West Somerset Railway General Discussion

But surely it will depend on the individual line concerned as the overheads of opening each day will vary so much between Company's?

 

In most cases, in that case, the survival of those lines that can operate some kind of service and make money between now and Christmas, should be OK, as long as expenditure is carefully controlled, but those who don't may very well be facing a very bleak future, especially if next years operating season is curtailed till may/ June.
As this is the WSR, we are talking of here, I remain very suspicious of the longer term plans the chairman may have as regards acquiring the line as part of his business portfolio. he won't be the first chairman of a company to run a company down as a plan to personally acquire the assets specially if he can then buy the freehold and profit from being able to sell parcels of land for development, or to borrow against.

 

Shades of Nabarro at the Severn Valley all those years ago....

 

The explanation I have seen of Nabarro's behaviour was that he didnt understand the motivation of the SVR's shareholders, which isnt necessarily what is always happening

 

Nice to see something positive on here for a change!
What happens to the spent ballast, After it has been unloaded at Norton Fitzwarren?

 

It's cleaned up and resold for building purposes by a contractor, Luffmans.

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That assumes that the costs of not running are less than the costs of running. Didn't Paul Lewin quote a figure of costs of £50,000 a month with no trains running on the FR? So to not run, your running costs would have to be so big that you would be running at an even greater financial loss than you are making by not running.

I can not see how, given the number of tourists and visitors in Minehead, that even a limited service similar to those run on the FR or MHR, would not produce profit, or at least reduce the size of the monthly loss so that it would be lower than if you had run no trains at all.

Furthermore, it is clear that reopening on many lines has been a positive, moral boosting exercise among volunteers and supporters, as well as generating good external publicity for the lines concerned.

Those are three things the WSR can ill afford to miss.

 

But before they can operate trains they have to close the gap! No rails = no trains. I wonder if the PLC will try and shift the blame to SCC?

 

Thanks for that Roger.
Also nice to see that the Minehead Dunster section has been relaid with CWR, From those pictures of the P Way gang with the STOP sign in the distance, It looks as if the Minehead Blue Anchor section is under a T3 Absolute engineers possesion.

 

He wouldn't Dare!!

 

Only he knows for sure.

I suppose you just have to look at at the record of his and the other senior managers actions since he has been in office and decide for yourself if those actions that have been taken and that are still currently ongoing are all for the good of the railway. - Especially as clear and reasonable explanations for those actions are in such short supply.

On another subject... I may be completely wrong here (It's my age...) but I thought I read somewhere recently that one of the Chairman's locomotives is currently undergoing overhaul at the WSR... If that is so does anyone know how that overhaul is being funded in the current financial situation?

 

One can only speculate if JJP had not taken over.

 

I think 4936 is under overhaul at Tyseley and 9466 is on hire to Ecclesbourne (not sure if it's actually arrived there yet)

Keith

 

I think we can do more than just speculate. On the credit side, he and his supporters identified significant issues and, more importantly, started to do something about them. That progress was not a given, and credit should be given for that decisiveness and intent.

On the other hand, we can see a fundamental change of approach by WSR plc to others. Some of that was just the flip side of the decisiveness mentioned above (I’d be tempted to put the ejection of 4422 in that category), but something else also seems to have crept in over the last 18 months, which I can only describe from afar as a combination of nastiness and insularity. It comes through in what’s been described about the HPC funding, or the treatment of those who don’t toe the line. The fuss over Facebook is to me very illustrative of this - focusing on the medium and controlling the message, rather than engaging with the substantive criticism. I also do not believe for one moment that the eviction from Washford would have been contemplated.

But, above all else, I don’t believe the WSR would have closed for summer 2020 under the old regime. I believe the works required to enable operation would have been concluded, and the WSR would have joined the many other major preserved railways in operation this summer.


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I understand that the issues had been identified before JJP's appointment.

In many respects though he is only the messenger rather than the message, it is clear that there was a backlog of essential renewal work that had not been adressed, which in turn followed on from the inability to make/raise sufficient funds to keep the railway in good working order

 

The question, on which opinion is irrevocably divided, is over the nature of the intensive care regime being received by the WSR. Some would consider the regime necessary as part of a cure, others that the cure is worse than the disease.

I’m in the latter camp, because I firmly believe that businesses can only thrive where they are focused on drawing the customers in, and the entire impression of the current modus operandi is that it is primarily focused on risk mitigation, meaning a lack of focus on opportunity. Some comments on this thread, especially one from @Maunsell907, lead me to a conclusion that the value of marginal income is being underestimated, and there is too much focus on an overall rate of return.


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Surely time to think carefully and appreciate the value of goodwill which is also being lost through indecision. The simple act of running trains shows a commitment to the area and any marginal income will be welcome boost - both to the volunteers and the local community. I recall in the early days of the WSR that a winter white-out saw the railway being the only link between Minehead and the hinterland and the continuation of train running generated much goodwill - including the support of the local councils in establishing the railway as a major community activity. Who knows what goodwill can be generated by starting operations in the current climate - or is being lost by NOT operating ?

 

There have been quite a lot of studies of the economic performance of ex-Communist countries after 1989. In 89, the economic situation was dire across the board, but what was found was that those states where the politicians got on with economic reconstruction did better than those countries where political, social energy was expended on issues such as ethnic politics and internicine fights.

I am sure that those with a knowledge of business history can point to countless companies that went to the wall because instead of fixing what was critical they were more concerned with picking irrelevant fights.

My point here is that the recovery of the WSR would have been faster and more secure if energy had not been wasted on pointless fights.

At no point can I see that getting rid of 4422, evicting the S&DRT, the debacle of 4110, the threats to 169, the ejection of critical volunteers, the confrontational press releases etc etc, have done anything to improve the financial situation of the WSR or to remedy the critical areas of safety concern such as the trackwork.

 

Something that struck me when I was on the first day of "ghost trains" at the Bluebell was just how many people - far more than normal - came out to watch from all the public vantage points (bridges, foot crossings, camp sites) along the line. Those were, dare I say it, ordinary people, not specifically photographers. Clearly the sounds of steam had been missed.

The effect of running a service on volunteer morale is also something that, while hard to quantify, is also I would suggest very considerable.

Tom