The Ceylon Railway as a heritage line, with the carriages restored and the stations kept

A first step

Take one scenic train ride and count the visitors photographing from the doors, then ask five hotel managers along the line whether their guests would pay more for a restored carriage with a guide. Work out the price per seat that would cover chartering a carriage, if the railway allows it. The hotels' yes and a workable price are your proof.

Who pays first

A hotel along the line that wants a signature experience for its guests and will buy seats in blocks on a restored carriage.

What leaves today

Visitors ride the railway for the views with little to spend on; a heritage service keeps the old carriages running and earns from them.

The idea and the mechanism are from the book. The first step was written for this site as a suggestion; if you know a better one, say so.

The test

Does it keep value that now leaves the island, or build the proof that lets somebody else do so?

The only test any idea on this site has to pass. The four rules that go with it are here.

In the book

• Ch. FiveThe Most Photographed Rock in the World
  Galle Fort, Venice and what heritage funnels do
• Ch. ThreeWhat We Have Already Built
  Geoffrey Bawa's tropical modernism and the Aman resorts

More from cluster 19

• 381A film-location service: crews, permits, fixers and locations, sold to the studios of India and Europe
• 382Documentary production about the island's own stories, sold to the streaming platforms
• 383A museum shop worthy of the museum, at the National Museum, at Anuradhapura, at Galle
• 384Digitisation of the palm-leaf manuscripts and colonial archives as a paid service to the libraries of the world
• 385Architecture tours of Bawa's buildings with the houses opened by their owners
• 386Heritage-building restoration firms with the skills to work on the forts and the villas

All 15 ideas in this cluster