Heritage Railways (part 3)

Feature

Japan Railway & Transport Review 32 • September 200246 Copyright © 2002 EJRCF. All rights reserved.

Whose Heritage Railway is It?—A Study of Volunteer Motivation

Geoff Goddin

This article explores the evolving role ofvolunteers at two heritage railways in theUK. It analyses the characteristics andmotivations of volunteers1 and seeks todraw conclusions for management ofheritage railways.As heritage-railway operations havegrown in operational and financialcomplexity over the past 50 years, so hasthe part played by volunteer railwayworkers. Rolt2 writing of the trials ofresurrecting the Talyllyn Railway in theearly 1950s described a Boy’s Owncomic spirit of adventure involvingenthusiasm, ingenuity and a fair degreeof irresponsibility. Team spirit was builtby overcoming adversity in order to makethe railway run at all. Catering forpassengers was almost a sideline torunning trains; a large number ofpassengers were committed enthusiastswho forgave a lot. No two journeys werethe same!My studies on the Bluebell Railway inEast Sussex and the Swanage Railway inDorset (respectively, 41 and 29 years old),

shows volunteering in a more structuredand managed context, tasked withkeeping the railway operating with focuson aspects of customer service such aspunctuality, cleanliness, safety, and anarray of ancillary services. A Swanageinterviewee put it succinctly saying, ‘Thisis a business we are operating, we are nolonger playing trains.’

Methodology

A themed questionnaire distributed toguards and other grades was used tocategorize volunteer characteristics,personal motivations and views onrailway aspirations. Open opinions werealso canvassed on railway targets and thebalance to be struck between commercialand social aims. The questionnaireresponse rate was very good (32 returns(66%) for Bluebell and 16 returns (44%)for Swanage) possibly due to my ‘insider’ro le , wh ich gave me acces s tor e s p o n d e n t s a n d e n c o u r a g e d

participation, but with the risk of mybe ing un ique ly s ympa the t i c t oo rgan i za t i ona l d i l emmas 3. Anopportunity to conduct a telephoneinterview with respondents was alsorequested and ten provided their contactnumbers.My approach was to characterizevolunteers and their perceptions ratherthan pose problems for evaluation. Someof the results are summarized in Table 1.

Preliminary Conclusions

Do heritage railways face anaging volunteer workforce? (Q5)It would appear that people born aftersteam traction was phased out fromBritain’s railways are underrepresented,possibly because these people aretypically in the middle of their workingcareers and usually have heavy familycommitments. Roger Orchard, aSwanage youth group leader, noted thatwhile only 10% of 11- to 16-year oldsattracted to the railway by interests intrain modelling, steam traction andhelping out with railway tasks continuedas volunteers, they may return tovolunteer later in life. Retirement alsoappears to offer great recruitmentopportunities with 50% of the volunteerssampled on both railways already retired.Younger and working volunteers tend totake on operational roles while oldermembers perform mainly restorational,repair, and maintenance tasks.Recruitment of younger volunteers towhat may be perceived as an oldermembers’ club does require a pro-activeapproach beyond helping out with oddjobs in non-safety critical areas. Goodpractice would be to provide an annualtraining timetable for those aspiring to aspecific role.The historically authentic hierarchicaldisposition of some heads was alsoreported to be problematic, and it may

Marin Troit, Deputy Passenger Services Manager atSwanage Railway (Author)

Simon Hanney, student and youngest passedsignalman (21) at Swanage Railway (Author)

Japan Railway & Transport Review 32 • September 2002 47Copyright © 2002 EJRCF. All rights reserved.

be necessary to ensure adequate trainingand suppor t in human resourcemanagement skills for volunteers arrivingin management positions throughoperational and technical abilities andavailability.

What motivates volunteers? (Q6)On both railways, the devotion of leisuretime to railway hobby interests issignificant and suggests a specific interestin the nature and development policiesof the volunteer’s railway. Social contactwith colleagues is valued on the BluebellRailway where staff facilities are quitedeveloped. The lower score for theSwanage Railway may reflect the greaterdistance travelled by volunteers and thesmaller core workforce of a much smallerrailway.The surprisingly low score for railwayprojects (Q6 (c)) may reflect a sample biastowards guards. Analysis of non-operational roles indicates that the focusof the project is most important. Therewere some unexplained inconsistenciesin individual responses.The neutral response to meeting railwaycustomers (Q6 (d)) hides support by trainand platform operating grades comparedto volunteers performing non-customerwork.It is not surprising that volunteers wantto help the railway.

Volunteer support for railwayaspirations (Q7)Both railways are involved in extensionplans that command the respondents’support.Historical accuracy is unanimouslysupported on the Swanage Railwaywhere it is more problematic, while theBluebell Railway response does containdissenters. This anomaly is also apparentin restoration of railway items where theBluebell Railway generally enjoys a pre-eminent reputation.The response to customer education is

Q4 Volunteer AreasBluebell Swanage

Driver/Fireman/Cleaner 2/1/1 3/2/2Guards 22 9Booking Office 10 1Carriage & Wagon 1 3Track 2 1Signalling 3 3Ticket Inspectors 11 2Platform Staff 13 5Catering 2 1Administrative 6 2

Q5 Age ProfileBluebell Swanage

20–29 years 2 030–39 years 6 240–49 years 6 450–59 years 6 560–69 years 9 370+ years 3 2Average age 51.4 59.1

Q5 (a) Distance Travelled to RailwayBluebell Swanage

Up to 10 miles 11 311–40 miles 14 741+ miles 7 6Average distance 26 59.2

Q6 Reason for Volunteering?(5 = strongly agree; 1 = strongly disagree)

Bluebell Swanage(a) Meet and work with colleagues 4 3.5(b) Leisure hobby 4.5 4.2(c) To achieve specific project 2.3 3.3(d) Meet customers 3 3.2(e) Help railway 3.7 4.3

Q7 Strength of Volunteer Support for Railway Aspirations(5 = strongly agree; 1 = strongly disagree)

Bluebell Swanage(a) Reach new destinations 4 4.2(b) Historical accuracy 3.9 4.1(c) Railway restoration 3 3.5(d) Educate customers 3.1 3.3(e) Provide customers with interesting day out 4.2 4.2

Q10 Use of Communication ChannelsBluebell Swanage

(a) Society AGM attendance 75% 75%(b) Functional training meetings 81% 64%(c) Read society journal 100% 100%(d) Write to journal 34% 29%(e) Discussion with colleagues 84% 94%(f) Communication via website 9% 0%(g) Threat of resignation 12% 12%

Table 1 Summary of Partial Questionnaire Results

Heritage Railways (part 3)

Japan Railway & Transport Review 32 • September 200248 Copyright © 2002 EJRCF. All rights reserved.

consistent with the response to Q6 (d),although it begs the question about theintended point of recreating historicalaccuracy.Care for the customer in terms of a qualityday out is encouraging, although this alsoyields good commercial returns.

Communication channels withvolunteers (Q10)The responses to show a strong desire tobe informed about railway matters viajournals and annual general meetings.Operational training and discussion isalso valued. There is some evidence thatvoluntary membership societies can beresignation-prone when problems arise.Use of website communication islimited—perhaps in keeping with steam-age interests.

Management of Volunteers

Volunteering can be seen as a form ofcontract. Handy4 argues that individuals

will compare the energy and enthusiasmexpended with the expected results interms of satisfying self-fulfillment needs.This is illustrated by the diagram below.

Energy & Enthusiasm Results Needs

Handy points out that voluntaryorganizations should operate undercooperative psychological contracts,whereby volunteers are undertakingrailway roles as part of their ownpreferences. Thus management ofvolunteers should be facilitating andcooperative by nature. But this could bemore challenging than operating acalculative contract with paid staff,because the volunteer also retains theright not to volunteer.However, the nature of heritage railwayoperations and their rates of pay oughtto favour cooperative and teamworkapproaches even amongst paid staff, whoinvariably have been previous volunteers

of longstanding.It is also important to remember thatheritage railway volunteers are also stake-holder society members, customers, andmay have trustee roles5. Loyalty tocolleagues and teams will also reinforcecommitment.The response by volunteers to thequestionnaire indicates that hobbymotivations are significantly stronger thansocial and colleague motivations. Inparticular, there is a low customer-relatedmotivation when the individual hobbyscore is high. There might be customer-service benefits resulting from engagingvolunteers in teamwork if facilities andoperating schedules aimed to encouragesocial participation.Achievement of society-wide goals suchas line extensions appear to generatesupport. This is less true for smallerrestoration projects, which a fewvolunteers scored highly and the restscored lowly; significant number ofrespondents referred to the cost of ‘petprojects.’ Perhaps the best strategy is to

John Philips, at Sheffield Park Booking Office ofBluebell Railway, also a guard and a retired banker

(Author)

David Whiting, a new volunteer cleaner (retired) at Bluebell Railway (Author)

Japan Railway & Transport Review 32 • September 2002 49Copyright © 2002 EJRCF. All rights reserved.

Geoff Goddin

Mr Goddin is Principal Lecturer in business strategy at the Thames Valley University. He studied

economics in London and obtained masters degrees in transport from Imperial College, London

and in business administration from Henley Management College. He taught at several universities

in UK and worked in transport consultancy before starting current job. He has been working with

heritage railways since 1990.

manage and incorporate individualprojects that support and build towardsan overarching strategic objective.Generally, the survey suggests volunteersat heritage railways are engaged inenterprise and activi t ies of moreconsequence than ‘keeping a cat6’ andt h a t t h e r e i s a n e e d f o r m o r ec o m p r e h e n s i v e r e s e a r c h i n t ovolunteering. �

This article was first presented at the internationalconference ‘Slow Train Coming: Heritage Railways inthe 21st Century,’ held in York in September 2001.

Notes1. D. Horton Smith, Determinants of Voluntary

Association Participation and Volunteering: A

Literature Review, Nonprofit & Voluntary Sector

Quarterly, Vol. 23, No. 3, 1994.

2. L. T. C. Rolt. Railway Adventure, David &

London, Charles, 1953.

George Nickson, volunteer since 1963. Ex mastermariner (retired 1994) has been a guard, stationmaster, cleaner, fireman, driver, originally joined theBluebell Railway to meet a female volunteer!(Author)

Gerry Brown (retired), Horsted Keynes platform staffat Bluebell Railway (Author)

Charles Vigor (retird banker), guard at booking officevolunteer at Bluebell Railway (Author)

3. S. Hensby and J. Harrow, Insider management

research in a community organization: its

impact on the researcher and the organization’s

agenda, National Council for Voluntary

Organizations & Non-profit Studies Journal, 7/

8 September 1995.

4. C . Handy, Unde r s t and ing Vo lun t a r y

Organisations, Harmondsworth, Penguin,

1988.

5. R. Paton and C. Cornforth, What’s different

about managing in voluntary and non-profit

organizations? in J. Batsben, C. Cornforth, and

R. Paton, Issues in Voluntary and Non-profit

Management, Workingham Addison Wesley,

1993.

6. N. Cossons, 1994, reported in H. Newby and

R. W. Ambler (eds), The History and Practice

of Britain’s Railways. A new research agenda,

Aldershot Ashgate, 1999.