a big step

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This is a really important development. The railway at Midsomer Norton has been under construction for over twenty years. Whilst some local businesses have benefitted from contracted out work there (a great thing) this is the first time the railway have been able to offer paid employment, and that's a fantastic thing. As the line develops more and more paid work will fall to the local community.

I was involved in the early days at the catering coach and it was my favourite work at the line (apart from bonfires of course!) It was a really fun job and an excellent way of raising funds for the line. We learned a lot of new skills and I still possess the food handling hygiene certificate - the railway put all of us through it free of charge. Perhaps I should apply?

Seriously though if you live locally and would like to get involved and earn a bit of money please consider applying, or if there is anyone you know who would be great for the job let them know about it.

the alternatives ...

Jungi - different every time!


Unfazed bird.



Recycling and composting.

We joined Bristol Zoo last year, but weren't sure at the time whether it was money well spent.

Six months later I can definitely confirm it was! We go there normally about once a week.

Now the zoo is an alternative destination for the sort of people the heritage lines on the S&D hope to attract. Families with a bit of spare cash and a reasonable amount of time to spare. In a way they are competing with us, especially when times are hard. A family visit to the zoo is not cheap at around £35.

So what do you get for your money? A nicely stocked shop with a lot of original gifts, almost all with an animal connection. A decent though rather expensive restaurant. A few other concessions around the site. Regular events during the year. But most of all the animals.

The thing is the animals stay pretty much the same, but they are different every time we visit.

So what am I trying to say?

Firstly the visitor facilities have to be excellent - a good shop and, most importantly, good catering facilities. No catering and people won't stay around and they certainly won't recommend the site to their friends. Midsomer Norton in particular doesn't seem to have got this yet. A couple of years ago the catering coach was a hive of activity, open every Sunday and Monday, offering regular events and a wide ranging menu. Now it appears it isn't even open every Sunday!

Again the shop needs to have regular injections of fresh material, if it starts to look stale regular customers tend to just ignore it. And not to offer internet and mail order sales in the 21st century is taking nostalgia too far! Again, this applies to MN, Shillingstone have these options in place.

The animal analogy in railway terms means that there needs to be something new to see every time a regular visitor appears. This can be infrastructure work or changes in locos and rolling stock.

And the other important point is that EVERYBODY on site needs to enthuse about the line. Negativity has no place at all, and anyone in the public eye needs to drop everything they are doing to attend to visitors, not wait to be asked. Because heritage railways aren't only in competition with every other heritage railway but also with every other tourist attraction.

For any of the S&D heritage set ups to flourish they need to put customers first, to put themselves in their place. It's a harsh world out there, but if you get it right it can be brilliant!

the customer is king (or queen)

Wetherspoons is a business that's riding the recession well, gaining a lot of free publicity recently when they reduced the price of some beers to just 99p!

What's that got to do with the S&D you may well ask!

Well the S&D is a business too, and it needs, in all its incarnations, to put its customers first. Wetherspoons has an excellent in-house magazine. These are usually pretty bland affairs, trumpeting the agenda of the organisation issuing them. But right away this is different - the letters page contains about 90% complaints, and these are then carefully answered. They don't try to hide problems and by bringing them out into the public sphere they can not only show they're a customer-based business, but they can explain why the situation has come about and what they can do about it.

Many years ago I used to work for the Lead Mining Museum in Wanlockhead, Scotland. Before we even met a customer we were all put through a customer care course. A lot of what we learned was counter-intuitive, particularly that a good company always encourages complaints, because once these are known about they can be dealt with.

Wetherspoons' business is catering. Many small heritage railways, particularly those that do not run trains, have catering as their backbone, and the ones that think deeply about it do it really well. But some are dreadful. Lukewarm, unimaginative and overpriced food, served in a couldn't-care-less atmosphere by people that have little interest in the line they are supposed to be the ambassadors for. And what is worse than turning up hungry and thirsty and finding the catering facilities CLOSED? This has happened to me a few times!

The New S&D will be customer-focussed above all other things. Hopefully many of the officers and directors will be businesspeople who know how to treat customers. And they'll ALL be put through a customer care course first!