West Somerset Railway General Discussion

There are more organisations that have been run into the ground by macho management than have survived and flourished.

Jones Pratt is the Ken Allan era Ffestiniog not the Allan Garraway era Ffestiniog.

 

My reading of the situation here is that the conflict between the S&DRT and the WSR stems from the time last year when the WSR gave notice that they would be unable to honour the agreement to overhaul 53808 in ?2025 at the end of their (?free) use of the loco up to that point. Not unnaturally the S&DRT pointed out that in terms of their charitable status this was unacceptable to them as the agreement had been into by both parties in good faith and the WSR had already made good use of the loco. It would seem that the Trust's insistance that the Railway must honour the agreement to fund the 2025 overhaul is what lead to them being branded "a cuckoo in the nest".

I cannot see the future of the Trust or their loco being seperate but I'm sure that all that is on hold for now just like everything else. Surely when life gets back to normal even the WSR will have more pressing immediate issues than the eviction the tennants of Washford.

Peter

 

Some interesting footage from 1990 on WSR-TV

Do subscribe to make sure you do not miss future videos.

Robin

 

The Pilkington K set, What an outstanding livery, when will it ever reappear?

 

Only in nightmares.

Robin

 

Let's not confuse the situation . I think you'll find WSR never had 'free' use of 53808, it is a contractual responsibilty to maintain the engine and return it to S&DRT in pristine condition at the end of the contract.
JJP may 'spin' the situation but i doubt, legally, that he has a leg to stand on.
The WSR has had unfettered use of this engine during the contract, so they have no legitimate case for breaching it.
If this case actually goes to court he may well have the opportunity to understand the contempt in which he is widely held.

 

By "free use" I mean that unlike many loco hire contracts the WSR are not ,as far as I can ascertain, paying a mileage fee or anything like that. They pay in kind by fully overhauling the loco at the end of their current use of it - or at least that was the contracted agreement that the WSR now appear to be trying to extract themselves from.

Peter

 

That is true, but it is not necessarily unreasonable for one party to a contract to seek to vary it in response to changing circumstances. However, when considering whether that's fair, one should also consider what the reaction would have been if, say, the Trust had asked to take advantage of a summer season loan agreement elsewhere.

 

Fair comment.

 

Perhaps the loco overhaul fund has ended up like Sir Percy Percy's savings: "Seen it, pinched it, spent it!"

 

Barrack Room Lawyers are pontificating on this thread. It will be interesting to see if they end up in court. I certainly wouldn't rely upon them if my money was at stake

 

And your doubt legally qualifications, are?

 

And yours are?

 

None whatsoever - but then I'm not claiming t0 have legally doubts about the WSR plc

 

So by your own argument, your views on other people’s views are worthless. At least you admit that you don’t know what you are talking about. Admission is the first step to recovery.

Your main qualification seems to be in brown nosing the WSR management.

 

'michaelh',

I have a copy of the agreement pertaining to 53808/S&D '88', and I would say that 'Piggy' has summed it up pretty well.

Cheers,

Julian

 

Nor would I. But, then, I wouldn't go to court unless there were no alternative.

What worries me here is that we have one party to various contracts appearing to want to repudiate those contracts, and then not showing any apparent inclination to engage in meaningful negotiation over them. That leaves few options, especially if the victim of the attempt to repudiate is itself subject to legal obligations over how it acts.

If matters are as stated by those with insight into the contracts, then I suggest that it is the plc that should be thinking twice about the implications of court procedings, and supporters of the WSR who should be hoping that they will back down.

(Note for @flying scotsman123 - regarding your earlier note on the differentiation between parts of the "family", this distinction is deliberate in that it is the plc that needs to consider it's approach, but the WSR as a whole that should be encouraging that change of approach).

 

It seems to me that some within the WSR family believe ‘my railway right or wrong’, and that they hate the criticism of the railway more than they hate the things the railway does. It seems they would rather let the railway trash it’s reputation, lose supporters, engage in wasteful legal cases for very little return, because to call it into question would be to admit those who criticise the line have a point. I am sure that there is a psychological name for it.

 

Although I still think "The directors" would be better than "The Plc". I think it could help avoid the bizarre occurrences we've seen on WSR threads before where we've had posts of the like; "Ah you would say that, you're a supporter of the Plc", with the poster being a "Supporter of the WSRA" (or vice versa, or any combination thereof with other organisations) Which is the most bizarre accusations to be throwing around.

I keep coming back to how would we refer to this on any other railway. When there was a bit of a minor falling out over some aspects of Broadway station for instance, there were no ideas of Plc supporters and Trust supporters, it was simply whether you supported the actions the current directors of the railway had taken or not. There was no need to bring in any bizarre alleged allegiances to one particular structure or another.

I appreciate I may be ploughing a little bit of a lone furrow here, but at the very least it's a symptom of the WSR's problems, even if not a cause.

 

Far more likely that they are simply afraid that if they criticise the railway they enjoy working on they will be the next to become persona non grata on the railway.