Ticketing built for heritage railways.
Sell every departure from your own page, capped to the seats on the train. First class and dining as their own upgrades, groups and schools handled properly, and Santa specials that sell out before December. The money goes straight into your railway’s own account.
See it live at Hatchwood Park
powered by HatchEvery departure, sold ahead.
Timetables, galas and the whole Santa season sell themselves online, while your volunteers get on with running trains.
Capped to the seats on the train
Every departure has its own limit, so you never sell more seats than the set can carry. A shorter rake on a quiet Tuesday can hold a different number to a full Saturday train.
Peak and off-peak pricing
A midweek off-season service should not cost what a summer Saturday costs. Set peak and off-peak fares per departure and the quiet trains fill without discounting the busy ones.
First class, dining and driver days
Sell a first class upgrade, a dining car seat, afternoon tea or a driver experience as their own ticket types at their own prices, each counted and reported separately.
Groups and schools
Coach parties and school visits book like anyone else, with their own prices and a named booker, so a party of forty is not a phone call and a spreadsheet.
A till for the booking office
The Sell screen turns any tablet into a booking office till for cash or card, so a walk-up fare lands in the same seat counts as the online bookings. The same tablet scans tickets on the platform.
Reports at a glance
See which departures fill and which run light, so next season’s timetable is built on what actually sold rather than what it did in 1998.
Every booking goes and gets you the next passenger.
Families book together
Once someone has booked, one tap posts the plan to their group chat, previewing with your railway’s photo and name on it. A day out is rarely booked by one person alone.
Google reviews, asked for automatically
A friendly ask lands the day after they visit, while it is still fresh. For a local venue, more reviews is the single best way to be found.
Half-booked sessions, chased back
Someone wanders off mid-booking and Hatch nudges them an hour later. Sessions quietly filled, nothing for you to do.
Your sessions, published to Google
Every departure goes out as structured event data, the kind Google uses for "steam train days out" and its things-to-do results.
Your visitors stay yours
They book on your page, under your name, and you keep the customer list and the data. Software you run, not a marketplace that rents you your own customers.
Create your account
Sign up free and add your railway. No card, a couple of minutes.
Make it yours
Your logo and colours on a booking layout we have already refined to convert. Nothing for you to design.
Add your sessions
Your timetable, galas and Santa specials, with fares and a seat limit on each, all from your phone.
Connect Stripe
Stripe is the trusted card-payments provider that pays your takings straight into your own account. Guided sign-up, and we are on hand if you get stuck.
Rather we set it up with you? Book a demo and we'll build your page with you, live.
*Stripe has to verify your account before you can take money. That part is usually the longest, and it is the one bit that is not in our hands.
Simple pricing. 3% a booking.
No setup fee, no monthly minimum, and no tiers to be upgraded into.
of what you sell.
Stripe's card fees apply on top, as with any card payment. All in, roughly 4.5% + 20p a booking.
- Into your own Stripe account
- Paid as tickets sell
- No monthly fee, ever
- Rolling monthly contract, no lock-in
- Flexes for serious volume or several venues
- Absorb our 3% or pass it on as a booking fee, your call
On a £40 family booking
*Based on a common published rate of around 7% plus 59p a ticket. Because that 59p is charged per ticket, the gap widens with the size of the party.
Straight answers.
Can I cap a departure to the seats on the train?
Yes. Every departure carries its own limit, so you never sell more seats than the set can carry, and once it is full it stops selling. A shorter rake on a quiet weekday can hold a different number to a full Saturday train.
Can I sell first class and dining as upgrades?
Yes. Alongside the standard fare you add upgrades as their own ticket types at their own prices, whether that is first class, a dining car seat, afternoon tea or a driver experience, and each is counted and reported separately.
Can I run Santa specials and the ordinary timetable together?
Yes. Santa specials, galas, dining trains and the everyday timetable are all just departures with their own dates, fares and seat limits, run from one railway and one dashboard.
Can passengers change their own booking?
Yes. From their confirmation a passenger can change their own booking, moving to another time or adding and dropping tickets, confirmed by a short code we email them. If the change works out cheaper we refund the difference straight to their card, with nothing for you to do. If it costs more, they pay the difference there and then. A full cancellation stays your call, a couple of clicks from your dashboard.
Do fares sold at the booking office show in the same place?
Yes. The Sell screen takes a walk-up fare on any tablet as cash or card, and it lands in the same seat counts and end-of-day totals as the online bookings. One set of numbers at the end of the day.
What does heritage railway ticketing from Hatch cost?
No setup fee, no monthly minimum, and the money is paid straight into your own Stripe account. Our fee is 3% of what you sell. All in, with card fees, that is about 4.5% + 20p a booking. For a railway doing serious volume, or a preservation group with more than one site, the rate flexes, so talk to us.
Put your railway
on its own box office.
Create your event and start selling in minutes. Or book a demo and we'll show you it running with your own days, events and prices, live.
Rather look around first? See a live Hatch venue. Or email a founder direct: demo@hatchtickets.co.uk