Re: New Steamrail HEADBOARD [Vic.]

[Michael Kurkowski <mk@netstra.com.au>]

Roderick Smith <rodsmith@werple.net.au> said:

>The new board is in the style of a loco numberplate (and the Newsrail
>magazine headboard), white lettering on black.

I agree, that this is a huge improvement. For the shuttles like Sundays, I 
don't mind seeing the headboard, as this does advertise Steamrail to the 
masses of people. I would even go as far to say, that for general public 
shuttle services like Sunday, the red/yellow headboard would have been 
okay. BUT, considering what happened on Sunday, If I were steamrail, I 
would have been running around with my tail between my legs removing every 
single bit of Steamrail propaganda off the cars and locomotives, to save 
what's left of my reputation. (It was nothing short of a disaster).

>While this is certainly an aesthetic improvement for charters of this
>type for the general public, it is still too intrusive for trips pitched
>at the railway-enthusiast market (and Steamrail has virtually taken over
>this market from railway-enthusiast organisations).

I agree there. Railfan trips are exactly that, trips for railfans. Railfans 
don't want to see ugly propaganda, and since it's a captive market, it 
doesn't do much anyway. If anything, it drives railfans away.

>As I watched a late-afternoon up shuttle, the loco had vanished into the
>gloom, but the headboard was still visible (like the grin on the
>Cheshire cat in Alice in Wonderland).

Aaah, but had you have been one of the masses at Blackburn, who caught the 
Lilydale shuttle, been offloaded with the announcement that a locmotive had 
failed, that things would be fine soon, then be kept in the dark, only to 
have the railfans who had been listening in telling you what was going on, 
what would your thoughts be? I personally wouldn't advertise myself, if I 
were to do that.

Anyway, I don't take this as an opportunity to bag out a certain rail 
preservation come tourist organisation, rather intended as constructive 
criticism that people can add on, but the problems I found on the day were:

* Having arrived at Blackburn station to catch one of the shuttles, there 
was a sign in front of the Blackburn station office which read something 
along the lines of "Tickets for steam train available on board by roving 
inspectors". I was not the only one who saw this, and while we tried to 
board the train, we were told that we couldn't get on because we had no 
tickets. There was supposedly a lady in a straw hat, standing on the 
platform selling tickets. While a few of us wandered down the platform, we 
asked another conductor, who said the same thing. A passenger that was on 
the train then revealed that the supposed lady in a straw hat was out on 
the street selling the tickets. The conductor told us to get on, and he 
would sort it out, stating "look, you came for the ride, there is no use 
missing this train because the lady isn't here, so just hop on board, and 
we will sort it out by the time we get back". Upon arriving at Blackburn on 
the return trip (heading to Lilydale) I went and asked and was told to keep 
waiting, something would happen at Lilydale. At this stage I was prepared 
to hand over money and get something written back as a proof of purchase 
type arrangement. 

* Failure at Lilydale. Euphoric time for railfans that had caught wind of a 
broken down L. Furious passengers wanting their trip. Tireless staff 
running around like headless chooks trying to sort things out. In the three 
hours that the train had spent there, they seemed to forget to tell the 
passengers what was going on. I could just imagine the parents of an overly 
excited 4 year old, thinking "woopee, there's a vline train coming to get 
us", only having a railfan tell them what was going on. While one pleading 
mother asked, "how long will it be?" - the answer was "at least an hour - 
the replacement loco has to come from Spencer street, and tight schedules 
here can cause it to take a while" - Pleading mother then commented "it 
would be nice if they told US what's going on". An hour and a half later, 
N460 arrived.

There were many other happenings witnessed, but as a general idea, 
Steamrail is probably a really dirty name to a lot of families around the 
Blackburn region this week, caused by mis-management of what was the 
problem at hand.

Lets hope, for the sake of rail preservation (namely, enthusiast tours, 
charters, special runs like Sunday) that better disaster planning is 
excercised in the future. If it looks like the train won't leave Lilydale 
yard for 3 weeks, 2 days, 15 hours and 58 minutes, tell the passengers so.

Regards

Michael


-- 
Michael Kurkowski. / Email: mailto:mk@netstra.com.au
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