train guides, museum and archive assistants; even the gardeners, who keep the stations tidy!
With the video tagline ‘There’s more to a railway than a train ride’, the KESR is keen to attract volunteers of all ages and interests, with no enthusiast prerequisite. According to service delivery manager Andy Hardy, this approach is working: “The response from the volunteer recruitment video was really good. You have
one opportunity to grab hold of someone; our argument is it’s more than just a railway, we need people that aren’t just ‘railway people’.”
Currently, the KESR is blessed with a healthy complement of volunteers in all departments. On the traffic side, Andy talks proudly of their “healthy complement of guards”, with several under the age of 30, including one recently passed out, aged 21. Signallers, he jokes, are fighting for turns, and the numbers of new volunteers coming in and passing out are currently equalling or surpassing those retiring.
Andy attributes this success to the combination of an effective training programme and the hard work of a volunteering committee, a team which is constantly assessing the needs of the railway and how best to recruit and distribute volunteers.
One access point for volunteers is through experience days: “Many people become volunteers this way, so our training for staff who do those roles includes the knowledge that they grab that interest.”
Once an interest has been expressed, the railway acts with enthusiasm to run through the necessary inductions and paper work to get the new volunteer on the roster as soon as possible and be flexible; if the prospective volunteer realises one area might not be right for them after all, another is offered.
‘Hooked’
Andy’s mantra is to strike while the iron is hot and the person is excited to become a part of the railway: “Don’t procrastinate with volunteers and don’t mess them around; it’s an awful lot of effort, but it’s what you have to do if you want to survive.
“The right people are out there but you’ve got to work for them and once they’re hooked, they’re in it for life.”
Attracting volunteers is only part of the problem, ensuring they are retained and happy in their work is the other side of the coin. Toward that end Marcus Aldrich is co-ordinating a volunteer survey, across the board at the NYMR, “to get some feelers out about how things are to give us baseline indications of what we need to look at”.
He adds: “I don’t want volunteers to become static, I don’t want to waste peoples’ time if they are stuck in a role they don’t enjoy; they become disenfranchised. I need to make sure the ones that we’ve got know we value them.”
Managing expectations is another area Marcus intends to focus on. As well as correctly allocating new volunteers, this task may include conversations with volunteers about roles they might be happier doing instead of (or as well as) their current duties. This extends to redeploying founder volunteers who are no longer safe to continue in the roles they began in, “so they can still be valued, we have a duty to have those conversations, we can’t turn a blind eye to it”.
In a fast moving world, it is important to hold people’s interest, and locomotive manager Phil Brown from the Ffestiniog & Welsh Highland Railways (Ff&WHR) half from arrival to passing out as a fireman.”
With 97% of their turns covered by volunteers, so far their system seems to be working. With a similar system in place at the KESR and both railways currently feeling confident in their volunteer numbers, this process could be a good example to follow.
As the world becomes ever more connected, so too should the heritage industry.
We have already seen how Matthew Wear from the Talyllyn has been offering advice to other railways on how to set up similar youth training programmes. Other examples of successful interconnectivity include the KESR railway’s online MIC (mutual improvement classes) resource.
Training
Set up in 2015, www.kesr.mic.org.uk is an open resource, used by many other railways to assist with their own training sessions.
Examples such as these of inter-railway co-operation are numerous, and many volunteers have transferable skills from one railway to the next, yet few organisations have fast-track courses in place to maximise the potential of experienced volunteers from other railways. In other words, someone who is a qualified fireman at one line, may not be accepted at the same level at another railway, instead entering the ranks at a lower level.
While some railways may have their unique ways of operating, the majority of standardgauge lines follow similar principles that ought to be easily transferable. Could a qualification be established to formalise this?
Marcus Aldrich, from the NYMR, thinks so: “I have aspirations of putting some proper accreditation for our volunteer community.”
Although it’s early days of Marcus’ tenure his stance is a strong one. The NYMR is a huge organisation, capable of leading the way for others to follow and sharing what they find along the way: “I’m opening us up to other railways to share this journey, to see what wins they’re getting and share ours,” he adds.
The KESR already has a specially designed trained programme to fast track experienced volunteers to best make use of their skills, and with the NYMR looking for an accreditation scheme, if more railways were willing to come on board with this and work together, volunteers forced to move away from their usual place of volunteering could quickly become useful to another organisation.
A volunteer arriving at another railway with an accepted standardised operating knowledge need only learn the local instructions and route knowledge before being capable of stepping into roles where numbers were insufficient.
Especially in light of the challenges faces by railways in recent months from storms Ciara, Dennis, severe flooding and the on-going Covid19 pandemic, the heritage railway sector is going to need all the help it can get in order to recover.
Once social distancing is a thing of the past, that help translates to more people power. In these times of uncertainty and struggle it is vital steps are taken to keep our railways alive.
Hitting the nail on the head, Marcus Aldrich says: “What we’re doing here is generational, it’s heritage, it has to remain. Everything comes and goes but this has to remain.” ■ ■ The author extends her appreciation to all the railways involved for giving their time.
“We’ve got to think about the message and the language we’re using and managing people’s expectations. Do I have to be interested in trains to volunteer? And so on. I think there’s so much more opportunity for people, if I can remove those perceived barriers to entry.”