Are 'WW2/1940s' events the only pull that heritage railways have to get bums on seats these days?

[Mallard60022]

6 minutes ago, Oldddudders said:

Is history not part of education? We are told Henry Ford thought not, but....

History of warfare, not just written by the victors and in correct context, including the horrors of conflict, on Civilians as well as the Service Personnel, is very much needed. Pantomime events aren't really that educational unless there is a serious display and commentary.

Phil

[Oldddudders]

4 minutes ago, Mallard60022 said:

History of warfare, not just written by the victors and in correct context, including the horrors of conflict, on Civilians as well as the Service Personnel, is very much needed. Pantomime events aren't really that educational unless there is a serious display and commentary.

Phil

I was thinking in particular of the K&ESR childrens' experience, where 'being there' leaves a greater impression of how the evacuees must have felt than any amount of audio-visual presentation in class. Sherry used to take children from her school on a town-trail in Stafford, giving them an insight to buildings' history etc., and so putting a new slant on the town in which they no doubt shopped with mum and dad at the weekend. 

[adb968008]

2 hours ago, Oldddudders said:

I was thinking in particular of the K&ESR childrens' experience, where 'being there' leaves a greater impression of how the evacuees must have felt than any amount of audio-visual presentation in class. Sherry used to take children from her school on a town-trail in Stafford, giving them an insight to buildings' history etc., and so putting a new slant on the town in which they no doubt shopped with mum and dad at the weekend. 

Dressing kids in 1930’s clothes, giving them a pack lunch and a steam train ride with the parents, listening to 1940’s music is no real impression of how kids felt in the 1930’s… its just pure entertainment.

 

if you want to make a real impression, and really educate the kids… tell them to say good bye to their parents, remind them they arent going home, not back to their school, turn in their phones, get them to have pieces of paper with contact details, tell them they are leaving but do not know when they are coming back, and put them on a SE train to London, shuffle them about and across to a Chiltern / LNWR / GWR train and not tell them where they are going, largely alone with a few other kids they dont know, no food and send them off on a night train… indeed really scare them by telling them their internet is going to be rationed.

 

not quite so glamorous and appealing now is it ?

 

Back in Feb 2022 I was in Southern Poland,  my wifes family joined an adhoc facebook group which someone set up on a whim which grew to hundreds of members to help find Ukrainian people places to go, and how to get there…

One such post  saw a teacher arrive with 20 odd kids, phone numbers written on their arms and little more than they could carry. If the teacher was separated from the kids.. then all details would be lost. 

Thats education, it was eye opening terrifying for me to see play out, they went to warsaw.

 

My wifes family is still close to the border, indeed her best friends from school are border guards… I have several stories you wont see in print and certainly hear many things that cannot be shared online. It was distressing to see the church I got married at, on BBC news that morning when a drone overflew from Ukraine and passed over it.. only 20 odd miles from Rzeszow and the other “lesser known” US base in the region… a few more minutes we really would have been in a different place today.

 

I used to like ww2 films but now I purely see it as entertainment not education.. If you want education about war you’ll find it on Twitter/Telegram not in fancy dress in Tenterden station gift shop.

 

Preserved railways should stick with what they are good at imo…

 

Running trains, galas, vintage rallies, santa specials, thomas.. then explore other things like jazz trains/music nights, real ale, dining, illuminations, model railway, railwayana events etc.

 

In the post covid era, corporate away days are becoming more extreme and a team building day operating a railway, meetings in carriages and corporate dining could be explored.

Railways may want to consider immigration trains from the 1960’s as easier to recreated accurately and do more inclusive events for minoritiy groups… that would be educational, especially if food/music and culture was included.

Sticking with illuminations.. taking the Blackpool tram idea to a new level perhaps lines want to consider steam light events, like Halloween, Bonfire night, Diwali, Chinese new year and put on more track side illuminated features.

Core education could be useful too.. at younger ages a day out incorporating Rail Safety, Fare evasion, Navigation on railways, extending into Geography.

 

At further levels relating railway tech to modern science… much of IT has routes in Railways.. Signal and routing.. Packet switch networks.  Any train planner would understand blockchain. Mechanics of an engine… i see virtually no promotion of the science of railways in education on preserved railways … yet much of our modern world has aspects of it.

Edited July 22 by adb968008

[TJ52]

In the most recent Bluebell magazine the Chairman writes about 'events' that help to increase the number of visitors to the railway. He makes the point that this year's WW2 weekend was very well attended and that after much positive feedback they are already planning for next year. It may have helped that there was a visit from a Spitfire. 

 

It makes no difference if it's WW2, Branch Line Weekend, dinosaurs or whatever. If people turn up, buy refreshments, visit the shop and hopefully ride on a train, it all helps to keep our lovely locomotives in steam.

 

That's all that matters.

 

Terry

[Reorte]

They're not my cup of tea but I find some of the hostility about them a bit excessive. If people want to turn up and find it a good day out and the railway does well from it then all's good.

[Nearholmer]

On 14/07/2024 at 10:24, whart57 said:

An English Civil War re-enactment on a heritage railway might be a challenge  😁

I used to be heavily into C17th reenactment, which spilled over from ECW specific into general “period domestic”. My “trade” was wood-turning using a pole lathe, and some slightly wonky attempts at making stools, chairs etc, but I always fancied a go at creating a genuine mid-C17th “railway”, the sort of proto-tramways used in mining, but it would have ended-up too heavy and bulky to cart around to events.

[adb968008]

1 hour ago, Reorte said:

They're not my cup of tea but I find some of the hostility about them a bit excessive. If people want to turn up and find it a good day out and the railway does well from it then all's good.

Indeed in which case maybe more railways should disneyfy their fleet to look like this…

 

 

Its by far one of the busiest real steam railway rides ive ever seen, carrying several thousand daily…

 

 

no wonder with views like this..

 

 

Quote

If people want to turn up and find it a good day out and the railway does well from it then all's good.

 

I bet a few clowns could put on a good show too, and why not do some fire eating from the footplate.

Could even turn a loco smokebox into a bbq grill.

 

Teddybears picnic, kids in costume day would probably do far more for a lines bottom line than some other events.

 

Edited July 22 by adb968008

[Nearholmer]

As regards WW2/1940s reenactment at heritage railways: there’s something about it that leaves me uncomfortable, so I don’t go to them. I can’t quite put my finger on it, but it seems part and parcel of a sort of  “golden age myth” that has grown-up around the period, the gradual deification of Churchill (consider how popular he was come 1945!), the same thing that spawns endless tacky jigsaw puzzles showing spitfires flying over perfect cottage gardens, and a sort of obstinate refusal to admit that there is anything good about modern Britain, modernity in general come to that, while making out that a certain part of the past was paradisiacal. At best, it only portrays a very tiny slice of the 1940s, and at worst it’s probably like a fair bit else at heritage railways: misleading, if you take it too literally and don’t try to get a better grasp of real reality.

 

 

 

Edited July 22 by Nearholmer

[jjb1970]

This is one of those topics which seems to get people talking at eachother rather than engaging in real discussion.

 

Nobody has to like anything, nor approve of anything. However that dislike or disapproval is not in itself a reason why others should be prevented from doing something.  And if there is a market for it then a preserved railway or museum is at liberty to serve demand.

 

Equally, just because we like something doesn't mean anyone else will and nobody is obligated to share our own interests or likes.

 

So many arguments seem grounded in a lack of acceptance that our likes and dislikes do not represent everyone else's likes and dislikes. 

 

I have already said WW2 reenactments aren't my thing. I dislike the idea for several reasons, but it's not for me to prevent others enjoying whatever they enjoy. And if such events make a healthy profit then those of us who avoid them benefit from them helping the preserved railway or museums bottom line.

[Michael Hodgson]

On 14/07/2024 at 05:14, OnTheBranchline said:

Are 'WW2/1940s' events the only pull that heritage railways have to get bums on seats these days?

 

My dad didnt like trains in the 1940s.  He said during WW2 there were so many other people in uniform travelling  you couldn't get a ******* seat to put you bum on - standing all the ****** way in the corridor with your kitbag!  With the blinds down because of the blackout. 

[Reorte]

51 minutes ago, Nearholmer said:

As regards WW2/1940s reenactment at heritage railways: there’s something about it that leaves me uncomfortable, so I don’t go to them. I can’t quite put my finger on it, but it seems part and parcel of a sort of  “golden age myth” that has grown-up around the period, the gradual deification of Churchill (consider how popular he was come 1945!), the same thing that spawns endless tacky jigsaw puzzles showing spitfires flying over perfect cottage gardens, and a sort of obstinate refusal to admit that there is anything good about modern Britain, modernity in general come to that, while making out that a certain part of the past was paradisiacal. At best, it only portrays a very tiny slice of the 1940s, and at worst it’s probably like a fair bit else at heritage railways: misleading, if you take it too literally and don’t try to get a better grasp of real reality.

I understand the sense of it being a bit uncomfortable; possibly why I'm not interested in them myself.

 

That said  I think there's too much refusal in certain quarters to understand that there's anything positive that's been lost - I've no problem at all with looking down on modernity in general though, but saying it's all bad is no more accurate than claiming everything's better. I can say with 100% confidence that I would be considerably happier living in some time before now; we could argue about exactly when, but not now. Or during the middle of a world war.

 

But back to the 1940s weekends I think it's because there seem to be quite a lot of them now. Them being an occasional thing I might feel differently, but I suspect it's that vague sense of falseness that bothers me. It doesn't really bother me in other areas, but then war is rather different. We shouldn't need to concentrate entirely on the negatives (there's too much of "everything was terrible!" - the direct equivalent of your complaint about people saying that about now), but overly twee is unappealing, and of wartime more so.

 

But like I said I've got no problem with them for others if they like them and the railway does well out of them. The above reasons are simply why they don't appeal to me, they're not reasons to say they're wrong.

Edited July 22 by Reorte

[009 micro modeller]

16 hours ago, adb968008 said:

Lets not pretend WW2 themed events are about education, its about making money, nothing else…

But they could be, and already are in some cases, as should be self-evident from the number of heritage sites (not just railways) that run WW2-themed workshops/visits for school groups.

 

5 hours ago, Oldddudders said:

I was thinking in particular of the K&ESR childrens' experience, where 'being there' leaves a greater impression of how the evacuees must have felt than any amount of audio-visual presentation in class.

Exactly, one of the key features of museum/heritage education that differentiates it from what schools are already doing. One of the museums I work in often mentions the phrase ‘it happened here’ in relation to their schools’ programming (and conversely, this doesn’t always work quite as well for in-school outreach as they aren’t ‘here’, i.e. at the museum).

 

4 hours ago, adb968008 said:

Dressing kids in 1930’s clothes, giving them a pack lunch and a steam train ride with the parents, listening to 1940’s music is no real impression of how kids felt in the 1930’s… its just pure entertainment.

This assumes that this is all they’re doing, and not something more meaningful and educational as well. It’s also your opinion, not particularly backed up by the experience of, and research done by, those involved in museum education.

 

2 hours ago, Reorte said:

They're not my cup of tea but I find some of the hostility about them a bit excessive. If people want to turn up and find it a good day out and the railway does well from it then all's good.

I think the issue, as @Mallard60022 and others allude to above, isn’t an inherent problem with WW2 events, it’s that some of them present that history in a superficial and not particularly accurate way. This is somewhat irresponsible if the railway concerned is claiming that the event is educational, particularly for those lines that are also Accredited Museums, or that see education as a key part of their remit/charitable purpose.

[Nearholmer]

If it’s a 1940s theme, it might at least be good to have a bloke dressed up as Attlee wandering about, or a Nye Bevan soundalike giving stirring g speeches about the new NHS, and maybe a pretend local NUR Rep lauding nationalisation.

 

I’m not, BTW , serious, merely prodding at how mono-focused these things can become.

 

I did take my son and one of his mates to a similar thing at Bletchley Park when they were about 12yo, and there were a few really good “home front” demos, including one woman old enough to remember it as a child who kept them enthralled for ages - no jingoistic old rubbish*, just stuff about jam-making and “make do and mend”, which TBH they could have heard from my mother, but the woman had oodles of contemporary props. Interesting point is that my son’s pal’s dad is German, and all the reenactors were pitch-perfect on referring not to “the Germans” but “the nazis”.
 

*My father fought in WW2, as did numerous on my mother’s side, and both her aunt and mum were WRENS, and I never heard a single bit of Jingo from any of them, or others who’d also served. It’s a thing that seems to have crept in latterly.

 

 

Edited July 22 by Nearholmer

[009 micro modeller]

33 minutes ago, Nearholmer said:

If it’s a 1940s theme, it might at least be good to have a bloke dressed up as Attlee wandering about, or a Nye Bevan soundalike giving stirring g speeches about the new NHS, and maybe a pretend local NUR Rep lauding nationalisation.

 

I’m not, BTW , serious, merely prodding at how mono-focused these things can become.

I don’t know, I quite like the idea (it would represent a particular historical moment in quite an educational and entertaining way, and as we’ve seen with the vintage bus earlier in the thread, people seem happy to include postwar 1940s things).

 

Obviously the particular examples you’ve chosen would probably irritate a certain section of the audience who attend other WW2-themed events, thereby causing them not to attend, but somehow I’m OK with that…

 

Edit: actually, on the subject of flippant suggestions, and going back a bit further to WW1, how about an ‘Armistice Day Gala’ in which all the visitors arrive simply to see a few actors climb into a static Wagon-Lits coach (or something that looks vaguely similar, if unavailable), inside which they sign a document? If these sorts of events really are about making money then surely one that attracts lots of visitors (even through some questionable marketing) but doesn’t actually require you to run any trains at all would work quite well? Also it seems that 11th November 1918 was a Monday, a day of the week when many museums and heritage railways aren’t open anyway… 😂

Edited July 22 by 009 micro modeller

[whart57]

Surely for that authentic wartime railway experience the heritage railway should stop maintaining their locos for eighteen months and not clean the carriages either. The refreshment room should have a large menu and a loud woman announcing "it's off, dear" when anyone tries to buy something. And of course the trains should stop somewhere miles from a station for no apparent reason and wait there for half an hour.

 

Don't think that would catch on somehow.

[Michael Hodgson]

9 minutes ago, whart57 said:

And of course the trains should stop somewhere miles from a station for no apparent reason and wait there for half an hour.

 

Well most preserved railways already stop miles from anywhere.  Some of them don't even have a station at the other end of the line.

[Nearholmer]

How about hordes of young lads in uniform playing the part of sailors moving between ports to crew ships? Maybe about fifty lads with kitbags, playing cards, smoking, loudly bantering etc crowding into an already jam-packed carriage might add to the atmosphere.

[Reorte]

56 minutes ago, whart57 said:

Surely for that authentic wartime railway experience the heritage railway should stop maintaining their locos for eighteen months and not clean the carriages either.

Applies for most of the post war period too, not that I can blame them for wanting to keep their locos and stock in better than "well it's going to be scrapped soon anyway" condition!

[jjb1970]

How about finding a few amputees and people permanently disfigured by burns and such like to reenact a hospital train? Poor taste maybe, but my discomfort with the whole reenactment thing is they seem to promote a sanitized idea of war and continue the idea of it as some great noble endeavour. Were it just history it might be an academic argument but the way war is presented by the current news media is very sanitized too. Many years ago when I worked in the Middle East I ffound the way media there reported war unnecessary and wantonly graphic. Now I think that is the way war should be reported to show people what anodyne reports about people being killed and wounded mean, it's not like 1950's and 60's war movies. 

 

However,  that's entirely my view and I accept other differ and enjoy reenacting WW2.

[whart57]

I suspect a major factor for focusing on the war rather than the 1940s more generally is that military uniforms are better for a sense of dressing up. A bit of khaki rather than something from the back of granny's wardrobe sets the period a bit better.

[Mallard60022]

41 minutes ago, whart57 said:

I suspect a major factor for focusing on the war rather than the 1940s more generally is that military uniforms are better for a sense of dressing up. A bit of khaki rather than something from the back of granny's wardrobe sets the period a bit better.

It is possible to recreate a 40s Wartime theme with the Home Front only and loads of appropriate Civilian stuff going on. I think the things "from the actual back of Granny's Wardrobe" are long gone, except for costumes and re-enactors' gear (fancy dress?)

If I were going to one of these things I'd be happy to spend time looking at Vehicles, machines, items and chatting with authentic re-enactors. If the Railway is in an Industrial area  and Countryside such as the K & WVR there could be appropriate displays at each end, including Farming Stuff perhaps?

If it's like the Bluebell and all in the Countryside, how about just post war with picnics and some Holiday Specials and maybe some Troops etc arriving home, or just waving out the Windows at people around, going to the Pub and then some dancing etc. Good old JIve and Dance Band stuff and PLEASE, not Vera Lynn but Andrews Sisters or similar!

Maybe even some informal games like Cricket or Rounders? Galas and Carnival.

However, at East Grinstead was the pioneer Burns Unit Hospital...that still exists. Without showing dreadful injuries that could be part of the event with some folk arriving and being Ambulanced away/back again. 

Just leave out the strutting about like Colonel Blimp and any emphasis on weapons. Leave those for other places such as Museums and special displays.

In no way am I saying don't do a 40s thing, but remember the War in Europe finished in 1945. After that there was some really vile stuff still going on overseas, however let it be a recount of recovery and moving on in the UK eh? 1948 and all that; as someone mentioned, NHS, Railway Nationlisation. 

There are so many ways to celebrate our History during Railway Times, rather than re-enact times of conflict and worry.

Coronations, Royal Visits, Weddings and booze ups! Could still have some Aeroplanes, but maybe on display on the ground?

Plenty of stuff. Just needs some 'young bloods' that didn't grow up on War Comics and John Wayne's version of War (me)!

Phil

[whart57]

19 minutes ago, Mallard60022 said:

and then some dancing etc. Good old JIve and Dance Band stuff and PLEASE, not Vera Lynn but Andrews Sisters or similar!

 

 

Way back in 1995 when all this obsessive memorialising started with the 50th anniversary of VE Day - though that was actually a Europe wide thing and good old Colonel Jingo was not so much in evidence - I was playing in a brass band. That year the most crowd pleasing thing we did was to team up with a local dance group to do a jive set to Glenn Miller's In the Mood.

 

The other thing I remember from that year was I was conducting the band in a church service. All the usual stuff, Abide With Me, Last Post and Reveille, but I ended it by having the band play Joy from Handel's Fireworks Music. My justification, should I have needed it, was that the Fireworks music was written to celebrate the Treaty of Aachen at the end of the War of the Austrian Succession and the Joy was the end of the war. I needn't have worried. Afterwards the vicar and quite a few old boys from the British Legion came up to say what an excellent choice that was for the exit from the church.

 

The generation that actually fought in the war were a lot less reverential about it than their children turned out to be.

[Mallard60022]

29 minutes ago, whart57 said:

 

Way back in 1995 when all this obsessive memorialising started with the 50th anniversary of VE Day - though that was actually a Europe wide thing and good old Colonel Jingo was not so much in evidence - I was playing in a brass band. That year the most crowd pleasing thing we did was to team up with a local dance group to do a jive set to Glenn Miller's In the Mood.

 

The other thing I remember from that year was I was conducting the band in a church service. All the usual stuff, Abide With Me, Last Post and Reveille, but I ended it by having the band play Joy from Handel's Fireworks Music. My justification, should I have needed it, was that the Fireworks music was written to celebrate the Treaty of Aachen at the end of the War of the Austrian Succession and the Joy was the end of the war. I needn't have worried. Afterwards the vicar and quite a few old boys from the British Legion came up to say what an excellent choice that was for the exit from the church.

 

The generation that actually fought in the war were a lot less reverential about it than their children turned out to be.

Brilliant. That's the sort of Stuff. I think everyone likes a Brass Band regardless of age. Splendid choices by the way.

Phil

[009 micro modeller]

22 hours ago, whart57 said:

And of course the trains should stop somewhere miles from a station for no apparent reason and wait there for half an hour.

 

22 hours ago, whart57 said:

not clean the carriages either

 

21 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

crowding into an already jam-packed carriage

I didn’t realise Thameslink has been hosting a 1940s-themed event over the past week - that explains it.

 

Let down a bit by the completely inappropriate modern rolling stock, stations, 25kV AC electrification etc. etc. but the rest of the “atmosphere” seems spot on… 😂

 

(This post may not be as sensible as some of my earlier posts in this topic.)

Edited July 24 by 009 micro modeller

[Michael Hodgson]

9 hours ago, Mallard60022 said:

I think everyone likes a Brass Band regardless of age.

Sadly I think not.  When I visit any municipal park there's still a bandstand but no band.  I'm not religious but I always enjoyed the Sally Army playing Xmas carols and happily made a donation - but I've not even heard them in recent years.  The kids just want to listen to whatever it is they've got on their phones.   The brass band and I are relics of another era.