PLATFORM

Make our heritage lines attractive to the general public and they will come

CHRIS White makes a very unsavoury, but very important and accurate point in issue 259 concerning the future of our smaller heritage railways.

Many pages have been written about their problems, lack of young volunteers and attracting visitors (revenue). To find the answer, each railway needs to take a step back and consider why anyone would want to visit their railway.

Imagine a family discussing what they might do at the weekend. Dad says: “I’d like to visit XYZ preserved railway.”Mum says:“We went there once before, we drove 20 miles to walk around a filthy yard full of scrap metal and I ruined a perfectly good pair of shoes.”

The children will need some persuading to spend a few hours away from their Xbox. Dad loses the debate and they go to a shopping mall, also 20 miles away, where she can shop and they eat pizzas at inflated prices.

Now if the railway is a picture postcard destination with gardens on or around the platform and a delightful