West Somerset Railway General Discussion

No. If that were the case, neither would have been successful first time round? For the record, GWSR Plc was successful both first and second time round, so was DMLL, and, I'm sure, many others. It is probably noteworthy that the people who put the WSR's first bid together didn't put the second one together.

If "The Board" has good reasons not to progress, it has no need to include bad reasons not to progress. I'm always distrustful when anyone attempts to just throw out all manner of excuses, no matter how poor, not to do a thing; it makes me suspicious that there are in fact no good reasons at all.

 

But there's the rub. The WSR cannot subsist on fares alone. Joe Public might love it and ride on it in droves, but that's not going to pay the cost of all the infrastructure work that is still necessary.

 

It's a photo on a website.

PDSR's still has D7535 on it, they sold/swapped it 30 months ago. Removing the SDJR 0-4-0ST, that was usually out of sight in a shed, is hardly a priority.

Also, it says 'The following is a list of steam engines based on or associated with the West Somerset Railway". 6960, Kilmersdon and 88 fit that description.

 

There is, of course, another point of view in that the overwhelming majority of current shareholders may have received those holdings from deceased relatives and have no personal interest or views, even IF asked.

I would be particularly interested to know John Bailey's view of this latest ridiculous situation.


Or is another example of a brat throwings toys out of a pram ?

 

You miss the point - in a company it is not the number of shareholders that ultimately matter, but the number of shares. Knowing that there are some material stakes, the figure of 4.7% looks chosen for a purpose, and not to be representative of the opinion garnered.


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Were the WSRHT (or whatever they became) in favour of the Bailey proposals - I can’t remember now? If the WSRA and WSRHT are aligned in their view, then clearly the way it is portrayed by the plc is deeply disingenuous. But if the WSRA and WSRHT differ in their view, then it is still basically a stalemate.

Tom

 

So, where is the PDG ?

 

This was the WSRHT’s response to the Bailey report:

http://www.wssrt.co.uk/2020/06/28/response-to-report-by-john-bailey-on-wsr-organisation/

 

It's a nice photo of 4160 with a headboard. It's hardly false advertising, they have a 5101 Prairie based on the line in 2021. No worse than Saphos' docking photos of 46115 on WCRC stock.

6960 last ran on the line in 2018. 53808 hauled trains on the last day to date of regular public services (01/01/2020), and Kilmersdon never ran a normal WSR service train. Hardly photos/loco line up from summer '76.

Not sure what you mean by my comment of the list. I see no issue with it.

 

I think it was established some time ago that the WSR cannot subsisi simply on customers to whom it simply represents a "day out", not can it subsist on that plus what it gets from the collecting tin. It needs big donors and quite a few of them, and they will be taking notice of controversy.

 

Doesn't sound like a sustainable business to me. Maybe time to consider scaling back their operations.

 

In what way(s)?

 

I'm not sure heritage railways have that many "big donors" or should in fact rely on them. That's hardly a sustainable business and not one which grant-making bodies would like to support either.

 

Like every other preserved railway? The balance between fares and donations is always a factor.

 

Reliance on a small number of major donors is dangerous, and raises questions of control, but the reality is that most donation based organisations will have a few donors who are particularly financially significant, and then a long tail of donors who add less to the income line. I did that analysis for the regular givers at my church, and was quite taken aback by how high a proportion of regular donations came from a small percentage of donors.

That is both a risk and an opportunity. The risk of losing those donors (especially if they die) is obvious, as are the risks of their having excessive influence; the opportunity is that the "long tail" are already engaged and only need to be persuaded to increase their donations, not start giving in the first place.