West Somerset Railway General Discussion

I'm no apologist for the plc board, but I still struggle with that interpretation, since I can't see where the money is. The primary asset would seem to be the land, but that belongs to SCC and in the event of a catastrophic failure, it would be down to SCC to decide what they wished to do with that. There is some rolling stock, but some of that appears to be mortgaged to others who would presumably be first in line as creditors, and in any case I am not aware of many people who got rich owning Mark 1 carriages! I suppose there is some scrap value in 20 miles of track...

The other point is that the issued shares of the WSR plc are somewhere in the region of £2million, from memory. So the barrier to entry for someone buying unissued shares so as to gain control of the company is very low - yet no-one has done it. If there was a significant mismatch between the cost of a takeover, and the realisable assets of the plc, I am sure someone would have bought up shares by now to force a closure. The fact that no-one has done so suggests to me that conspiracy theories about financial collapse leading to a windfall for someone are wide of the mark.

Of course, I may be hopelessly naive about how such a scheme might work. But my gut feeling is that the financial woes of the WSR plc are much more the culmination of a long period of under-investment and poor financial performance over many years, rather than a deliberate attempt to realise a gain for one or more individuals.

Tom

 

I'm not saying this is what happening, nor am I suggesting it would happen. I am just sadly reflecting on the fact that there are some people in this world that would be thinking along those lines. (no pun intended)

 

I've just had an email from WSRA which includes this:

We look forward to working to support the railway in the run-up to the anticipated re-opening for Christmas 2020 Santa trains and onward into the full re-opening anticipated in March 2021.

Does anyone on here think there is the slightest chance of Santa trains operating? I'd really like to think so, but an operating plan to reopen in December would surely need to be well advanced by now?

 

Isn't it? Or do we just not know of the details?

 

That certain parties may be looking to gain financially from a crisis on the WSR has been suggested several times in this thread. As Tom states, it is difficult to see exactly how such a scheme might work. If one were to buy a controlling stake in the railway- that would require an investment of at least £500,000. Anyone want to make a small fortune from steam trains?
Is it possible that someone's motivation might be more about pride and ego? The desire to be "fat controller" of one's own railway? That is a dream that I suspect many of us have had, before maturity and experience show us that actually "owning" a railway and bearing the full responsibility for it would be a curse, not a blessing. However, I dare say there might be people out there who like the idea of coming to the rescue of a project, being hailed as the saviour etc, and being given the keys to the kingdom, loved by all and able to run things just the way they want.
Sadly, anyone sustaining such a belief in adulthood would be somewhat delusional. Decisions they made would likely be ill considered, hopelessly optimistic or selfish. A recipe for disaster.

 

I believe that if the track was sold for scrap the proceeds would go to the County Council? I think Tom’s right but the value of the PLC may be even less than he assumed.

 

I would agree that the financial woes are a result of poor financial preformance over many years leading to a long period of under-investment as opposed to a deliberate attempt to run the railway into the ground over a long period of time, however that does not preclude unscrupulous individuals taking advantage of the present weakened state of the WSR.

 

I am not familiar with the WSR but looking at the website says it has 900 volunteers and 50 paid staff. Could it be the paid staff are currently furloughed?, the furlough scheme will end soon, so restarting the Santa trains will enable wages to be paid?

 

Sometimes I'm surprised that there is anything pertaining to the WSR that isn't brought up or leaked onto this thread! But yes, I'd have thought it quite likely that things will be being planned quietly in the background and we wouldn't necessarily hear about it here. Having been on the periphery of our own re-opening planning, I can confirm that the issues weren't really the sort of stuff that gets NatPres members excited. I really hope that's the case anyway, as many ave observed, the longer the WSR remains closed, the harder it is to re-open, so they're going to have to expend relatively more effort just to achieve what many other railways did a month or two ago.

 

No need to shout, we're not deaf. It is not the the present Board that is the only show in town, it is the Plc of which they form the board of directors. Your statement, for all the volume with which it was delivered, is preposterous, suggesting as it does that there are only three or four people in the entire preservation movement capable of being directors of the WSR Plc.

 

I see from an email just recieved that (due to COVID-19) the plc has not been able to produce their accounts in time for the planned AGM, that is now postponed until November. I seem to remember some time ago we were told that the plc had made a profit of£300k last year. Was that not the result of the latest accounts which must have been finalised some time ago.

 

A very flimsy one at that.

 

If in doubt or not knowing what to do DELAY!

 

At least some of the balance sheet will be easy to complete for the last six months.... Income from rail fares: Can anyone guess the figure..??

 

Wonder how many of the 50 paid staff mentioned about are still on furlough or have already left for employment elsewhere. ?

 

Our conversation has been somewhat overtaken by the news from the S&D Trust. However I think you misunderstand me. I am not concerned with occasional minor insults, nor with the use of pseudonyms, which both you and I use. What was being reported was that candidates for the Trust board were being abused* and threatened to such an extent that several withdrew their nominations. If that is what occurred it goes way beyond even an ill-tempered exchange of views and strikes at the very heart of the way we operate our society. As such it needs to be dealt with sternly and swiftly.

* Abusive language means the use of remarks intended to be demeaning, humiliating, mocking, insulting, or belittling that may or may not be based on the actual or perceived race, colour, religion, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, or gender identity of an individual.

 

I very much like that proposal!

 

If you look the WSR plc up on Companies House, search for a "Confirmation Statement" in the documents. Sooner or later you will find one that lists all the shareholders. Unfortunately it will be a scanned image, so you can't nicely extract all the numbers into excel to analyse, but scanning the list will give a picture.

When I last checked, I think there was a document from 2018. From memory; and an approximate count of (lines per page) * (number of pages) there were about 8,000 shareholders listed.

The top four were WSRA (about 9%); WSSRT (about 9%); SCC (about 2%); DEPG (about 0.5%) No-one else had more than 50,000 shares (£5,000 nominal investment) which represents about 0.2%. The vast majority of shareholders were much smaller than that, many of them with 50 or 100 shares, i.e. £5 or £10 stake. How many of them are traceable I don't know. (The cost of keeping those names on the register relative to the value of the investment is one of the reasons why I am profoundly distrustful of shareholding as a means of making what is essentially a donation to a railway company, and why I prefer having an allied charity. If you are making a donation - make it a donation, not a pseudo investment. But I digress...)

The picture may have changed in the interim if more shares have been sold, though I don't believe significant numbers of shares have been sold to change the picture above by any more than a degree.

Tom