Kent & East Sussex Railway - General Manager's Blog

2012 - and Jeremy Clarkson

2012-01-12T19:06:00.001Z

I have been waiting until today to write my blog about the end of year. All will become clear later.

2011 has been a record breaking year for K&ESR and it has been great to manage that. We have ended up with passenger numbers over 100,000 for the first time since reaching Bodiam in 2000, and in such times of recession I regard that as a significant achievement by our team.

Regular readers will know about some of our fantastic events in 2011 which have contributed to this, and to finish the year in great style we had a record breaking “Santa” season. I spoke personally to a large number of visitors who enjoyed it, and found the event to be excellent value for money.

A substantial legacy received during the year will transform our finances, but the repayment of the Bodiam Bonds – a £500k liability due for repayment in 2013 – still leaves K&ESR hard strapped for cash and desperate for capital to improve our infrastructure.

In 2011 the carriage shed extension opened for business but it is still in need of 3 individual projects to complete it. We just can’t afford to finish the job without more donations. The fact that we built the extension was, however, another significant achievement.

Now of course, in Olympic year, we face the challenge of “beat that”!
I don’t believe the Olympics will bring to K&ESR (The Leader in Track Events) vast numbers of extra visitors, in fact I suspect the reverse will apply as UK citizens might not choose to holiday in this area in the erroneous belief that it will be stacked out with visitors to the Olympics who are staying in the area. Anyway, how did THEY get tickets?
The numbers of seats for the events at Stratford and the O2 and Greenwich are relatively small and how many of those folk can commute or are staying in London?
I don’t know the answers, and I have yet to find anyone who does, but whilst Kent will not doubt host a good percentage of visitors to the Olympics I would be surprised if tourist attractions show a mega uplift in visitor numbers this year.

What is a software upgrade? I thought this was supposed to improve things. We recently had an upgrade to our ticketing software in attempt to speed up its performance. That may be eventually the case but in the last 2 weeks I have spent so much time on this that upgrade is far from my definition. I probably shouldn’t mention its name here as I will upset somebody but I certainly do not recommend it to anyone. One of their Directors came to visit yesterday and promised to put it all right. This is not for the first time so I can only hope his staff are able to deliver on his promises.

Jeremy Clarkson has been at it again according to BBC Radio Kent. He accuses Kent residents of being comprised of folk who have “arrived in England in the back of a refrigerated truck or clinging to the underside of a Eurostar train."
He says, apparently, that Ranulph Fiennes chose to explore the North Pole because it was too difficult getting around the appalling roads in Kent. Once again he is in trouble but I have to say I think he is very funny provocative journalist. Where has the British sense of humour gone? I actually agree about Kentish roads. Given the choice of trying to get to Hastings along the A21, or trying to drive around a country back road avoiding the pot holes and subsided stretches, or going to the North Pole, I might just opt for the North Pole myself. Whilst on holiday in Dubai in November I can’t remember seeing any potholes – apart from whilst on a desert safari evening. On reflection, I will return there.

The Government announced its intention to proceed with HS2 this week. Here at Slow Speed 1 I was pleased, as I am a fan of quality rail infrastructure, which excludes the Headcorn to Charing Cross line. Today though, I had the absolutely magnificent experience of travelling on HS1 in the loco cab thanks to one of our volunteers and South Eastern Trains. Travelling at speeds of up to 140 mph and being able to compare modern technology with heritage rail operation was something I enjoyed and found extremely interesting and absorbing. We sailed past traffic on the M20 and M2 bound for the interminable jams at the Dartford Toll or in Central London. Ashford to London in 30 minutes including 2 stops shows what can be achieved. I would certainly prefer travelling to the North by train rather than air, which apart from travelling out to airports, involves such a waste of time struggling through check in and security measures. Even if it means going via Birmingham, which Mr Clarkson might prefer to Kent, but I don’t.

Any complaints about the contents of this blog should be directed to Jeremy Clarkson c/o Top Gear.

Return from holidays

2011-12-11T15:23:00.000Z

I have just come back from an excellent two weeks holiday, four days of which were spent in Dubai.
Dubai is a wonderful, modern, vibrant and thought provoking city as its modern architecture challenges some of the building principles that infants are taught in nursery schools. I would not have believed that you can have such shapes to buildings if I had not seen them with my own eyes.
The city’s sleek new Metro system is very clean but not fast enough. It just about reaches the speeds of a heritage railway. Neither are the stations all best strategically placed. Now this all reminded me of home! Dubai deliberately has set out to achieve the longest, newest, biggest wherever it can and it is impressive. So is the museum in the old fort. It has a good look at old culture mixed with recent history. The overhead photos of 2000 and 2010 are mind-blowingly different. Again it reminded me of here, where we seek to write preservation history, as achieved this year with three black Terrier Class locos, City of Truro’s visit, etc etc.
I visited the “Versace” shop in Dubai. There was a very nice shirt that I found which had a superb design and a wonderful feel as I searched for the price tag. I removed my clean hands quickly when I saw the tag which equated to £1100. There was so much wealth in the city, with so many Ferrari, Bentley, Porsche and Lexus cars that it was impossible to count them. A stark contrast with K&ESR!
The city’s main mode of transport is taxi. There are 10,000 taxis for a city with a population of just 2 million. But they are all busy because the fares are cheap. Dubai has no VAT, no income tax, cheap fuel and a really buoyant economy. Perhaps there is a lesson to be learned. Mr. Cameron should pay it a visit as a tourist.

One of the best things about holidays is that when you return suitable refreshed you see new challenges and deal with them in a different way. We are making some minor changes to our IT which should help us going forward, including speeding up the booking office process.

It was straight back to Santa Specials which have got off to a tremendous start. We were sold out last weekend and I am sorry that we disappointed so many people that turned up without booking.
I did also feel sorry for the woman who was extremely rude to one of our staff because we had not sent her the tickets for the 2pm departure which she said she had booked over the phone. Now she had turned up only to find that there was not even a 2pm departure! Her language was quite rich and richer still when she discovered she had booked for another heritage railway. As they had not sent her tickets they will remain anonymous. We of course have no such incidents and cannot understand why anyone would choose to go to another Heritage Railway for “Santa” anyway.

As I write this, we have had another busy weekend and two more “Santa” days are nearly full, so it pays to book. We have had a fantastic year, and it is ending in great style, with thankfully no snow. We are grateful for everybody’s support in achieving this, whether it our mainly volunteer staff, our members, our loyal customers, and our suppliers and contractors. To all of you I extend my thanks and wish you a very Happy Christmas.

November 2011

2011-11-10T10:42:00.000Z

It would be easy for folk to think that now is a quiet time at K&ESR. It most certainly is not.
We have just had our most successful October half term week ever and our “Fright Night” trains were wonderful. We have had so many e-mails and notes of thanks for enjoyable evenings. It is great to see so many of our staff in fancy dress for the occasions. Just four words – we all love it!

This is an important time for planning 2012, and I have started on 2013 which will be a momentous year as it is when we have to repay the Bodiam Bonds. These are £500k of bearer bonds issued to finance the extension to Bodiam in 2000. This has an enormous impact on our future finances both imminently and for the medium term future as we have to forecast what we will actually need to borrow to, cover the value of the bonds we have to redeem. Repayment is only 20 months away now. We have had a small number of bonds returned to us by owners who are donating them to K&ESR, and this is much appreciated.
On the subject of gifts, we have produced our new “Gifts and Legacies” leaflet. Legacies are incredibly important to us, and this year have had a significant impact on our financial reserves. I was talking to my parents about their wishes for funerals etc last night. Hopefully they will be still be around for a few more years, but it is an apt reminder that everyone needs to make arrangements for their estate, no matter how well they may be feeling.

We have had a good year so far and provided the snow stays away we should carry the highest number of passengers since 2000, which is wonderful news.

More great news is that for our May Gala we will see 4247, kindly loaned by “Bodmin & Wenford”. As the efforts on 4253 continue at great pace (and they tell me they are already on year 2’s work of a 10 year plan) it will be great to see what the finished loco will look like.
I hope to announce the other guest loco in a couple of weeks.

Remembrance Day sees the Cavell Van in a mixed SECR train with 3062 having its first public day out. This carriage has not been seen in service for 90 years. It was rescued as living accommodation by our Ashford Supporters Group and painstakingly restored in our Carriage & Wagon department. Throughout the country there are many carriages in alternative use, and is great to see them return to traffic in their original liveries and that is a credit to the Heritage Railway movement.

RVR continue to make great progress in re-building the bridges between North Bridge Street and Robertsbridge Junction station. You can follow their progress on their website.
We have a small construction site of our own at the moment as our volunteer team at Bodiam are building a new passenger waiting room. The base is down and that will be ready for opening next year.

We recently had a small filming contract here for a Pinewood Studios Production “The Last Passenger”. This involved a scene whereby a carriage was on fire. Although I am always delighted to welcome film crews to K&ESR I must say this one had me more than a little concerned. I did of course have no need to worry, the effects team were fantastic and the Director has gone away happy (as always).

I have just acquired a new phone and am getting to grips with the new technology as I try to manage en electronic diary. I am getting there! We embrace new technology here, and we can be followed on Facebook and Twitter. I haven’t adopted Twitter yet. At a recent Chamber of Commerce meeting their webmaster explained how she was re-tweeting our tweets and at that point I went for a good old traditional pint of ale. It is important to preserve some of our traditional past-times!

AGM Trespass and events

2011-10-14T10:33:00.000+01:00

The Annual General Meeting of K&ESR was well attended as usual. It is the second year we have been to Northiam Village Hall and it is a great location. It all went rather smoothly.One gentleman made some interesting points about Robertsbridge. He is very clearly single minded about the inevitable extension to Robertsbridge, but I feel it is worth me publicly making comment.

At K&ESR we are fully supporting this project to extend to Robertsbridge and are working with the Rother Valley Heritage Trust to achieve this.

Heritage Railways don’t make much (if any) money. As a charity that is not what we are about anyway. Spa Valley has just completed their extension to Eridge, and the Bluebell is going to East Grinstead. These are enormous investments to link with the main line, as will be the building of the Rother Valley Railway from Bodiam to Robertsbridge to link K&ESR. In cold hard commercial terms it is doubtful whether any of these investments would take place. Heritage railways do them as part of their mission to provide railway experiences for their members and vitally visitors.

RVR’s investment in track and infrastructure is one thing, but at K&ESR we have some significant infrastructural requirements to enable us to efficiently operate over a longer line. Some of them are in fact needed now, but they will be an essential part of running to Robertsbridge. Above all, over a longer line, Tenterden Town Station will need to be a high quality attraction in its own right to attract passengers from the Robertsbridge end of the line. We have plans for this but lack one vital ingredient - £s, or to be more precise £ms. It may be possible to obtain some grant assistance towards some of these projects but not all the projects and not the total of any projects. We have to find a way to achieve them without increasing our borrowings to an unacceptable level, as they are high enough already and are a considerable drain on our resources in terms of interest and repayments.
I am proud that despite this we have been able to invest in, and improve, our existing facilities but we are really only currently scratching the surface.

We have had some trespassing on the line by school students recently. It is disappointing that despite all that is taught about railway safety at school that young persons and indeed adults trespass on the railway, at danger to themselves. Even more disappointing from my perspective is that we know the offenders are students at Homewood School in Tenterden, indeed one young man dropped his ID card, at a place where some damage has taken place. I called the school and they have not bothered to call me back. So what message does that give? I will leave you, dear reader, to draw your own conclusion! The police are now dealing with the issue.

Since my last blog we have had some excellent events at K&ESR. The numbers attending our Thomas event were a little disappointing but otherwise we continue to have a good year in terms of passenger numbers as an increasing number of people recognise what a great value day out we offer. Hoppers was fanatstic and there was a great atmosphere during the folk festival. Halloween is next and we now have Santa Specials on sale, and tickets are selling well.

Next year we are adding some new events into our calendar which will include a World War One Weekend and a Sixties Weekend. Our Events Co-ordinator has worked up some interesting plans for these already.

Finally some news that in November we will be operating a special train on 11th November which will include the Cavell Van and what will become the latest vintage carriage to appear on the K&ESR – the Ashford Brake 3062. We will take the opportunity to bless the carriage too, following a short service of remembrance. All of that from 10.45 am.

Thomas and Technology

2011-08-02T15:08:00.002+01:00

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.

June 2011

2011-06-28T18:25:00.000+01:00

On Sunday I visited Swanage Railway which I thought was very pleasant. The view from the footbridge at Corfe Castle Station of a steam engine in a delightful station with the castle in the background was wonderful. I would admit that it is probably better than Bodiam station with a view of Bodiam Castle, but we have nicer scenery on route.
Their use of IT is good too. Like us they use theatre style tickets rather than Edmonson tickets, and they have electronic point of sale equipment, which will be one of our next investments. Interestingly they had CCTV at their stations.
We have had a couple of thefts lately and the latest of our platform lighting at Wittersham Road station was unusual. All our staff and members are very upset about this. It appears to be a targeted crime as it takes some planning and effort to steal BR Lamp posts in tact, although two were broken. It is a sad reflection on our society that thieves target heritage environments and a charity for crime. Criminals must be looking forward to the proposed reductions in police resources. We on the other hand increase our crime prevention measures and deterrents. I suppose it will not be long until we have CCTV at all our stations too.
I also visited the House of Commons to go to a Heritage Railway Reception. The idea was to meet the local MPs and talk about the value of Heritage Railways to the economy. I found it very disappointing that neither of the two MPs that represent the line could find the time to attend. Politicians are always quick to state how they support tourism and the value it gives to their communities. According to Tourism SE the number of jobs the industry generates in Damien Green’s constituency would more than account for his margin of voters. I wonder if the tourism industry in the area said “if you are not interested in the major tourist attraction in your borough then we will vote for someone else” where that will leave him? I shall hold that thought. The other MP is Greg Barker to whom I would bet the same applies.
We had an enjoyable re-creating the last passenger train in 1961. It was great to meet some of the passengers of the LCGB charter and in particular Denis Roberts, the fireman of 32662 on 11th June 1961. It is just amazing that the same two locos are still in service, and I am grateful to Bressingham for painting the loco black for the occasion.
The number of visitors to the event was disappointing but we got tremendous coverage in the local press and I cannot recall a front page photo on Steam Railway before.
Our beer festival last week was great, despite the weather. I was able (off duty of course) to sample a pint of “99 Red Baboons” – what a wonderful name. It was one of the first beers to sell out so others clearly thought so too, and it was an excellent taste too.
Our Board signed off our timetable proposals for next year and I can reveal that we shall be having a sixties weekend, which we have not had for a few years and a World War One weekend when our vintage carriages will feature. We have a “new” one soon to leave our carriage restoration shed. More about that soon.

Events and admissions

2011-05-18T14:06:00.000+01:00

On Saturday I watched the awesome sight of the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight giving a fantastic display over Tenterden station. This contributed to a wonderful 40’s weekend enjoyed by 2500 customers, and the display will have been enjoyed by many residents and visitors to the town and local area.
We are good at managing events here, and there is no better example than our “Evacuation Week” currently in progress where some 1600 children are evacuated by train, and they get to learn about many aspects of life during World War II. As an Educational Charity we take particular pride in this event.
As with our gala, we had large numbers of people who thanked us for a wonderful 40s Weekend and told us what great value it is.

Our volunteer staff who have the difficult job of manning the ticket office and station barrier were however very disappointed with the number of local folk who tried to get in without paying or refused to pay to visit the event. They were saying that because they were local residents they thought they should not have to pay to access the event. I would be tempted to suggest they try that at Chessington, or a London Attraction and see what answer they get! I would prefer to think that local folk recognise the value K&ESR brings to the area and that they would go out of their way to support a local charity that helps keep the town alive. Events like these cost thousands of pounds to put on and the way in which they work is that people pay to come in and enjoy them.
Even more galling was a letter of complaint I got from someone who enjoyed a morning of our gala day having sat opposite the station. He congratulated us on a splendid event and then complained because we tried to charge him admission when he came round to the main station area, where there were brake van and miniature train rides to enjoy amongst other things. I’m delighted he enjoyed the show but to write and complain that he should be charged to enjoy an event that cost over £10k to put on is beyond the comprehension of most here. To refuse to make a small contribution via a platform ticket was just mean. He then took delight in telling me he went up the town to eat and drink. More fool him, as our food and beverages are cheaper than elsewhere in Tenterden and he could have saved his platform ticket price on two cups of coffee that were purchased elsewhere.

Next major event is our beer festival. Year three of this hugely popular event that goes from strength to strength. We shall of course be charging for admission!

Events

2011-05-09T12:08:00.003+01:00

Where does the time go? The Easter holidays seem to rush by, then it was the gala and this week is 40s.
Our gala was absolutely fantastic with record numbers coming here to see and enjoy travelling behind “City of Truro”. What a fantastic loco it is, and what a great weekend we had. Our staff all enjoy our annual gala and it is a great opportunity to see a guest loco, fright trains etc. This year our own little star was Marcia, in steam and carrying passengers for the first time for many years. Marcia hauled a brake van in the Pullman dock at Tenterden so many folk were able to get up close and personal with the little locomotive.
There was one downside to the event, when at just after 5.30pm a car drove into our crossing gates at Cranbrook Road. This resulted in delays of around 40 minutes at the end of the day. Fortunately nobody was hurt. We will have some disruption, albeit not to the timetable, for a few weeks until new gates are fixed. As usual our staff were fantastic, swinging into pre-determined actions to deal with the incident. We get very few incidents here and it is good to know that everything that should happen does, in the right order.

I do find it ironic that the editor of a railway magazine rang me up for the first time in 6 years to find out not about our successes but to get the low down on the incident. He had heard the driver of the car was a 19 year old, so his pre-determined opinions were scotched when I told him it was a 90 year old!. Why do the press always seek out bad stories when there are so many good ones to tell? The Royal Wedding was a great good news story, so perhaps that is one too many in a week!

This weekend we will have our 40s event and we are expecting record numbers for this too, with our Battle of Britain Memorial Flight display on Saturday. We are taking the unusual step of charging for our car park at Tenterden (free to ticket holders and members). We usually get invaded by local shoppers looking for free parking so they will have a bit of a surprise, but the £5 charge will be refunded against ticket purchases from the booking office. We have new attractions on site so be sure to visit our 40s event webpage http://www.kesr.org.uk/special-events/details/82-1940s-weekend.html for more information.

Last week I went to neighbouring steam railway, the Spa Valley to enjoy a trip down to Eridge on their newly extended railway. They have restored their platform at Eridge immaculately to heritage Southern Region standards and yet just a few yards away we have the network livery on the main line platform. Unusually we were sat on the Spa Valley train immediately next to the main line service trains. I am very interested in how many extra visitors they will get, because it will be relevant to our forecasting for the eventual extension of this railway to Robertsbridge.

Plans for June 11th are progressing well. I have seen the printer's draft of Nick Pallant’s book “Rails Across The Rother” which tells the story of 50 years of preservation of the K&ESR. I am particularly interested in the new bits of history like the Terrier Gala, Tour de France day and re-opening to Junction Rd. Once printed the book will be available to purchase via our on-line shop. It is inexpensive and worth a read.

2011-03-31T14:37:00.002+01:00

Visitors to this blog hit an all-time high a few days after our Junction Rd weekend. I can only think that it was to see me posting a comment about what a successful event it was. Operationally it was very smooth with engines being added/changed at Northiam, but the number of visitors, other than existing members, was very disappointing, particularly given that it was a one-off event. That said the first train was full on the Saturday .We all thought it was quite exciting, and so obviously did some of our membership. The weather for the event was excellent too. It has demonstrated that there isn’t a commercial demand to run over the line west of Bodiam, at least until it gets a bit further. Steam Railway please note it was a mile extension not 400 yards!
A new loco is coming here, although you won’t see it running for a while yet. Our Board have agreed to allow a “Barry Wreck” a former GWR 2-8-0 no 4253 to come here for restoration by an owning group amongst our working membership. It only needs a cool £350k to restore it but there is already a commitment from a number of folk to buy shares. The sooner the money is raised, the sooner it will be fit for traffic. Realistically this is a 10 year+ overhaul. Our website will have details on how you can become a shareholder in this project.

Similarly there is a carriage body on its way for restoration too, but that project will not start for a few months yet. More about this another time.
I have been discussing with a local pilot the commercial opportunity to fly over the K&ESR (existing and track bed). This is an interesting potential product and will be on sale soon. Watch this blog for more info. On the subject of aeroplanes, I am delighted to report that on Sat May 14th as part of our Forties weekend we will be entertained by a display from the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight. What a coup. Our capacity for the weekend is about 2500 visitors and 500 tickets are sold already – don’t miss out on what will be a weekend to remember.
I need to apologise to my mum. Our Mothers’ Day offer has completely sold out so I can’t take her for a train ride and cream tea on Mothers’ Day. Still there is always another day! I wonder if she would fancy a Murder Mystery on the Pullman in April – there are still a few seats left on those trains.

PESTS

2011-02-28T18:15:00.003Z

I received a newsletter recently which told me I need a PEST. My first reaction was that I know a few of those, but reading on the article revealed that a PEST is a Political, Economic, Sociological and Technological analysis. This is an interesting concept. I think it means that you pay £500 for a training course and then learn how to spend 3 days writing down what you knew already, but didn’t have time to write it down into one document.

Last week I received an e-mail from a training provider entitled PESTS - what you need to know. Putting 2 and 2 together I quickly opened the e-mail to find that this was a one day course learning how to identify and control vermin. This is what I really need to know! Last week we had some rail and our fork lift truck, stolen in broad daylight on the one day of the week we were not operating. The police found these items at our local scrap merchants. The fork lift was battered and bruised but not beyond repair. The rail was buried in a pile of scrap. The Transport Police were still at the scrap-yard at the end of a day which had started with a police raid, presumably recovering items taken from the Network. We are all grateful for prompt action by the police following this theft, which was observed by a member of the public.

Half term week was great here despite the weather, which prevented the usual numbers from visiting our Thomas event on the weekends before and after. We have had some great e-mails of thanks and a glowing report on our facebook page from a keen fan who visited both weekends!

Railway enthusiasts amongst our volunteers are not always great fans of Thomas, but to heritage railways across the country the Rev. Awdry’s engines now provide a valuable source of income. Our guests don’t know that nearly all the staff are volunteers, they just enjoy a great show. Yesterday I was on the platform all day, which is unusual on a “Thomas” event, and it was great to see so many visitors to K&ESR enjoying themselves. Our engine crews were absolutely fantastic. The “Fat Controller” said to me that in his 5 years at the K&ESR it was the best “Day Out With Thomas” he had seen – and he has seen a few, and that before our second relaxing pint in the local hostelry. I was very proud of our performance.

Our customers obviously thought so too. We sold our first tickets for July’s “Day Out With Thomas” event within 5 hours of putting them on sale. The power of the interweb!

We will have some great record breaking events this year, with City of Truro coming to our Gala in May, our trips along the brand new stretch of railway between Bodiam and Junction Road (tickets for both these events are for sale online), and our 50th celebrations in June when we will have 3 black Terrier class locomotives lining up for the very first time in railway preservation. Yes three black terriers – you read it first on this page. For the Junction Road weekend south bound trains will run fast through Bodiam for the first time EVER. I love making railway history!

Not everyone will agree with this, and I am sure there will be some adverse comment from those who do not agree. And that brings me nicely back to where I started!!

Jan 2011

2011-01-24T11:57:00.004Z

The number of visitors to this blog has risen in the last couple of weeks. Perhaps this is to do with running to Junction Road? We are looking forward to doing this over the weekend of March 19th and 20th. Tickets are now on sale but those who wish to travel on the first passenger train (which leaves Tenterden ant 10.30am) will need to book their seats through our booking office. Some tickets to travel on this train are already sold.
More info on my previous posting.
Travelling on a “first” is always a great experience. We are looking forward to welcoming many friends, old and new, on this weekend.
Yesterday I paid a visit to Rother Valley Railway at Robertsbridge Station, K&ESR’s eventual destination. The members there have a lot to do, and it is difficult for them at present as they can’t run passenger trains. I had a look at the track bed between Robertsbridge and North Bridge Street. The bridges along the formation are an interesting challenge, but not an impossible one. The ½ mile of track that they own, once restored leaves a relatively small gap to fill in. It is an interesting thought.
We are now in the process of attending the annual round of Group Travel Shows. Group Travel Organisers are always looking for something different and this year there is a lot of interest in a combined visit to K&ESR and the new Mill Toy Museum at Northiam – opposite the station. The Museum opens mid March. I have had a sneak preview and this is going to be a great new visitor attraction. It will make a tip to K&ESR a fantastic big day out.
Phase 1 of our Carriage Shed Extension project is virtually complete and it is being used for a variety of projects already. Thanks to all who have donated to this project. We had a sizeable donation in this morning which is a great help because we still need a further £60k to complete the shed by installing heating, extraction and some better lighting. I am very proud of our achievement to date.
The snow in December hit us badly, and not only did we lose a complete day of Santa Specials, we noticed that visitors came and went quickly, so takings on refreshments and in the shop were somewhat down. On the day we cancelled services we managed to e-mail and ring all our customers except two. We have a computerised booking office system here, which helps us collect Gift Aid and manage pre-booked seats. It produces theatre style tickets, which is a bit of a down side, but it certainly came into its own in December by enabling us to contact our customers easily. We now have quite an electronic database to which we can send information. Just follow this link if you would like to be added to this list.
Despite the snow, we finished 2010 with a reasonable growth in passenger numbers. Had it not been for snow in February and December we might have reached 100k passengers. That gives us a target for this year.
City of Truro will visit us for our gala (30th April – May 2nd) and I am looking forward to this as hitherto I have not had the privilege of riding behind this famous locomotive. Tickets are now on sale. I am confident this will swell our visitor numbers this year.

Christmas 2010

2010-12-13T12:08:00.000Z

I can remember sitting in my office last year thinking is it going to be safe to operate with all this snow around? I took the decision that it was and with a lot of hard work from a few volunteers we set to making the place safe. One of our younger volunteers brought his Land Rover in to tow a few cars out of the car park. We used up our supply of winter grit and we got by with only one slip. Unfortunately some of our customers could not get to us because they were snowed in, in side roads, but the main roads were cleared by KCC and ESCC and access to Tenterden and the K&ESR was ok.
Déjà vu!

This year again a few dedicated volunteers helped clear the platform and yard and entrance to the car park, and then with the help of a serious amount of rain on December 3rd the place was clear. Again a few customers could not make it because they were still snowed in to their side roads but most made it and had a wonderful time. We have had some lovely e-mails and letters of thanks. Thank you for these – it delights our staff (who are mainly volunteers) when we know we have given visitors a great time.

It was a shame we had a telephone complaint from a lady who rang up to say her party could not make it because her car had broken down. This apparently was all our fault as it wouldn’t have broken down if she had not been coming to K&ESR. I must remember to alter our terms and conditions to deny responsibility for people’s cars breaking down!!

Last year we had some new promotional videos recorded and the Santa Specials showed the snow and the steam trains looked fantastic. Little did we know we were going to replicate that experience this year – and as I write this there is the suggestion there will be more this weekend.

We will certainly operate if we can. Steam engines do not suffer the same was a this region’s main line service as of course there is no “third rail” to freeze over. SE trains have come in for a lot of stick for their lack of service. My view is that the weather is not their fault. Sending their de-icing trains off for overhaul in the autumn/winter does not, however, appear to be the best decision!

We have nearly completed phase one of our Carriage Shed development and the shed will be operational in January. We have run out of funds to complete this however, and to enable phase two to take place we need to raise some more cash. Thanks to everybody who has helped us, financially and/or in terms of labour, so far.

We are looking forward to 2011 now, and I have to say that I am excited about running over the Bodiam West extension (Rother Valley Railway metals) to Junction Road on March 19th/20th. We will be selling tickets for this early in the New Year. We will operate with 45 minute departures from Tenterden starting 10.30am, two steam sets (one vintage) and the DMMU. My personal preference is for a trip on the DMMU because the visibility is so good. Steam services will be topped and tailed between Northiam and Junction Road and trains will not stop Southbound(Outward) at Bodiam but the will stop on the return leg. The first departure of the Saturday may well be pre-booked so please watch the web-site.

Finally may I take this opportunity to wish all our customers, members, regular readers of this blog, and your families a very Happy Christmas and all the best for 2011.

October, Halloween and PESTS

2010-11-05T16:37:00.000Z

I can hardly believe that I have not posted on this blog for 4 weeks. So much has happened.

Our carriage shed extension has made superb progress. The steel seemed to go up in no time, and the roof is now on. The bricklayers were struggling today in the rain, but it is great to see British workers on time and on budget. It can be done.

We have had a good October. Our Fright Night Trains were both full and this finished the month in fine style. One of the members of our Saturday Gang, who are primarily Engineers, came out on the Friday night and confessed to enjoying himself, just after we had turned the lights, having pitched the entire train into darkness. He was surprised to learn from some customers that they had never been on a train before. This happens quite regularly. When my children were growing up I took them to London by train each year to visit an attraction ride on different modes of transport etc. They had a great time. It is so easy to travel by road and plane but in the SE it is quite easy to travel by train. More should try it – especially the High Speed types.
You can easily tell those people that travel by train now, they wait for the doors to open. Our staff are now looking for them to help them on board by opening the doors of our vintage carriages manually.

At the beginning of October Tenterden takes on a different look for the town’s folk festival. It is great for the pubs as they are all full, but unfortunately some of the festival organisers don’t look at the impact on other businesses. This year our car park was filled by festival users and our customers were unable to use it. Potential customers have told us they drove away. That will not happen again. I fully understand why visitors park in our car park – it is free as opposed to the outrageous and uninviting car park charges levied by the cash strapped Borough Council. Next year we will not be free and we will direct non-customers to the town’s pay and display car parks thus contributing to their financial well being. All in the spirit of promoting the community!!

As I write the Cavell van nears completion thanks to the work of our volunteers at Bodiam Station. We will look forward to next weeks’ commemoration ceremony and look forward to welcoming back the Lord Warden and many other V.I.P.s to K&ESR.
This railway vehicle is a national treasure. I hope lots of people will come and see it. It will be shown on BBC1 – we hope it makes the national news.

We visited the Mill at Northiam last week to see the new Toy Museum under construction. When this is finished in March it will help make a visit to K&ESR a really great day out, with attractions at 3 stations.

In front of me I have an article titled “The Power of the PEST”. A PEST by the way is a Political, Economic, Sociological, Technological analysis. To do this one must start, apparently, by analysing the PEST factors that effect one’s business. As I started to think about this I was interrupted for the sixth time today by the same individual and my mind has gone off on another tangent.

Santa bookings are looking good. K&ESR’s Santa Specials are well established in this area. We regularly change the offer, but last year’s experience was so successful we are repeating it this year. I just hope this December it comes without the snow.

Finally I had the chance to visit the Isle of Wight Steam Railway to join in the celebrations as “Calbourne” returned to traffic. The Isle of Wight Railway is similar to K&ESR in many ways and they have a similar number of visitors to us. I had a great journey back across the Solent by Catamaran but the journey out was horrendous on a very bumpy substitute. I like the rail link from Ryde to the steam railway. It is such a shame that in the populous SE of England you can’t get a bus from the nearest main line train station to the local major tourist attraction on a Sunday!

2010-09-27T12:43:00.000+01:00

We have just completed another Day Out With Thomas ® event, and at long last we saw the opening sequence of Downton Abbey on ITV with our Terrier locomotive which was filmed here a few months ago. With such fantastic camerawork we all hardly recognised the K&ESR.

Today the Contractors arrived to start work on the extension to our Carriage & Wagon shed. Although there are three restorations which will be set back because of these works, we are all looking forward to the completion of the project which will almost double the under cover working space. The Appeal is disappointingly only around the £20k mark, and we will have to raise a lot more to be able to finish the job.

The Cavell Van is back from Ramparts and looking fantastic. We now have to add the finishing touches to get it ready for its launch in November. Visitors to K&ESR will be able to see the van at Bodiam next year. We are grateful to the Heritage Lottery Fund for a grant to enable us to undertake this work.

We have a new Station Agent for Wittersham Road station. He and his wife have put a lot of effort into improving the ambience of the station and they have done a terrific job. It has become another pretty station on what we believe is a superb trip through the Kent & Sussex countryside
A couple of weeks ago there was the most appalling incident of trespass on the railway. Three youngsters rode a quad bike and a scrambler bike along the railway towards an oncoming steam train. They were lucky not to have been seriously hurt or killed. So much effort is put in by the British Transport Police and others to educating youngsters, I fail to understand why they do not realise the potential consequences of their actions. I will say no more as we will probably prosecute on this occasion because of its seriousness.

I recently walked along the Rother Valley Railway extension from Bodiam station to check out some issues that needed to be addressed. What did I find? Two walkers standing in the middle of the railway, despite the “No Trespassers” signs. If adults behave in such a way perhaps there is no hope for children. As this is not our property it is not for us to take any action on this occasion.

Do people think Heritage Railways are just toys and that a 60 ton or more locomotive travelling at 25mph will do them no harm?

While I am having a rant, I was horrified to see a dog walker allow their dog to pee against one of the DOWT signs on our property this weekend. When I complained that staff and indeed children touch the sign he had a go at me for complaining. He does dog owners no justice. He told me that he used to be a volunteer here, but as none of our staff would allow their dog to behave that way, I wondered whether he was asked to leave after being found doing something he shouldn't on the platform!!

2010-08-24T12:05:00.001+01:00

The sun is shining today which makes a pleasant change after the rain of the last few days. This August has certainly been wetter than last year, but comparable with 2007.
We continue to trade well, welcoming increasing numbers of visitors to K&ESR. Our customer newsletter, an innovation this year, has been well received.
Over the last 3 weeks we have operated a promotion which is now closed. I have been quite surprised by the number of people who have telephoned to say “I know the promotion is over but can I still use the voucher?” They seemed to have missed the point!
Worse than this was a lady approached by a Station Master at Tenterden because she had been sitting on the platform for quite a long time. She was quite well physically, but she then asked what time the next train to London was! Assuming the link to Robertsbridge is completed in about 10 years time, 2020 would have been a good answer, but she might have then waited until twenty past eight.
Last Monday one of our neighbour’s willow trees fell across the track. This disrupted services for a couple of hours whilst we got it cut and removed. This Monday part of my neighbour’s willow tree fell into my garden. Fearing the worst we did an inspection of the line, but there was no disruption this week. An odd coincidence!
The appeal to extend our Carriage & Wagon works, where we undertake restorations of vintage carriages and undertake vital maintenance work, has now reached £12k and another £4k has been promised to us. This still leaves us a long way to go to reach our total of £200k.
We are budgeting now for 2011, and given the economic conditions. Forecasting business levels is fraught with danger. Given the number of travel companies going out of business and the strength of the £ against the Euro it seems that forecasting the same as this year is a reasonable bet as holidaying at home becomes an even safer bet.
I had a very interesting meeting with the Terrier Trust who own and part own our Terrier locomotives. We are going to give No3 (Bodiam) an interim coat of black paint to enable us to run a top and tailed black Terrier set on our anniversary celebrations next year. Next year we celebrate 50 years since the original preservation group was founded (just one tear behind he Bluebell) and 50 years since the last rain ran on the line. It will be good to have 2 Terriers in BR livery to celebrate that.

2010-07-29T17:26:00.000+01:00

We have just had a fantastic weekend celebrating “Thomas & Friends”™ 65th anniversary party. We were sold out both days. We were very sorry to have to disappoint a number of potential customers, some of whom had travelled relatively long distances, but those who pre-booked were not disappointed and they were two great days.

Thomas is always very popular with children (of all ages!!) and of course we regularly run “A Day Out With Thomas”™ events but it was great to see so many smiling faces last weekend. This event was quite different to our normal DOWT days and I am grateful for the help given to us by HiT Entertainments who chose us to host the only 65th Anniversary Party in SE England.

The visit was spoiled for a couple of our visitors who found our car park full and who erroneously chose to park in the car and coach park in Station Road. One of the car parks is turned into a coach park for the summer season, and quite a lot of money was put into improving it last year by Tenterden’s Town & Rural Partnership. Now I have to say that there were no coaches parked there that I saw, but drivers who parked there were given on the spot tickets by the council’s traffic warden. Although this car park is clearly signed that it is the coach park, once somebody parks a car there, and the car park opposite is full, others follow. I am concerned that a visitor to Tenterden can park their car there, put money in the ticket machine and get issued with a parking ticket even though they cannot park there. The tariff board is clearly displayed and the machine takes the money and issues a ticket. Although Ashford Borough Council will state that they issue the ticket under the terms and conditions of parking, should they be taking money off visitors who are not allowed to park? Is this obtaining money by deception?

I recently attended a seminar at ABC to help the council decide which services to cut and which not to cut in their 2011/12 budget. They have to save £1 million. It would be easy to suggest parking wardens as somewhere to start but I seriously hope they do not reduce the service of the TIC at Ashford, or close the public toilets in Tenterden, or cut back on refuse collections. These are important issues for tourism businesses in the borough.

Still with the Council, we recently attended a planning appeal associated with ABC’s new Local Development Framework. We feel it is important that the LDF contains specific policies that will support the development of K&ESR, as the Borough’s leading tourist attraction. Some of ABC’s planning department do not agree – so we will see what the Inspector thinks.

I am pleased to report that we have raised our first £10k towards our Carriage Shed Appeal. Our Board and I put the first £1000 into the kitty, and it is great to see our members responding to the Appeal sent out in our in-house magazine. Thank you to those who have contributed, but we have a very long way to go.

We are working on our event programme for 2011. On 19th and 20th March 2011 we plan to run trains over the newly laid part of the Rother Valley Railway between Bodiam and Junction Road. That will be fun.

RVR have done very well in getting comparatively quickly to Junction Road. The next couple of miles might prove a little more difficult. Our Board and I attended a garden party at Udiam Farm to see the new piece of track and hear about their plans for the remainder of the missing link to Robertsbridge. I hope the landowners currently owning the old track-bed will help RVR in their efforts. In the meantime before K&ESR runs to Robertsbridge we have a number of important infrastructures to address of which the Carriage shed extension is just the first. The whole shopping list may take a while to complete.

I recently met with the owners of what next year will be the new Toy and Pedal Car Museum at Northiam. This is an interesting project and once it open K&ESR will become even more of a great day out with two tourist attractions en route.

We continue to have a busy season. Now we are into the peak tourist season, if you are planning a visit please ensure you arrive at our stations in good time for departing trains. The 11.45 vintage train departure continues to be very popular, as is its return from Bodiam at 3.25pm. The 1.15pm off Tenterden usually is a little more spacious and has higher capacity.

2010-06-21T18:04:00.002+01:00

It is too long since I last posted. I thought I would post pre-budget, in expectation of drastic measures rather than potentially gloomily post budget.

We continue to be extremely busy which is reassuring. We have now sold out of Steam Engine Driving Experience Days and Signal Box Experience Days, with Pullman bookings still coming in thick and fast. It seems surprising with all the economic gloom and despair that our more expensive offerings continue to sell well. We are also experiencing a 10%+ uplift in visitor numbers. At long last folk have realised what an excellent value for money day out a trip on the K&ESR is.

We have recently drafted our timetable for 2011. I will leave the details until later, but we plan a long way in advance, which enables us to get our rolling stock supply correct, as near as we can. If only we could plan the weather!

We have recently welcomed a class 14 diesel locomotive to K&ESR. I look forward to seeing that out and about with our class 33 diesel on engineering trains etc. Our Diesel Gala and Bus Rally this weekend should be great.

Our Carriage & Wagon Shed Extension Appeal has just been launched with our Trustees showing their commitment to the project to start the appeal. We have therefore reached just under £1000 in the first week. £200,000 is our target so we have a long way to go and some of the preparatory work has already been completed by our volunteers.

Last week saw a German TV crew here filming for a ZDF children’s adventure show. It is great news that we can get K&ESR on TV in other European Countries. I am looking forward to seeing K&ESR on the new ITV series “Downton Abbey” in the autumn.

“Save The Best Til Last”- The best news of all is that our Refreshment Rooms at Tenterden have been awarded a 5 Star Clean Food Award – the only (at the time of writing) restaurant in Tenterden to achieve this. Our catering team have worked extremely hard to reach this standard. We are all very proud of them.

2010-05-20T13:29:00.000+01:00

I have just returned from an interesting week’s holiday in the Scottish Highlands. The first few days were spent listening to political rhetoric on radio 5 whilst the coalition was trying to sort itself out. I am not a great one for politics but I draw one comparison between political parties and membership led organisations. It is not always crystal clear what the voter wants, but sometimes it is necessary to make decisions that will not be popular with the voters but they still have to be taken for the organisation or nation’s good. The elected Government or leaders just have to have the courage to take such decisions and the voters have to accept that they put the leaders there and therefore have to acknowledge their decisions in that light.

I took at trip to the Strathspey Railway which is very similar to K&ESR in that it is 10 miles long, has wonderful scenery (and yes their snow capped mountains were spectacular but our locos work for a living climbing banks!), and that they are working on a major extension. The similarities end there as are staffed by just 80 volunteers and a handful of paid employees, the line is simply engineered with only one automated level crossing and they already have a super carriage storage facility.

We are just about to launch an appeal to raise £200k to build an extension to our carriage and wagon shed, and are about to apply for planning permission to build a carriage storage shed, so we are a little behind our Scottish cousins in that respect.

I was hugely impressed though by the Scottish Tourism Industry. Direction and “Brown” facility signage is excellent. It is very clear what attractions and facilities can be found in the smallest villages, and major attractions are clearly signed for considerable distances. Tourism is recognised as a key industry and supported by Government accordingly. A good percentage of towns and villages have Tourist Information Centres, which have been stripped out of the South East as councils take advantage of removing a non-statutory service from their budgets. Our local Tourist Information is hidden away in the “Gateway” and our visitors comment that our own information kiosk is of more help.

I returned to a file of e-mails that have taken 3 days to work through, and our best ever “Forties” event with over 2000 visitors over the weekend. Straight on the back of this we have had 4 days evacuating 2000 children from kent into Sussex as part of an educational experience. This experience was fully sold and we have already taken bookings for next year which can’t be bad? We even had some teachers doing a reccy last weekend and one school booked for Evacuation 2011 there and then!

We had a great April, and are having a good May too. We get better and better at running major events. Add to that some reasonable weather, the occasional volcanic ash cloud forcing holidaymakers to stay at home, and a little economic uncertainty and we seem to have just the climate for success.

Just had to....

2010-03-29T13:37:00.000+01:00

I just had to do a quick blog today. After a very good weekend we heard today that our bid for a Heritage Lottery Fund grant towards the Cavell Van resotration project has been successful. We still have some more to raise but this means that we have nearlly reached our target. The wagon is now about to leave us for the contractor who will undertake the engineering work.
AND
Somebody rang up this weekend to ask if we would be effected by the forthcoming Rail strike. I am hoping we will be in that if any of our volunteers who work on the Network choose to strike that they will spend their day here instead!

New Season Starts

2010-03-16T10:23:00.003Z

It is a month since I last posted. In that time I have managed to get a few days of leave in. Closed season there is always so much to do.

I was disappointed with the final results from our Day Out With Thomas event. The weather hit us hard and it was really too cold to take out young children but those who did attend had a wonderful time. We are now planning the 65th Anniversary party for Thomas and Friends which we are holding in July. We hope to be really busy for this event and we are already receiving enquiries about it.

In the meantime we focus on this weekend’s Branch Line Weekend which sees the return to traffic of Charwelton following overhaul. The loco is being used on Railway Experience days this week but the first chance to ride behind it will be Saturday. We have a great timetable planned with engine change at Bodiam that always creates a lot of interest. Branch Line weekend is now our way of starting the season but next year I have something spectacular in mind and we are working on that already. Watch this space!

I have been able to secure our second guest locomotive for The Great K&ESR Gala in May. It is Jinty no 47493 which is making a short trip from Tunbridge Wells.

Charwelton will also feature heavily in the gala timetable which will make it a fantastic event for those who make an annual pilgrimage here for what is now well recognised as an innovative and creative event.

Last week we had a very interesting meeting with a mobility specialist and the Chairman of Kent Wheelchair Users Group. We are about to overhaul Petros, our carriage adapted for wheelchair users and are looking at improving the facilities on board. Some interesting ideas were developed. In the interim we have adapted another carriage to carry wheelchairs. We have a reputation for accommodating and looking after wheelchair bound passengers and they are important to us.

Our Cavell Van restoration appeal is now just a couple of hundred pounds of £8k. We have a target of £35k to reach and very little time to do it, and we are hoping a lottery bid will fund most of the balance.

I thought I would leave the best bit until last. Last night I attended the Pride in Ashford and Tenterden Tourism Awards with some of our volunteers and a couple of salaried managers. I was absolutely delighted when it was announced we won the award for the Volunteer Group of the Year. We received a lot of nominations from visitors. We do not make any great effort to win awards but are always delighted when the efforts of our team are recognised. One of our catering staff also received a Highly Commended certificate as a result of nominations she received in the category Hospitality Employee of the year. As she is a part time worker this is a huge result. I have not named her as she will not know until I present her with the certificate this weekend! Just occasionally I do get the best jobs!

2010-02-13T15:16:00.000Z

The snow has hit us hard this week, on the run up to our Day Out With Thomas ™ event. We have spent hours clearing the stations to make them safe. It is so cold but everybody is enjoying themselves. Although we have had less than the expected number of visitors for this weekend, next weekend’s bookings are strong, let us hope it is warmer!

I have had some good news about a filming contract which will take place in a couple of weeks time and will see us on ITV at the end of the year. It is just a shame we will not be on TV in the summer!!

At our last Board meeting, the Board agreed to fund an extension to our Carriage & Wagon shed, which we desperately need just to keep up with maintenance and current restoration projects. There will be more about this later, as we will launch an appeal to help us raise the £200k the project will need. Talking of appeals, our Cavell Van appeal has got off to a good start with £6k of the £35k need already received.

The first guest locomotive, a standard tank, has been secured for our May Gala. We will press release this shortly.

A few days ago I went to a presentation by Kent County Council of their vision for Kent in the future. An extension of the High Speed Rail Link to Manston Airport is a wonderful idea, but I am a bit concerned about the idea of a link from Ashford to Gatwick as this appeared to go through my back garden. Another idea is for a 3rd Thames road crossing, this east of Gravesend. The leader of Gravesham Borough Council then appeared on the radio to say not in our back yard. Unusually I have some sympathy for this argument!

Developing High Speed Rail travel is an interesting concept. I like the idea of linking all the airports with a circular inter airport railway – it would be so much quicker than M25/M11/M1/M23 combinations. When light railways were developed and Colonel Holman F Stephens built the Kent & East Sussex Railway slow speed rail travel was an innovation. There was a famous Punch magazine cartoon of two ladies having a discussion about their journey. The first asked “Shall we walk or travel by train?” The second replied “As we’re not in hurry we’ll go by train”. There may be one or two commuters caught up in recent delays and cancellations caused by recent inclement weather who might argue the same still applies!

2009-12-07T11:25:00.008Z

The “Famous Santa Specials” started this weekend, and we were fully booked. In Kent we have to compete with a number of attractions who have their own visits to Santa but K&ESR’s reputation has been built up over a number of years, and we have taken to tweaking the offer every year so that it is slightly different. We have a lot of families who come to Tenterden every year. The K&ESR Santa Specials are in their 35th year and we have many loyal visitors who bring their grandchildren, after bringing their children many years ago.
My most vivid memory this weekend was the look on a grandmother’s face when I told her daughter that we were full and unable to accommodate them because we were fully booked. She was heartbroken. Fortunately we managed to squeeze the family in where another group was late. We can usually accommodate last minute visitors but I would always urge pre-booking for Santa (and of course for days Out With Thomas).

Our timetable and guide for 2010 is now in the public domain. We have tried to make it crisper and bolder this year. I think that works. We have included details of some of Bodiam Castle’s events and are working with them to ensure we both offer a really good value day out for our visitors. Our fares for 2010 will stay the same as 2009, indeed most of our experience prices remain at the same level.

Last week we launched the Appeal for the Cavell Van and this received some fantastic press coverage and in particular I thought the piece on BBC1 SE News was excellently produced. The Cavell Van has a wonderful history, its main claim to fame being that it carried the body of the Unknown Warrior from Dover to London. There has of course been much discussion about the wagon this week – it is clearly a National Treasure, and we will work towards having it ready for Remembrance Day 2010. We have a target of £35,000 and have reached £1600 by the Appeal launch day so I am hopeful the public will be generous in their support. Read more...

Last week I attended a course on ISA registration, a process which will replace CRB checking in future years. We CRB check our Santas and all our staff that we believe are likely to come into close or unsupervised contact with children or vulnerable adults. Although we will need to change our Company Policy to accommodate the new framework, we will maintain the same level of vigilance with the new system when the Home Office has eventually got its act together and issue the final revised processes.

Can I take this opportunity to wish you an enjoyable Christmas. I heard a cleric say on the radio last week that some folk may find it offensive if they are wished a Happy Christmas. What has the world come to?

2009-11-09T17:27:00.003Z

Each week I get an e-mail telling me how many visitors this BLOG gets. I am surprised and flattered by this, particularly as I do not post every week. Our new website, ever improving, continues to get huge numbers of visitors and if you are visiting it for the first time, you are very welcome.
K&ESR has a great reputation for looking after visitors with special needs and Petros, our carriage specially adapted to carry wheelchair passengers has worked hard since its introduction, carrying tens of thousands of wheelchair bound or infirm passengers. Next year it is out of service for overhaul and we will improve it further to make it even more suitable for those whose access needs are that much greater.

During Halloween week we had our annual VAQAS inspection from Visit Britain and we received a very positive response. We are proud to be members of that scheme and display the logo on our literature and website. And finally on the subject of being a visitor attraction, our new visitor information centre will be open for next year. Our Tuesday Gang (DIY team) are currently painting it , the shelving has been installed in the storage area, and by December we will have the leaflet racks in ready to go for 2010. In Tenterden the Tourist Information Centre is in the Gateway which is far from ideal, and we are therefore confident that our facility will be popular with the local population as well as our visitors. We will have a dedicated area for other steam railways too.

K&ESR’s historical roots are important but whilst we preserve, we also progress and aim to improve our facilities to make sure K&ESR is a great day out for enthusiasts, visitors of all ages and especially families. We look forward to welcoming many families back in December for the Famous Santa Specials – 50% of our customers are repeat visitors!

2008-08-07T18:08:00.004+01:00

I heard to day that we were officially rated by the Day Out With Thomas event managers as one of the Top 5 DOWT Heritage railways in the UK. We have invested a lot of effort in ensuring we maintain and improve the quality of this event. It is absolutely fantastic to have this level of recognition, and it is a tribute to the efforts of all our hard working staff, most of whom are volunteers.

We have just received a very generous donation of £1000, from one of our members, to the GWR Railcar Appeal, taking the figure raised so far well over £10,000. The GWR Railcar is an important part of UK Railway heritage and we look forward to seeing it restored and operating here on the K&ESR. We are 15% of the way toward our total. Thanks to all those who have contributed - donation envelopes are available around the railway and donations can now be made at the booking office.