Helping our sector survive can reap very rich dividends
AT A time when Britain is in the grip of a cost of living crisis, unprecedented in recent times, there will be few in the country who will not be looking at ways in which they must make savings on personal spending. Sadly, the home tourist market is likely to suffer in the wake of the massive hike in fuel costs.
Heritage railways now need our custom like never before. Already they are faced by the steam coal shortage issue, with soaring prices leading to the prudent pruning of services wherever possible; the Severn Valley Railway has, for instance, postponed its footplate experience courses as a fuel-saving measure.
Several venues have taken large hits through the cancellation of wartime weekends – a big annual earner for many – in an immediate response to public horror and outrage at Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
The whole sector fought magnificently against all odds in a bid to survive the Covid-19 pandemic over the past two years, but now, just a few months after the Government saw fit to lift remaining restrictions such as the harmless wearing of facemasks, official figures in the weeks leading up to Heritage Railway press day indicate that the virus, or a variant of it, is on the rise again.
It is now up to us, the general public, to again demonstrate our support for a sector that is not only a major earner for many a local economy, but one of the UK’s biggest cultural and educational assets.
Many heritage venues are currently offering very reasonable discounts and bargain prices if you look on their websites. Heritage railways offer much more than an A-to-B journey, and their stations often act as gateways to very different local attractions, which greatly widen the family appeal.
I attended the Gloucestershire Warwickshire Railway’s excellent Somerset & Dorset gala over The Queen’s Platinum Jubilee bank holiday weekend. Memories came flooding back of childhood days when our family would take Sunday drives out to the Cotswolds and delight in the multitude of attractions on offer, many free to visit – and that was well before a heritage railway would link much of them. Indeed, there was so much to see on and around the railway on my latest visit that it felt like a week’s holiday squeezed into a day. Yes, cut back if you must, but heritage railways remain a prime choice destination, with much else to offer in the locality to suit all tastes.
In harsh times like the present, organisations that rely on volunteers to pay their way need and richly deserve our support. When buying gifts, for instance, consider what your favourite heritage railway shop might have to offer. If you can stretch to supporting one or more of the appeals for cash aid being run by several venues, often for locomotive restoration, so much the better.
There is much to look forward to in the times ahead. Next year we are on track to see the new GWR 4-6-0 No. 6880 Betton Grange in steam, and I will be delighted to take a Churnet Valley Railway service into Leek and a ride to the Llangollen Railway’s new Corwen station.
The sector is poised in the coming year to reach a new zenith with the completion of what may well be its finest locomotive achievement yet – the building of Gresley P2 2-8-2 No. 20007 Princes of Wales. In a major first for our movement, its monobloc is now being assembled – see Headline News. The more who sign up for one or more of its builder’s fundraising clubs, the quicker we will see the ‘Mikado’ in action and show the rest of the world that we are still the leaders in steam locomotive technology.