Kent & East Sussex Railway
Members e-newsletter No.61
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Welcome to the June issue of the e-newsletter. |
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From the Chair...
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This month has been dominated by our iconic Terriers. Poplar returned to revenue earning service on 2nd June, following its official recommissioning ceremony two days previously. The sun shone on both occasions, and the VIP visitors included Lady McAlpine and our ever-supportive MP, Damian Green. Local media coverage was extensive, and the specialist railway press carried some very upbeat features. |
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Hard on the heels of all that, of course, has been the visit of Poplar to Poplar, courtesy of the Docklands Light Railway. The incongruous sight of a gleaming piece of Victorian engineering dwarfed by the towers of Canary Wharf and the concrete viaduct carrying the DLR’s Poplar station turned many heads and, hopefully, has opened us up to a whole new market.
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 Poplar proving popular in Poplar Photo: Robin White
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 Poplar in Poplar Photo: Ian Scarlett
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Most of the schoolchildren, and probably some of the teachers, who visited the event had never seen a steam engine before, and all thoroughly enjoyed themselves. Our thanks to our Heritage Lottery Fund sponsors, to the helpful and welcoming DLR staff and to the Tower Hamlets education people for making it all possible. And of course to those stalwarts on our Railway and in The Terrier Trust for their hard work in the planning and execution. Teamwork and partnership, and a joint approach to problem-solving. |
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Thanks also to those who made our Platinum Jubilee weekend such a success. Passenger numbers were good, helped by the Terrier publicity, and for me the highlight was being able to travel behind double-headed Terriers for the first time in many years. All the hard work has paid off.
17th June saw a rather unusual event. Our regulator, the Office of Rail and Road, has a new team in place to oversee heritage railways, and they wished to meet the Heritage Railway Association. We offered to host the meeting and had a day of good relationship-building including visits to the various facilities at Tenterden and Rolvenden and a trip out to the Rother Bridge. Thanks to all the volunteers and staff who made themselves available and who helped to make the day a success.
Later that evening we had the Beer Festival at Tenterden – again, thanks are due to those who put the effort in to making it go with a swing. And to those who attended!
So much for the good news. I make no apology for saying again that the economic situation remains very challenging, and it is getting worse. No-one needs reminding of this. From our perspective, as well as the relentless rise in the cost of everything, especially coal, our visitor numbers are beginning not to meet expectations and we are struggling for volunteers in some areas. Yes, we have a lot of new faces, but it takes time to train and integrate them into the organisation. Perhaps we need to get better at that.
There are no easy answers; we have already cancelled some unprofitable services and we are looking urgently at doing more. Obviously the first priority is to attract more visitors, but if that isn’t possible then we must cut our coat to fit the cloth. It’s a difficult balancing act. We hope numbers will pick up as the high season approaches, and we’ll be doing all we can to ensure they do.
On the bright side, we have been able to get the Santa Specials on sale earlier than usual, and this has brought in a welcome boost to the finances. And we get very good reviews from those who do visit us.
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 Tuesday 28th June saw an unusual day with the Class 14 Diesel taking the service train for the afternoon during a day where Lucy Worsley was filming with us on board Pullman Car 'Barbara'. Image: Caroline Warne
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Finally, Shaun Dewey, our General Manager, is of course on the point of retirement and will be leaving in the coming days. We thank him for all he has done for us, not least during the Covid pandemic, and we wish him well for the future. The process for recruiting a new postholder is well under way.
For all kinds of reasons this will continue to be a challenging year for us and for heritage railways across the country. But if we support each other, we can overcome those challenges.
Simon Marsh
Chairman
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From the General Manager |
August
Balancing cost and income this year has been quite a challenge when bookings can vary considerably across the week on our regular services. Booking numbers are made up from a number of sources - groups, advanced bookings and on the day turn up and go. We have pushed to promote group and individual passenger advance bookings as these underpin the operation with ‘on the day turn up and go’ passengers being the cream on the top.
Has there been a typical booking pattern? Not really, when we have daily bookings in July ranging from 18 to 391. Control of capacity has therefore been essential, bookings are now made to specific trains so we can see exactly where the demand is, and the A set runs as a default 4 car but can be increased/decreased to 5 or 3 as required.
On occasions the above has not been enough and further changes have been made closer to the day of operation which has affected many volunteers, and this has been noted.
Volunteers have requested that such decisions are not made at the last minute, so earlier this week we made the decision to remove the Mondays and Friday standard services from sale in August. These days have always been the last to sell in previous years and the 23 booked passengers have willingly switched days saving circa £14,000 in coal alone.
The commercial team are now looking at what alternative operations can be launched on these days. Railway Experience Days are one option; there are also others. As we have said previously this year we need to be nimble and react to market pressures, which will mean changes will occur, but we must protect our customers and as a result the Railway will be here for the long term.
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 The sun sets along the line. Photo: Caroline Warne
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On a personal note...
As most of you are aware I will soon be leaving the railway after seven fairly turbulent but at the same time most enjoyable years. Family issues are requiring more and more of my time and as we all know family has to take priority.
I am not one for long goodbyes but I hope I have contributed in part to the long term future of the K&ESR and it has certainly been my privilege to have worked with so many outstanding people across the railway both as General Manager and at times volunteer.
Maybe in a years' time I will be back as a volunteer !
May I wish you all, and the railway all future success.
Shaun Dewey
General Manager
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Commercial Update
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AccessAble audits
A representative from Accessable visited Tenterden Station on 21 June to start gathering the necessary information to provide key details about what disabled visitors can expect from a typical visit to K&ESR on their website. This is very much a promotional tool. They are due to survey both Northiam and Bodiam stations on Thursday 23rd June. Once all completed, a link will be added to our website taking people directly to this information.
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Summer Adventures
Hopefully you will have seen our new summer marketing entitled “Summer Adventures” around and about, this is the fourth in the series of our seasonal marketing campaign to entice customers to visit us throughout the year. We are also looking to extend the range of items in the shop using some of this imagery so it is unique to K&ESR. You should start to see some of this coming in the next month or so.
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New Railway Children Film
To coincide with the release of the new Railway Children film on 15th July, Canal Studio, the film distributors, have given us a “goody bag” (see image below) to give away as a social media competition. We also have Railway Children activity sheets to give to families from the beginning of July.
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Junior Engineering Days
We will be welcoming back Chris Vine, Peters Railway author on Tuesday 9th and Wednesday 10th August for the final Junior Engineering days of this year. This will follow the same format as earlier in the year which worked well with a morning and afternoon session. This aligns completely to our education aims, showcasing and enthusing the younger generation about heritage railways who will hopefully become our future volunteers. If anyone would like to help with these days, do let me know.
Outdoor Cinema
We are looking to have two cinema nights at Tenterden Station on Thursday 22nd and Friday 23rd September. The film titles are still tbc at this stage, but the ideas is to also to offer a hot food option and bar alongside this. Very much a test event, if this is well received which hopefully it will be, this is certainly something we could look to do more of in the future. English weather being as unpredictable as it is, this will take place in front of the station refreshment rooms in a large marquee.
Heather Packham
Visitor Experience Manager
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Carriage & Wagon Update
C&W remains focused on the new Kitchen Car. Much is happening inside with trim, windows and ceiling being fitted. Our Sparky friends have been working out what we were handed wiring wise and we have reached the height of ceiling lights that aren't just installed, they illuminate too!
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The Family Saloon is well on the way to escaping the works. Both vacuum cylinders have been rebuilt and all new hoses have been fitted throughout, mechanically and exterior wise she is good to go but the team won't let it out until the interior is as up to scratch as we can get it - subject to demands of the Kitchen Car of course.
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 Family saloon and RU Photo: Peter Blythe
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 Dance Hall brake interior Photo: Peter Blythe
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The first stage of the Southern Railway Dance Hall is pretty much there. Its just waiting the installation of the new guards desk being built by Dave Stubbs and the 4253 team - Thank You Guys. It will need a through vacuum pipe fitting at some point to really finish the job, but as ever the C&W (including the GWR Railcar boys) team have done us proud. The Red ends are a surprisingly effective early form of High Visibility! |
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All 3 of the coaches that had their wheels turned at Ashford are now back in traffic ( TSO 64, Maunsell 53 and SECR 3062). It was very nice to see 3062 back in its place at the back of the Vintage set over the Bank Holiday celebrations. It has been a very busy Year since re-opening but the C&W team still found time to return 4 of the 6 coaches to traffic after being stopped for various things - some for several years, and this doesnt include outshopping the Woolwich Coach that was sitting spare - A top team! Thank You All
Peter Blythe
Carriage & Wagon Manager
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A quick summary of the main achievements this past month by the Wednesday Working Group. Our numbers are being reduced each week, due to covering operational turns that are vacant, in order to keep the service running.
Along with the general weekly maintenance that takes place at Tenterden.
- New water supply & automatic watering system installed for the mound garden & platform garden at Tenterden,
- Cranbrook Road crossing keepers toilet now in operation,
- Wittersham Road platform weeded, new plants in the platform planters, grass cut behind the fence, painting of the back fence along the walkway to the platform,
- Rolvenden signalman's walkway started,
- Dressed the site for Jubilee & Beer Festival.
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 Cranbrook Rd throne room Photo Brian Richards
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In the coming month we are hoping to :-
- continue the painting of WM road fencing,
- paint WM Level Crossing gates,
- continue RN signalman's walkway,
- start to paint the signals at WM.
On Wed 29/6 & Fri 1/7, during the planned road closure, we are hoping to Paint Cranbrook Road crossing gates & crossing keepers hut, also replace & paint the white fencing. If you would like to help, with this or any of our work, please contact me infrastructure@kesr.org.uk
Brian Richards
Infrastructure Manager
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Summer is now with us and regular train services continue so work at Bodiam now has to revolve around the public being on-site. The earthworks that resulted from the installation of the new sewage system and the camping coach have been re-profiled with topsoil arranged by Brian Richards and the grass and wildflowers seed sown by the group all seems to have germinated so that the predominant colour is again green rather than brown. Brian also laid some plastic grid matting on the parking area for the camping coach and, with a little manipulation from us the grass is now growing through a relatively flat area. |
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The most notable change to the appearance of the station is the relocation of the entrance gates and the replacement of the old steel gates with a pair of wooden ones that are closer in appearance to what was at the station in the 1950’s. With the help of a couple of Wednesday Group members and some hired-in mechanical plant two new substantial timber gateposts have been installed using concrete spurs for reinforcement. The new gates have been hung and are set further back into the site.
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 New gates at Bodiam Photo: Malcolm Burgess
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This has allowed the realignment of the boundary fencing so that coaches bringing and collecting passengers can reverse into the station yard more easily. This is so that more coach bookings can be encouraged. Graham Holden, Bruce Sharpe, Chris Wady, Paul Randall, Adrian Freeman and myself have all been involved and the accompanying photo illustrates the extent of the project. The fencing remains to be completed following the levelling of some of the land behind the buffer stop which will allow a designated bay for the large refuse bin. |
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 Bodiam Garden Photo: Malcolm Burgess
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It is at springtime that the flower garden looks at its best and Gaye Watson together with Pat and Colin King have been working hard to ensure that this year is no exception. The photo doesn’t really do justice to their labours but passengers frequently make very complimentary comments. 150 hedge plants were delivered to screen the underside of the camping coach and Frank Wenham, Adrian and Bruce made a good start getting them planted in difficult ground. The remainder was even more challenging in compacted ballast and clay so it was decided to spread them elsewhere! In the hop garden Vic Grigg and Colin King have re-strung the hop poles and the plants are steadily growing up. Although there won’t be a Hopping event this year the garden still remains a reminder of the station’s special function in the past. |
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The Cavell Van is back at its established summer home and, thanks to the dedication of Angela Hubbard and Jill Jempson in keeping the interior smart it is attracting a steady stream of visitors. Paul has fixed new high visibility nosings to the access steps to ensure safe entry and exit.
The platform canopy has been showing signs of weathering so Chris and I pulled out the scaffold tower and freshened up the paintwork before public trains began running.
Shortly before the start of the season the station shop was enlarged by taking part of the old waiting room. The new layout has enabled the variety of stock to be increased enormously and the working area for shop staff has been transformed. This improvement is encouragingly reflected in the increased takings.
Malcolm Burgess
Bodiam Station
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Cutting our Cloth! |
Unless you have been completely cut off from the world recently you will be aware of the pressures both our customers and volunteers have been under financially. The cost of living, especially petrol prices, has meant that we are experiencing significant challenges in filling trains.
The average number of passengers per day over the April, May and June to date has been 237. The estimated break-even point for a 5-trip day using a class 5 steam engine and the DMMU is about 154 passengers. So on average the basic service is making a useful contribution to overheads, etc. However, the average hides a wide range of loadings: there were 7 days when we did not reach the minimum threshold and many more days when the DMMU did not contribute.
This break-even point takes no account of the effort volunteers make to running a service. In discussions with many of you I know how demoralising it is to work trains with no passengers on them. If we allow a notional “cost” for volunteer effort, the break even for a train service rises to 216 passengers.
These figures though are at the historical cost of coal: £267 / tonne. The most recent quote we have had this has risen to over £550 / tonne! At these figures we need to carry at least 185 passengers a day.
So you can see that to protect the business we need to be proactive in matching our output to the demand out there. If we don’t make changes the Railway as a whole is at risk.
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What is being done?
We have reduced the length of trains – the normal A set is now 4 coaches; this can be increased / changed if advance bookings indicate more open space is needed for instance.
We have removed some days when the DMMU runs as the second train where pre-booked parties indicate low demand.
The last round steam trip has been retained, despite low loadings back from Bodiam as the marginal saving is very low.
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 We are delighted to back in action delivering Railway Experiences. Image courtesy of Jake Lewis.
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We have removed from sale Mondays and Fridays in August due to very low bookings on these days. It is expected that the base demand (which has fewer groups at that time of the year) will be able to be accommodated on the other days of the week.
The "freed-up dates" will be used to operate Railway Experiences to fulfil the requirements of customers who have received these as gifts previously plus those for new customers all of whom are very keen!
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Not all Cost cutting though
Apart from the strong Santa sales already, we are planning to run a “train of light” style operation at October half term.
Marking activity is focused on generating interest for visiting engines and a possible small engine event at the bank holiday (help needed please!).
Train loading data is vital in understanding what is going on (thanks to the TTIs for gathering this!) and advance booking information is scrutinised regularly to monitor the service offer. If demand increases as the summer progresses, services will be stepped up to meet the growth.
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Longer term
Clearly making late changes to the pattern of services is not desirable; but for some time, hastened by Covid, the trend has been for online research and advance booking, so customers are generally not affected.
Our challenge is to create more demand for profitable offerings and to focus on those areas we do well at. To this end a small group are looking at what the mix of products and services should be in future years, a further step in the evolution of the Kent & East Sussex Railway.
Ian Legg
Trustee
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From the Boardroom |
FROM THE BOARDROOM
The board of trustees had its monthly meeting on Saturday 25 June. We met in the function room of the White Lion in Tenterden High Street. Apologies were received from Robin White and Paul Vidler, from Richard Styles the assistant company secretary and from consultant Mark Stuchbury.
The e-Newsletter provides an opportunity to give a very brief flavour of some of the most important points. It should not in any sense be regarded as a comprehensive formal record.
We had a report from the General Manager covering recent business. We focused on the need to improve our load factors and not to run trains that didn’t contribute to the bottom line. We recognised that our data collection was getting better, but that what it showed was that there was little consistency to guide decision taking. We realised that cancelling services was never going to be universally popular, and that we needed to communicate the reasons for doing so. Work on this, and on maximising revenue generally, would continue, and we were grateful to those who were playing their part. We noted a number of marketing and event initiatives at the planning stage, and we welcomed the early sale of the 2022 Santa season.
The cash situation remained satisfactory but this could not be guaranteed going forward.
In view of economic uncertainties, we had established a group to take a radical look at our business model and propose any necessary changes. This would feed into the 2023 Budget. The pace of change would have to accelerate.
We agreed to adopt the audited Accounts for the year to 31 October 2021. The audit report had been very satisfactory, and thanks were due to those who had prepared them.
We cast the K&ESR vote to enable the 6619 Ltd accounts to be adopted. The way was now clear to arrange the 6619 Ltd agm.
We discussed safety, and we stressed the importance of closing out recommendations of incident reports. This still needed to be stressed to managers.
We agreed that subject to a number of assurances K&ESR Adventures Ltd should be permitted to market the Bodiam camping coach to members and friends, in order to test the market and gauge reaction. Feedback would be captured and used to inform longer term decisions.
We discussed the risks to the Kitchen Car project, and ways of mitigating them.
We congratulated all those who had been involved in the highly successful "Poplar" to Poplar exercise.
We noted that results from the volunteering survey were being collated and that there would be a report at the next Board. New volunteering material was being rolled out.
We noted that the process of selecting a new General Manager was well under way and that most of the first-round interviews had now taken place. We had a further discussion about managing the transition.
This was likely to be Shaun Dewey’s final meeting as General Manager. He had calmly guided us through some difficult times, and we wished him well. We hoped that he would stay in touch and remain part of the Kent and East Sussex family.
The next scheduled meeting would be on Saturday 30 July.
Simon Marsh Chairman
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We'd like to hear from you! |
Your editorial team, Graham Bridge, Helen Douglas and Andre Freeman would really like to hear from you what content you find most interesting and relevant
in the monthly e-newsletter? Feedback can be sent as an email to newsletter@kesr.org.uk
We seek to make the newsletter as forward-facing as possible, as our journal "The Tenterden Terrier" records events that have occured in the recent past. We would really like to hear of future plans from our teams across the organisation!
Submissions to be emailed to newsletter@kesr.org.uk on or before 20th day of each calendar month please. Thank you to those who take the time to contribute.
Helen Douglas
Volunteer
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Newsletter Archive
Have you missed a newsletter? Have you recently joined us? Whatever the reason, you can browse recent editions of this newsletter at https://kesr.org.uk/members-e-newsletter-archive/
Tenterden Terrier Online
As a member of the K&ESR, you can receive notification when ‘The Tenterden Terrier’ magazine is published online by registering your details at
https://kesr.org.uk/tenterden-terrier-online/
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All editions of ‘The Tenterden Terrier’ are now available to view or download from our website: to access this fascinating archive, click on the image above or visit https://kesr.org.uk/terrier/ |
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Support the K&ESR when you shop!
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Did you know that whenever you buy anything online – from your weekly shop to your holiday – you could be raising free donations for the Kent & East Sussex Railway with easyfundraising?
There are over 4,000 shops and sites on board ready to make a donation – including eBay, Argos, John Lewis, ASOS, Booking.com and M&S – and it won’t cost you a penny extra to help us raise funds.
All you need to do is:
1. Go to https://www.easyfundraising.org.uk/causes/kesr/?utm_campaign=raise-more and join for free.
2. Every time you shop online, go to easyfundraising first to find the site you want and start shopping.
3. After you’ve checked out, the retailer will make a donation to Kent & East Sussex Railway at no extra cost to you whatsoever!
There are no catches or hidden charges and we’re really grateful for your donations.
Amazon Smile
If you’re an Amazon customer, you can support the K&ESR at no additional cost by using Amazon Smile – simply click the link below and setup the K&ESR as your selected charity.
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Thank You!
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The total donated by Amozon to the K&ESR to date is:
£714.85
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From all of us here at the K&ESR, our very best wishes |
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Kent & East Sussex Railway
Tenterden Town Station, Station Road,
Tenterden, Kent TN30 6HE
www.kesr.org.uk
Registered charity 262481
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