Now the work really starts!
IN this issue, we are delighted to report on the phenomenal success experienced by several heritage lines with the public response to their festive season trains, coming a year after many of them curtailed or did not run at all due to the first wave of the Covid-19 pandemic.
These seasonal services provide a vital financial lifeline to heritage lines that still rely, to a large extent, on an army of volunteer workers.
The third wave of the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sports’ Culture Recovery Fund for Heritage grants are certainly welcome, not least of all the £1 million handed to the Severn Valley Railway… but how long can such benevolence continue?
Every indication is that the Government must now seek to claw back much of the pandemic borrowing. National Insurance is due to rise, there is much speculation in the national media about public services being cut and inflation has hit 6% as fuel prices rocket. It logically follows that there may well be far less scope for handouts to our sector.
The grant to the Severn Valley, it is said, will cover its running costs for about two months. After that, in theory, it and other venues will be left to find their own way again.
Many were surprised when, after the New Year, the Government in England opted not to follow the examples set by Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, and impose further restrictions, maybe a firebreak or even another lockdown, in a bid to curb the pandemic; despite the success of the vaccination policy, infection rates are soaring again due to the emergence of the Omicron variant.
The reality is that we, the ordinary British public, do not know what lies around the corner, maybe in a month or two’s time. In this issue, we include our definitive 2022 guide to special events at our heritage lines and museums, plus our standard Up and Running Guide that features, where available, the 2022 restart dates. We do so in the spirit of optimism and hope – none of us can now predict what the future will bring.
If there is to be a future for our proud heritage sector, we must all strive together to overcome the biggest obstacle in its 70-year history. Without the necessary finance, lines big and small face closure, not just in the short to medium term but permanently.
We must not sit around waiting to learn the responses to grant application. Yes, place them in the post box or press the send button to email them, but then we need to all get our sleeves rolled up in the time-honoured way and raise funds like we are on steroids.
If you have time, volunteer at your local railway or museum, or offer to carry out administrative or publicity work from the safety of your home.
Take out a membership of your favourite railway, and even if you can spare only the odd tenner, respond to any appeal that grabs your imagination.
We cannot rely on the upper echelons of the powers that be to save the day. Our movement was begun by ordinary ‘little people’ who restarted the Talyllyn Railway in 1951, and who have built it up into the major player in the cultural, educational and tourist sector that it is today.
Money may be tight, but this is far and away our movement’s longest hour of need – and the end is nowhere near the horizon.
“We cannot rely on the upper echelons of the powers that be to save the day. Our movement was begun by ordinary
‘little people’...”