Heritage railways must be run as businesses
NIGEL Barnes would appear to have issues with the heritage railway on which I assume he volunteers, but I believe that far from lending him clarity as to the means and ends, or purposes, of steam locomotive preservation, it has, in fact, led to confusion.
The costs of restoring, operating and maintaining a main line steam locomotive and, critically, building up a reserves fund for the next periodic overhaul are now so great that most locomotive-owning groups depend on the hire charges paid to them by heritage railways to fund the bulk of those costs.
Moreover, they also depend on those same heritage railways to provide a line on which their locomotive can run, on the rolling stock that ensures that there isn’t endless light engine running, and crucially on a workforce to operate and maintain the locomotive during the hire period.
We have seen over the recent years and then most dramatically under the Covid-19 lockdowns how fragile are the financial strengths of even the most well run railways.
This fragility, coronavirus notwithstanding, has been heightened by an ever-increasing regulatory burden, by the consequences of long-term neglect of ageing infrastructure and other factors.
In my view it has never been more vital for our heritage railways to be run as businesses, in the sense that they have a basic objective of ensuring that income exceeds costs.
Covid-19 has undoubtedly taught many heritage railways some very important business lessons, one of which – as Mr Barnes rightly points out – is to maximise volunteers and minimise wage and salary bills as, for example, the Gloucestershire Warwickshire Railway does so successfully.
However, I think Mr Barnes does the movement a great injustice with his ill-tempered references to ‘Johnny Come Lately management’ and ‘making loads of money’.
Moreover, I see very little evidence of heritage railways seeking to make ‘loads of money’ to distribute to shareholders, directors etc. In most cases, those ‘loads of money’ provide the means to achieve the end of a heritage railway operated by steam locomotives.
Michael Hill, Sidcup, Kent