The Douglas Bay Horse Tramway

Some of us are old enough to remember how this new reality came about. It started with getting rid of British industry in the name of the new dawn of city gambling to support the country. So we've gone from post industrial to post gambling now. The relevance of all this? Well the costs of living and wages have been inflated by the unreality of the values of the hot air sold and traded in the city. We need to hang on to whatever heritage we've got because that's all this country has left that's 'real'.

 

Whether this it right or wrong it needs to be transferred to the "general non-railway chat" heading as it has zilch to do with the issues surrounding the Douglas tramway. I don't disagree with all of it but it is the wrong place to discuss it.

PH

 

Note the last sentence. Heritage.

 

That same old mantra and yet again ignoring the fact that had preservationists taken a reality check at the outset, very little of our heritage movement would exist today. Yes we have to observe a number of financial "does and donts" but so much of what many in the sector is for the fun of it. It makes no real sense to desire a loco or any other artefact as you pay for the privilege of working for nothing, give up lots of your spare time and money to see the project to fruition. Taking a hard nosed business view of the whole thing would mean never starting in the first place.

 

Sorry, but as an accountant, that is total rubbish and the sort of thing spouted by inept and ill-prepared managers who find themselves unable to answer the logical questioning of a good accountant, often because to quote Paul, their main reason for wanting to do something is "wouldn't it be nice" and they haven't thought it through.

Involve the accountant from the start and they are part of the team that works out how to do things rather than being viewed as an obstacle and hence the last person to tell after the opportunity to approach things in a logical and business-like manner has long been lost.

Of course, there can also be the "wrong sort of accountants" just as there are plenty of the wrong sort of managers!

Steven

 

As some-one who has greatly enjoyed my trips to the Isle of Man, and sees the horse tram as part of the charm, I am appalled that it could be lost.

But I am afraid simply screaming "it's heritage, you can't close it" will do no good whatsoever in ensuring its survival.

What would help is people with some financial knowledge and expertise, who may well include accountants (and I am not offering my own services, BTW!) to examine the costs and benefits. Local Authorities do all manner of things that do not "make money" and that is why they levy Council Tax/Rates. They have complex financial models (devised and operated by the dreadful accountants!) to capture the non-financial value to the wider community of what they do.

Those of a financial background can calculate in accordance with widely accepted criteria the value to the wider community of the income of a tourism business. That value flows into other businesses and into the pockets of the tourism business and its suppliers staff and owners. This gives them an enhanced ability to pay such things as Council Tax and Rates.

Has this exercise been done by Douglas Corporation? Has it been done with an "agenda"?

These are the points which need tackling by those wishing to see the horse trams have a future (of whom I am one!). I seem to recall that campaigners to save the Settle and Carlisle challenged the maintenance costs and particularly the repair costs for Ribblehead viaduct and BR had to admit they had got their sums wrong (and yes, that would be BR accountants. although my usual policy is to blame the Civil Engineer )

Even at the start of railway preservation, people knew how much they needed to raise to save the lines, or buy a loco or coach. Even today, if you view every future expense as something you need the cash for now, then everything can seem hopeless. A sensible balance, allowing planning and the gathering of necessary funds, arrived at by a mixture of those with the technical knowledge and those with financial knowledge, is what keeps the job going and when either side shows a lack of respect for the other, things start breaking down.

Steven

 

Again just don't take my word for it, just read the posts of such as bean-counter.

PH

 

I get the sense that the likes of @paulhitch and @Spamcan81 are both right about this.

On the one hand, @Spamcan81 is undoubtedly correct that no-one entered railway preservation as a means to make money: the pleasures to be obtained are other than financial.

On the other, Paul is also correct - even for the most rose-tinted of pure preservation schemes, the bills have go be paid each month. Of course, many heritage attractions have business models that allow the operating revenue to be supplemented by basically altruistic donation to help balance the books, but at the end of the day it is all money.

So in the case of the trams, the bills have to be paid, which is where it gets complex when the owner is a part of the public sector, since payment inevitably means making choices about whether the trams are more or less deserving than the many other things a Local Authority has to fund. It is quite possible that an existence outside LA control, with a supporting "friends of..." group might provide a more sustainable future; however, whether there is the possibility of setting up such a structure and hand-holding it until such time as it can stand on its own two feet seems unclear to me. Such a future is inevitably made more complex if, as seems to be the case, the operation is asset-rich but revenue-poor, in that the LA may well find it difficult to voluntarily hand over a significant property asset to a voluntary group if they could instead raise a significant capital receipt from its sale.

I wonder whether the Volks Electric Railway provides a possible model, in which the railway and infrastructure is I believe still owned by Brighton and Hove Council, but there is a supporters group (VERA) that helps out financially and with operations?

Tom

 

I agree 100% but there's more than one way of paying the bills. Some/most operations will pay their bills from income and profits, others will underwrite them in part or wholly from personal resources. The economics will vary from one set up to another. If an individual/group of individuals choose to subsidise their project that is their choice. You couldn't run a railway on that basis but it's a format that works rather well for many smaller projects. I just feel it's not as "black and white" as Paul would have us believe.

 

Agreed entirely, and in general, I find that Paul has a tendency to cry wolf on this topic.

However, and specifically with regard to Douglas, I hear a lot about how dreadful it would be for the trams to be closed down, and why they are worth subsidising, but nothing to suggest practical action to make the operation more sustainable. At that point, this does become "wouldn't it be nice" rather than anything more.

 

That would be interesting - and a genuinely good use of cost benefit analysis.

 

You can't live on "tick" forever. Rather too great a proportion of railway preservation (and a greater proportion of the gricer fraternity) seems to think this is possible. However the income is derived it has to be sufficient to meet revenue expenditure as a minimum.

PH

 

And as I've pointed out, some of that income does come from the personal resources of individuals. Taking my own project as an example, individuals have donated materials, tools, manufactured items at their own cost or simply given money. Is it so terribly wrong. It's how many other projects have been run for many, many years. Yes the loco has to earn money when it's running but there is nothing wrong with individual members subsidising the loco through donations of money and in kind. Look at the A1, covenanters still contributing - a different sort of business plan but seemingly a successful one.

 

The great thing about the A1 people is that they have a plan rather than "muddle through" (an Austrian rather than British expression incidentally).

PH

 

Indeed. If I look at the church I'm involved with, most of our income is from a mixture of planned giving (standing orders, etc.) and ad-hoc donations. Managing that pattern of donations is how we make sure that what we do is sustainable in the medium/long term. In our case, that extends as far as employing paid staff.

I suspect that @paulhitch would regard these models as sustainable (-ish), but it is a pity that the subtlety he's capable of isn't reflected in the rather polemical postings.

 

I can see both sides of this - I was going to say argument, but perhaps coin would be a better word to use! Anyway, many of the well established heritage railways can prove that they contribute greatly to their local economies by the additional income that is enjoyed by hotels, restaurants, filling stations, other local visitor attractions, etc. This must also be true of the Isle of Man which has heritage transport in shedloads.

The question is whether losing one of those attractions would have a detrimental effect on the others - and also the wider economy. Will people still go to see the other attractions despite the loss of one of them, or are the horse trams so much part of the mix that, without them, the rest would also suffer? I just hope that we don't have to find out the hard way!

When most railways close there is usually sufficient advance notice given that those who wish to do so can go and have one last ride. In this case the announcement was made during the winter closed season so we are being denied that opportunity unless a way is found to run them at least for this year. That would also give interested parties more time to come up with a long term solution.

 

Whilst I agree that it is easier to plan based on regular contributions rather than ad hoc donations, there is still the unknown quantity of if contributors will cancel or reduce their covenants and when.
There is more than one way of skinning a cat and the heritage railway movement by and large seems to have been rather good and finding different solutions to the same problem. There will always be exceptions of course.

 

Even cost conscious supermarkets hold products that dont fly off the shelf making big profits, but the customer expects them when they visit for other products. All that's happened is that the council has singled out the trams. At the end of the day we are talking about £250k. All they need to do is get rid of a couple of high ranking council staff.

 

Oh dear! At it again telling the Manx people how to spend their money.

PH