Ideal for an event à
Very easy to show to the gaurd. Colour coded he knows instantly if you have paid. It works so well. The gaurd can look in a compartment of sweaty bashers and see who has paid at a glance.
if it is such a good idea why are not other railways and TOCs using them?
Now whilst I accept that ticketing has and should move into the computer age, certain things should be left in the fairground.
Does it really matter whether it's round your wrist or round your neck? I dare say you could attach the wristband to a lanyard if you really wanted to. Good grief, is this really all you have to get upset about?
I am surprised at some of the attitudes being shown by some in this thread.
The Mid-Hants used them at their latest steam gala; I was struck by what a good idea they were, convenient for the customer and much easier and more secure for ticket inspection
If they are more secure for ticket inspection why have they not become a universal method of issuing tickets across companies?
Red actually.
Keep on about it on a Rail forum in the heritage rail section and you'll get the idea picked up by other heritage railways who realise its a good idea and implement it further.
Do you really care that much?
You mean some of the professionally run lines have realised they are part of the holiday and are tourist attractions and like others have found wristbands a good idea. There is only one passenger that's noticed enough to bother going on a rant about it and in his postings has inadvertently promoted the idea.
Is not the subject of this thread what defines a heritage railway as opposed to a fairground ride?
Thanks for the update on this. My only encounter with theme parks and fairs was at work when children were taken on school outings to various places. As I retired at the end of 2019 I have not been to any since - thus I had not realised that these places had moved on! - Thanks. To me the idea of people wearing a lanyard with a normal ticket in appears a reasonable solution at heritage events and given that lanyards are so common in the work place these days we probably would not notice and I have seen people doing this themselves. Perhaps sell a souvenir lanyard for each event (price included in the ticket price) I imagine some people would start collecting them?
I don't keep a record but over my lifetime I must have spent thousands of pounds travelling on heritage lines, making donations, paying quite a few subs including several life memberships and buying merchandise from bars, buffets and shops. By the time I left the VoR on Friday despite my grumbles about wristbands I had put a three figure sum in their till. Thus don't presume those that don't spend kick off most. I think I have more than contributed to the preservation scene in terms of my hard earned cash!
Maybe not, and of course some will sit somewhere in the middle, but there does seem to be a growing division in operating styles now and some lines may be stretching the term ‘heritage’ railway a little. Not exactly a fairground ride per se, but certainly a modern day leisure attraction. For example I recently visited the Ravenglass and Eskdale, set off from Dalegarth which has a relatively newly built station with modern facilities, including a big shop and cafe. Staff were largely in modern day uniforms, some coaches on the train were new built, signage was mainly modern graphics, signalling was a radio system, and tickets were online only. It was a good day out (excepting lingering covid nonsense), but apart from the steam loco hauling the train it didn’t feel very ‘heritage’.
Narrow gauge railways have always had a different mentality to standard gauge lines, more willing to make new builds (partly, of course, because it's much cheaper for them) and more willing to have their own identity rather than recreating a past one. They still have plenty of historical preservation in their blood though generally.
we can only hope that is the next step.
Could be an issue when leaning out of the window to absorb the "clag" and "thrash" and "tonez". Also, lets be honest, if you were offered a lanyard you would be complaining about that. You want an Edmondson ticket and nothing else.
Hard for your wristband to go flat or run our of battery.
Because, of course, when checking the wristbands the guard had no patter whatsoever. None. He just grunted several times and nodded.
No I don't want an Edmonson ticket my issue is with wrist bands nothing else. I would far sooner have computer ticketing to be honest.
I'm not sure how a railway would cope with wristband tickets, unless there were no or very few possible different tickets which might be issued. Using different colours or combinations of colours is possible, but beyond that there would need to be printing on the wristband, which would be inconvenient for staff to read. The examples mentioned above are the Ravenglass and Eskdale and the SVR. Both seem to have a lot of different ticketing options, esp. the SVR as it offers through ticketing to 'main line' stations.
If used for a gala, as this example was, then there is really no problem as you are paying to be "in" for the day and it worked very well. I agree it isn't really a feasible option for a members return, on a Tuesday, between little snodldington and Boresfield.
