Locomotives
The locomotive health of the railway may be gauged by the number of locomotives showing sufficient commitment to run at least once a month - six times in a season.
There are ups and downs, minimum 14 locos in 2006; steady, at just over 20 for the past three years.
However, we have about 40 locomotives cluttering the railway - only about half are regularly active.
Graph of number of locos running once per month
Service trains
The total number of service trains we ran this year is again slightly fewer than last. The number of Wednseday trains was constant but Sunday trains saw a 10% fall compared to 2015.
Possibly the change to almost all trains being four cars has contributed to this year's fall,
but it would be nice to see the trend of the past two years reverse.
Before 2012 the definition of a 'service' train was loose, probably exaggerating the number of service trains shown in the graph for these earlier years.
Graph of Total Service Trains by Year
Passenger Journeys
Nigel began recording passenger journeys in 2009 using the numbers on the tickets.
Since 2013 the record has been maintained by the computer in the ticket office.
After a sharp decline in 2012, there has been a steady increase until this year, which is almost the same as last.
The move to 4 car trains over the past 2 years is reflected in the Passengers per Train data.
Graph of Passenger Journeys by Year
Graph of Passengers per Train by Year
Customers A customer becomes 2 passengers if he buys a double ticket.
Here is an attempt to count people : = 'Customers'.
In 2016 on each day we opened there were, on average, 230 customers. Max 329, Min 137
Some 55% were adults and about 66% bought a double ride.
Graph of Customer Characteristics by Year
Children's Parties
These are a great way of sharing the railway with the community. There was a slight increase in the number of parties this year.
Graph of Children's Parties by Year