West Somerset Railway General Discussion

But who is the board accountable to?

 

The idea that the WSR is somehow remote from population centres is plain wrong. I live in Bristol, the UK's 8th largest city, and can be at Bishop's Lydeard in an hour by car.

From Bristol Temple Meads it's 30 mins to Taunton by train, if only there were an onward rail connection. Note it's also 30 mins from Manchester to Bury on the Metrolink.

 

Whereas the WSR only has Minehead, the harbour, beaches, Exmoor National Park, Dunster village and Dunster Castle, Blue Anchor Bay, Cleeve Abbey, the Mineral Line trail, Watchet harbour and town, the Quantock Hills, lovely warm stone Somerset villages by the dozens, Porlock and Porlock Bay, porpoises, moorland walks, Taunton, main line connection, museums, big houses. And for those who must, scrumpy.

Steve

 

The opening sentence of the Visit Exmoor website is 'Why did no-one tell me how beautiful it is?' I wonder if there's a message there. Going back to @Fred Kerr posts, is the whole package working as effectively as it could?

 

Dunno - things can always be done better - but what are you saying is not being done that should be done?

Steve

 

Ah the 88 route Matt Monro springs to mind, his route in his bus driving days working out of Acton bus garage.

 

As you should know having held the various positions on the WSR there is a difference between running the railway in a business like manner (a business) as you state and running the WSR as a commercial business (on a commercial basis) as I stated, they are not the same thing. As I stated, a PLC (or similar) is a necessary legal entity, it is a means to an end. I never anywhere said the WSR should be run by either the WSRA or WSSRT as charities.

In my opinion your reply just reveals the problem, an immediate defensive fear the PLC are going to lose power to the WSRA, i.e.: "It has to be the PLC not the WSRA/WSSRT" . I have said I feel the old guards ingrained internal wars means all that can be seen is one victor and one loser. Both an operating company and a charity, supported by groups and people with external partners all playing their respective parts as a team is the only way.

In my opinion its time to sweep all the old things away and start from a fresh, an overarching charity controlling an operating company with all the other support groups involved with a PDG type set up so all are involved in order to set the objective and strategy.

 

But note that the NYMR has always said that the reason it sought to gain access to Whitby was not only to gain custom for itself but to provide an additional destination for passengers starting their journey on the NYMR - especially from Pickering - whilst offering visitors to Whitby easier access to the National Park through which the NYMR runs.

The same point with Portmadog; granted the popularity of the area as an existing tourist spot but the train connects North Wales (Caernarvon) with Central Wales (Blaeneau Ffestininog) with Porthmadog at the centre and gives all 3 centres access to the National Park (Snowdon). At one time there was a circular Rover from Chester than allowed a day's travel from there to Llandudno, Conway Valley, Ffestiniog, Porthmadog to Shrewsbury thence return to Chester. I don't know if this operates or whether it has been replaced by an option of continuing from Porthmadog via the WHR to Carenarvon thence bus to Bangor and train return to Chester. In this case the FR and WHR contribute to a bigger whole with mutual benefit to all.

Back to basics again - ask not what the community can do for you but what you can do for the community. In this case success and mutual benefit.

 

You have confused several separate ideas here:

* operating the railway in a safe manner as per ROGS etc
* the operator being structured as a non-charitable public company
* the operating body being managed in a businesslike and professional manner.

These three things are all independent of each other and are not rigidly connected. The first is obviously a necessity. The second clearly isn't a necessity because there are plenty of counterexamples out there. The third is extremely desirable, but clearly not a situation the WSR is currently in

 

When I see replies in effect saying, only the PLC can save the line, that they can't allow the " old enemy" ( that's how some see the WSRA) It tells me enough about why such posts are being posted, its people saying its the PLC, or closure, and if we fold its your fault, now what I don't know is are these active volunteers posting this under pressure from the PLC, to rebut the petition , and those who put the blame at the door of the PLC, and the chairman, the one question they won't answer is this, let's assume the line some how survives, it limps through to next March, whats the odds the board will say change isn't needed, and by the way WSRA, we don't need you now, only the WSSRT will be recognised as the charity arm, I would not put it past the them they have the one charity that is compliant , and does their bidding, isn't a threat to their power. the shareholding, would be worthless as long as the WSSRT backed the plc.

 

https://www.national-preservation.c...lway-operations.508987/page-1322#post-2583798

This shows that far too many people involved at the WSR simply have no understanding of reality.

A load of pointless waffle about safety. It doesn't matter if your a plc, ltd co, trust, CIC, etc etc, the rules & regs are the same.


"The WSR PLC has to be run on a business basis it cannot be run on any other basis."
" If you volunteer than you must be committed to the railway. You must turn up when rostered otherwise it affects the service and the railway will get a reputation for people not knowing if when you turn up the trains will be running that day."

Why don't you look at those businesses which rely on volunteers for the majority of their staffing.
Notice anything?
They are largely either trading arms of charities, where they are raising funds for the charity (Oxfam etc), or in the heritage rail world they are largely owned by membership bodies that are made up of said volunteers.
They don't just treat their volunteers like staff, they value them & engage with them.

It doesn't run as a business though does it?
It isn't paying dividends to shareholders, it can't fund itself, etc etc.


"That is why the PLC has to be in charge."
Any plc is responsible to its shareholders, & if they bother to exercise their vote they are in charge.
The only people who can tell a charity what to do are the Trustees & the Charity Commission. The plc can not be in charge of a charity.


"It may surprise you to find that I agree that change has to happen but not whilst this unpresented situation is ongoing."
As others have said, Now is precisely the time to make the changes.
There's no operations to worry about, there's no incidents to happen. So the various boards, & the volunteers, have the time to devote to change.

The current situation with no income means that anything which is blocking fundraising needs to be resolved now. IT WILL NOT WAIT
The mess with the Notice to Quit is harmful.
The non-payment to the WSRA, leading to them having to notify the CC, likely means that they can't give any grants to the plc.
The duel entities of WSRA & WSSRT lead to duplication of expenses.


"then it cant be the WSRA or steam trust that take over. I would suggest that a new charity is formed to oversee the change."
There isn't the resources to be setting up yet another registered charity, nor would it have any power at the plc as it wouldn't have any shares (& it wouldn't be able to buy any!)
The WSRA has ~50times the membership base of the WSSRT, (& likely still a larger shareholding in the plc), so realistically it is the one that takes over & merges/absorbs the WSSRT.

 

All PLC boards are accountable to the shareholders.

 

Well one of the most recent posts comes from someone who was on the plc board that appointed the current Chair as a Director, & then as Acting Chair, then they themselves 'left' the board not much more than a month later...

 

Actually, that's not quite true. The NYMR's reason for extending to Whitby was the extra revenue it was expected to generate so that it could be ploughed back into infrastructure work on the NYMR itself. What seems to have happened in reality is that the extra costs of running to Whitby seem to have swallowed up most of the benefits

 

Meanwhile, it is good to see a revenue-earning train back on the WSR today.

Steve

 

The WSRA has ~50times the membership base of the WSSRT, (& likely still a larger shareholding in the plc), so realistically it is the one that takes over & merges/absorbs the WSSRT.

The Steam trust will never merge with the WSRA. The WSRA were in the process of trying to get them to merge when I rejoined as a trustee but we rebutted. It ill never happen about a year later the previous chairman went to a steam trust meeting to give the trust a presentation on joining together but was unsuccessful. so it has been tried.

As for leaving the board I got promotion in another job and didn't have the time to do the directors job as well as my day job, Simples, sorry no conspiracy.

 

But the nature of the shareholders is such that in practice they are not/do not hold the board to account.

Otherwise I suggest that the Washford issue would have been resolved by an EGM, or the board would have known in the first place that it was a non starter

 

The community makes it very clear what they want;
- Community engagement (School trips etc)
- Trains from Taunton to Minehead

One can be carried out much easier and cheaper than the other, and has funding in place for it.
Both have been pushed aside by the WSR.
The community feel disconnected and that the WSR isn't benefitting them enough.

 

The nature of the shareholdings is such that the shareholders are in practice unable to hold the board to account - therefore in practice the board are not accountable to the shareholders.