“We’ve broken the million‑pound barrier for the first time ever,” says Churnet Valley Railway

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Churnet Valley Railway is a heritage steam railway running through the Staffordshire Moorlands in the UK. Founded in 1992 and run with the help of 250 volunteers, it welcomes around 110,000 visitors a year to its steam trains, old-fashioned coaches, and dining experiences.

You can read more about our work together in our case study: How a website redesign delivered the best year ever for Churnet Valley Railway.

A short video interview with the client

“Every single dining train we’ve operated in 2026 has been full. We’ve broken the million‑pound barrier for the first time ever,” says Greg Wilson, General Manager at Churnet Valley Railway.

A transcript of the video

Jack
“Working with Conversion Rate Experts, the results have been fantastic. The footfall has gone up massively. Our dining train tickets are selling like hotcakes. Sales at the railway have increased quite dramatically, because we sell out of tickets far quicker than we’ve ever done before.

Greg
“Since we started working with CRE, every single dining train we’ve operated in 2026 has been full.

“We’ve broken the million‑pound barrier for the first time ever. That’s income. We’ve never achieved that. We’ve never been close.

Jack
“We used to be running at 40% capacity some days. We’re now regularly running at 80, 90, 100%, which we wouldn’t have done without the work that we’ve been doing with CRE.

Greg
“The experience with CRE has been excellent. They’re clearly top of their game.

“We find ourselves in a position to add more capacity because we know we can sell it. That adds six figures.

Jack
“I was concerned, because we were playing with the website, and the website had been mainly Greg’s baby. But those concerns were soon put to rest when the first set of optimizations started taking effect and we saw sales starting to snowball.

A green heritage steam locomotive pulling maroon carriages through wooded Staffordshire countryside, billowing white steam against a bright autumn sky.

Greg
“It’s an ongoing project. I don’t know when we’re going to bring it to an end, because at the core of all of this is a business, and we make money by bums on seats.

“In every metric that we use, there is more of it—be it passengers, food eaten, or cash in the bank.

Jack
“It works. It’s been incredible what it’s done for the railway. It’s a no-brainer in my eyes. It’s worth every penny.

“My name is Jack Ilczyszyn, Assistant General Manager for the Churnet Valley Railway in Staffordshire.

Greg
“I’m Greg Wilson, General Manager. We have a mix of normal train services, dining train services, steam trains, and old-fashioned-style coaches.

Greg Wilson, General Manager of Churnet Valley Railway.

Jack
“The railway started in 1992. We’ve got 250 volunteers, and about 110,000 people visit us a year.

“We were working on SEO before, and that was going really, really well, but it was reaching its peak.

Greg
“We’d invested heavily in digital marketing. We were at the top of every conceivable search, but we still weren’t getting bums on seats.

Jack
“We did quite a bit of stuff off the website—radio adverts, magazines, billboards, and things like that—casting a net and seeing what returned. And more often than not, it wasn’t returning.

Greg
“Our SEO guy said we had a high cart abandonment rate. To get the level of customers that we needed to fill our trains, we’d have had to increase traffic to the website by 2500%. It’s just not going to happen.

Jack
“We just needed that expertise and guidance to make our website—and the railway—easier to communicate with and easier for people to purchase from.

“We invited Conversion Rate Experts to come up to the railway. They came for a train ride and a behind-the-scenes tour of the railway and how we run things here.

A photo montage of CRE team members enjoying their visit to Churnet Valley Railway. — CRE team members on a method marketing visit to Churnet Valley Railway.

Greg
“The personal relationship is exceptional. It all adds to the fact that they care, and they’re passionate about what we’re delivering as much as what they’re delivering for us.

Jack
“Working with Conversion Rate Experts has been fantastic, really. It’s taught me loads. All the information they gathered was really interesting—testing our website, finding where the problems were, where people fell out of the funnel. And what was great was that the responses were instant as well.

Greg
“We might be talking coding problems one day, payment integration the next, or something even more obscure, such as on-train dining. They’ve always got a department that can help you, and we don’t see all those extras on our bill. It’s just part of the deliverables.

Jack
“I love CRE’s methodology. They used heatmapping and user testing. Being able to break down and look at who was using the website and how it was being used, I thought, was fantastic.

Greg
“Their research took out the doubt about why things weren’t performing.

“I didn’t appreciate at the time that the adjustments—minor as they may seem in some cases, major in others—were the bit we were missing. Clearly, it works.

Jack
“Every website I go on now has been ruined by the work I’ve done with CRE, because I look at something and go, ‘That’s useless.’ So that side—understanding people’s behavior and search patterns when they’re on a website—has been really good.

Greg
“It wasn’t just a font; it wasn’t just a color. The changes were driven by what people were actually doing and buying in real time.

Jack
“The best part, I suppose, has been seeing the returns. Obviously I love the income and love to see the railway thriving. But as an engine driver myself:

“There’s nothing better than pulling into one of our stations and there are 200 people waiting, where I know four years ago, before this started, that could easily have been 20.
“So the numbers are speaking for themselves.

Greg
“It’s a great morale booster to all the volunteers who give their time up.

Jack
“Everyone has a real purpose and a real spring in their step because of the work that we’ve been doing with CRE.

Greg
“Would I recommend CRE? Absolutely.

Jack
“I’d recommend Conversion Rate Experts. They’ve been fantastic in helping us turn around the railway, and the service they’ve offered has been fantastic.

Greg
“We’ve more than paid back the investment, and on top of that we’ve got a substantial amount. To me, you can’t say fairer than that.”

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