A background briefing paper for Australian and State Government organisation’s staff and consultants

Association of Tourist & Heritage Rail Australia Inc

Graeme Breydon and Warren Doubleday, revised May 2005

Background

Railways, once a dominant political and an economic force in developing Australia, have now become an important element in cultural heritage life.  Australian railways enabled the agricultural and industrial development of the country, the growth of our major cities and provided the birthplace of many country communities by their strategic placement and the need for services.   The evolution of the Australian transport system over the last 50 years has seen rail no longer an important day to day element in people’s lives. 

The heritage rail sector provides significant economic benefits to Australia through employment, tourism and expenditure and the intangible benefits of volunteering.  Today, these organisations are for many people the public face of the rail industry; who transports the nation’s freight and its commuters.

The voluntary nature of this activity provides significant social benefits to the Australian community in enabling people to work together for the benefit of future generations.  The commitment of individuals to work as teams, to spend their own time and money as volunteers, is generally done through not-for-profit organisations.  These volunteers become professionals in their own right by learning and maintaining skills to operate, maintain, rebuild rollingstock trackwork and bridges etc.    The skills themselves are of a traditional nature, often dying in themselves.  To manage these organisations requires skills, commitment and time, the latter resource often the most precious.

The Scope of the Sector

The tourist and heritage railway and tramway sector in Australia comprises over 70 operators. Most are non-profit volunteer-based organisations operating only at weekends and holiday periods Most provide public services on exclusively occupied trackage but some are operated over the commercial networks and a few are member-only operations. In addition there are various heritage groups involved in providing comprehensive rail museums with operable rollingstock, research, publication, static preservation of vehicles and artefacts that may in future become involved in operations.

The organisations mentioned in the body of this paper are only examples.  A more substantial listing is attached in an Appendix.

This paper provides a profile of the sector under the following groupings:

1.     Large steam railway operators

2.     Smaller heritage railways

3.     Tourist & heritage tramways

4.     Heritage operations on commercial networks

5.     Sector associations

6.     Volunteers and paid staffing profiles.

Excluded are amusement park rides (eg scenic railways & roller coasters), underground tourist mine railways, and miniature passenger-carrying railways (typically of 12 or 7.25 inch gauge or smaller) and the heritage rail activities of large commercial organisations such as:

·        Melbourne's free 'City Circle' tram service using heavily-upgraded W-class trams (with augmented braking and addition of deadman's handles), and

·        The direct maintenance and operation of heritage equipment and tourist services by commercial operators where they are fully integrated with their other services (notably the former West Coast Rail's steam operation and QR's heritage operations).

1.     Larger Steam Railway Operators

Examples of this group who are both employers and volunteer organisations are:

2. Smaller Heritage Railways

Typical of the vast number of weekend-only, almost entirely volunteer operated and managed or less frequently operating groups are:

Ø     National Railway Museum, Adelaide: a self-supporting, non-for-profit enterprise, with a small paid staff, large volunteer base (static) museum of railway vehicles and artefacts that is open daily. The site incorporates a miniature (457mm gauge) train ride that operates at weekends and provides passenger trips  behind a 3' 6 gauge steam locomotive at special events.

Ø     Rosewood Railway Museum operating on the former QR Marburg branch, volunteers run a short section between Cabanda and Kunkala steam, diesel locomotive and railcars services on a once a month basis and for charter work.

Patronage on many of these services is only a few thousand or at best in the low tens of thousand passengers per annum. Many groups have very modest revenues from public display and trading and between 30% and 50% can be absorbed by insurance costs. Some rely on cash donations from members to cover even modest unexpected expenses such as a truckload of ballast to repair a wash-away and most capital is also contributed by members or sourced from government grants or corporate donations.

3. Tourist & heritage tramways

All Australian state capital cities and many regional cities once operated street tramway systems using steam, cable, horse and electric propulsion. Today only Melbourne has a large comprehensive street tramway system.  Adelaide and Sydney have small light rail systems.  Most of the heritage rail organisations within this sub-sector operate as formal museums, some as Accredited Museums.

One of the largest most intensive tourist / museum tramways operations is the Bendigo Talking Tram (Vic). It runs daily over a 4.2 kilometre route every day along the Midland Highway and other city streets on a mixture of single and double track. The operation is conducted by the Bendigo Trust using a mixture of paid and volunteer staff.

Most other operating electric tramway museum lines, (an exception being the Ballarat Tramway Museum) are off-street operations (some without even level crossings) on private land, in public parks or road-side reservations. Many carry a conductor who has access to the drivers cab in an emergency. Income of most of these groups is quite small - in the order of $10,000 to $30,000 pa.

The heritage urban tramway sector also includes operating steam trams, cable trams (powered by low-speed hydraulic engines) and even horse-drawn trams. At some sites these vehicle types may be intermingled with each other and with pedestrians and with other traffic (eg historic buses, vintage cars, etc) on private roadways.  They do not use formal safeworking systems such as railways, but generally operate on a “line of sight” basis as they did in the urban street environment.  Examples are Sydney Tramway Museum, Perth Electric Tramway Society, Adelaide Tramway Museum and Portland Cable Trams.

4. Heritage operations on commercial networks

In most states or regions there are one or two organisations that operate 'mainline' excursions using vintage equipment, usually based in a former state railway workshop or similar premises. Examples include:

Ø     Australian Railway Historical Society (ACT Division) based in Canberra goods yard

Ø     Seymour Rail Heritage Centre (Victoria)

Ø     3801 Limited (Sydney)

Ø     Hotham Valley Tourist Railway (WA)

Note that several of these groups also have associated museum &/or tourist railway operations (eg ARHS ACT also runs the Michelago Tourist Railway).  Such mainline operations tend to be either once-a-month day-trip excursions to a variety of different destinations with broad public appeal or longer weekend/holiday journeys to more obscure routes, aimed at the railway enthusiast market.

5. Sector Associations

Ø     Tasmanian Association of Tourist Railways Inc (TAT-Rail) TAT-rail embraces all the non-profit heritage operators. The commercial operator of the West Coast Wilderness Railway has observer status.

Ø     Association of Rail Preservation Groups (WA) Inc The WA association includes not only the Perth/SE heritage groups but also the Goldfields-based and Carnarvon operators to give state-wide coverage. 

The Australian Railway Historical Society (ARHS) has divisions in most states/territories and some operate tourist railways and / or 'mainline' excursions, they are highly autonomous, separately incorporated entities not branches of a single national body.

Heritage railways and tramways are worldwide; in both developed and developing countries.   Transport museums are one of the largest group of museums by type throughout the world.  There are also links between Australian umbrella groups and the Heritage Railway Association in the UK (www.ukhrail.uel.ac.uk), the European Federation of Museum and Tourist Railways (FEDECRAIL) (www.fedecrail.org)  and the National Federation of Rail Societies Inc - New Zealand (www.railfed.org.nz). The NZ federation was formed over 30 years ago and holds an annual national conference, which is usually attended by the NZ regulator. When bi-annual COTMA conferences are held in NZ (every 6 years) they are conducted con-currently with the Federation conference.

6. Staffing profiles

The predominant staff profile of the Tourist and Rail Heritage Sector is volunteer with a small percentage of paid employees.   Volunteers come from all sectors of the community, including those attracted by social responsibility issues as well as those with a particular interest in heritage transport. Over-represented groups often include; retired people and those with current or former transport employment and people with trade skills. Under-represented groups typically include people with business and management skills currently at the peak of their career commitments and women.

In general, the voluntary management and administrative personnel in these groups also form a significant part of the hands-on operating and maintenance personnel and therefore have an in-depth understanding of the tasks involved in all roles.   Through their detailed involvement in the various tasks, they have become professionals in their own right. 

Being volunteers, the time to devote to external requests and requirements as simple as replying to a letter is often quite limited.    Attendance at weekday workshops requires the person to take time off work or to travel large distances to a capital city.  The decision making process typically revolves around a monthly committee meeting cycle and communication with all workers is typically a monthly newsletter/roster mail-out or by email.   Substantial administrative chores such as drafting and debating risk assessments or revised rules and manuals can 'stall' either through lack of a suitably skilled and willing volunteer, or due to unforseen employment or domestic matters.

Maintenance of competency is necessary through being available as a volunteer and is generally reviewed on a regular basis.

Individuals often participate in multiple organisations in the sector. This might include for example;

·        A Melbourne resident volunteering as a tram driver at multiple heritage tramways in regional Victoria,

·        An Adelaide resident working at both the tramway museum and railway museum,

·        A Puffing Billy paid employee performing a voluntary role at another tourist railway on his rostered day off.

Consequently there is rapid informal exchange of news, ideas etc between groups and benefit in having standardised rules, procedures and documentation. There is also a good knowledge within the sector of issues and practices in the commercial sector. The major Australian rail industry publications covering commercial operations and issues (eg Railway Digest and Transit Australia) are actually produced by organisations in the tourist & heritage sector.

Crewing of locomotives and trains generally follow traditional railway practices of a driver, fireman and guard all skilled to carry out their relevant duties including emergency situations.  For most tourist railways, they use the traditional safeworking systems that were used in the former state railways, example staff and ticket in Victoria, Train Orders in South Australia.   Some railcar and tramway operations may be one-person operated whilst on others a guard, conductor or guide may also be rostered.

7. Conclusion

The Tourist and Heritage Railway & Tramway Sector represents Australian rail cultural heritage in a diversified way. It comprises the single largest group of accredited railway organisations.   Operating such railways and tramways requires teamwork; administrators, rolling stock and track maintainers, restorers and operational workers who are skilled and professional in what they do. The sector is primarily managed by volunteers with a small percentage of paid workers.   Umbrella bodies such as ATHRA and COTMA represent the sector on a national or an Australasian level.

It is the public face of Australia’s rail and tramway industries to many people.

Appendix

Australian Tourist & Heritage Sector rail organisations, including organisational name, trading name(s), website, accreditation details, gauge & type of operation, Profit/NFP status, and ATHRA/COTMA membership

Send Mail To : secretary@athra.asn.au