Starter Kit. Idea 392 of 500. Cluster 19
The Ceylon Railway as a heritage line, with the carriages restored and the stations kept
The mechanism, from the book
Eight World Heritage Sites and 2,300 years of records, and the country's story is told to the world by other people.
The 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.
Ask first
- Sri Lanka Tourism Development Authority. Ask whether a heritage rail experience would count as a tourism product.
- Department of Archaeology. Ask whether stations on the line are protected and what restoring them needs.
Check before you spend
Whether the railway allows a private carriage or charter, who insures passengers, and approvals for any work on old carriages or stations.
Find out these three numbers
- How many visitors photograph from the doors on one ride?
- What more would hotel guests pay for a guided carriage?
- What does chartering one carriage cost?
A comparison from the book
Zermatt. Chapter Five
"The railway to the Gornergrat, so that the view belonged to visitors and not only to climbers."
A railway built for the view turns scenery people look at into a ride they pay for.
The test
Does it keep value that now leaves the island, or build the proof that lets somebody else do so?
From the appendix of Why Not Sri Lanka? by Dr Maheshika Halbeisen. The idea and the mechanism are the book's; this kit was written for the site.