Thomas and Technology

Here we are in August. We have had a busy few weeks.
Our Day Out With Thomas event at the end of July was extremely successful. We felt it was an interesting experiment to run this event for 3 consecutive days. At the end of it we were exhausted but happy. It was brilliant to receive so many customer comments about what excellent value the event was. We try hard to achieve this against a background of soaring fuel prices but I think we do pretty well.
I received one very interesting complaint from a customer who told me he was annoyed because he had picked up a leaflet in the morning and it had not said we were fully booked. Now this sets me an interesting dilemma. How do you produce literature to promote an event that says the event is sold out, before you even produce the leaflet? Even worse if you are not fully booked at 10am but you are at mi-day how do you produce a leaflet for that? If anyone has the answer to this no doubt they will write it on the back of a £50 note and send it to me.
We had a little bit of extra publicity too when a van from a local building company collided with the low-loader bringing the Thomas loco here on the Kent/East Sussex border. This made the headlines of the local paper just 2 days before the start of the event and on the BBC’s website a “click here for further information” on the story took surfers to our advert for the event. This was a good boost to publicity whilst not necessarily for the best of reasons. Thomas was ok – he is a really useful engine. No whiplash claims to the insurers by him!
On busy days our car park is under a lot of pressure and we cannot always park all our visitors. To filter out non-customers we therefore ask folk to show their tickets or confirmations. It was interesting to see customers showing us their Blackberrys, I-phones and even an I-Pad with their confirmation e-mails. We are relatively forward thinking in IT terms, and it is interesting to note that more people have Smart Phones. Next year we will have an APP and we are looking at QR codes too. I wonder what is next – a virtual train ride to a virtual castle with a virtual eye-full of smoke?

During “Thomas” we were filmed by HiT entertainment for their new Japanese DVD. I have to say that I find it an enormous compliment that HIT brought a foreign press party here and film our event. We have also had visits from Taiwanese and Japanese TV crews recently and just last week were filmed for CBBC’s “I Can Cook”. Many visitors will have seen the crew in action.

I, and the management team have been working on next year’s budget. This is always an interesting exercise as running steam engines costs much more than one might first think. The costs of coal and diesel have increased dramatically over the last couple of years and this will mean an increase in fares for next year, but we will still retain offers for families.

I went on an interesting seminar on legacy management recently. Yes, that is an important part of our income and part of the job. We have just received one five figure sum, and another is on the way. These make a substantial difference to us. It just is not particularly nice to have to think that to receive major gifts we rely on generous benefactors passing away.

We have ambitious development plans but first we have to deal with the bonds issued to finance the extension to Bodiam in 2000. Redeemable in 2013 they total just a gnat’s whisker under £500,000 and we have to deal with them before we can embark on an ambitious development programme. Legacies and donations therefore make a major difference to K&ESR.
We have joined “Just Giving” which is an interesting initiative by Vodaphone. If you text £5 KESR02 to 70070 we will apparently receive that shortly after.. More great technology.

Finally on Robertsbridge. Our colleagues at RVR are currently re-building the bridges between Robertsbridge station and North Bridge Street. Nearer home we are hoping to run on the section to Junction Road as part of our Hoppers Event in 2012. This year’s “Hoppers” is on 10th and 11th September. It is a great event.