Dartmouth Steam Railway General Discusssion

Interestingly, the last accounts showed he held 29.99%, which is the limit for a listed company without launching a formal takeover bid. A private company has no such ruling, but I had always understood the under 30% threshold was apart of The City Code, which applies to companies listed on any regulated Stock Market and I would be surprised if DVRplc was listed on any such Market (I am pretty sure all other preserved railways related plcs are unlisted).

Steven

 

I had to look this up, but the City Code, which now has statutory force, can apply to a private company, particularly one which was a PLC. Whether it applies here would depend on whether it ticked the boxes.

 

Thanks @houchemi - I gave up reading the detail of the 'simple' 68 page guide to takeovers and mergers before reaching that bit!

DVRplc looks to have been perhaps a bit like other preserved railway plcs and has a lot of very small shareholders. Making the offer to all of them would be pretty time consuming, and probably would be working from records not as guaranteed to be up to date as a listed plc would have.

Steven

 

Given that unlike other railways a dividend is paid, it seems to me that holders - or their heirs will be regularly reminded of the holding.

 

Oh dear, read what I said....'As an indivdual........'

Mr Hoskins might well have donated monies towards the Fund.
If he should do so in the future it will not be up to me to say yea or nay.
When this event happens, I will inform you of any decision I make.
I am not The GWR 813 Preservation Fund.

And as I said, I wish him well.

 

Oh dear, some ways I admire your political stance, but dare I say stuff the politics, and have a look at what happens when you have cross party co-operation eg Ted Watkinson and Bob Cryer and Black 5's at Keighley.

 

I do hope this talk of dividends and politics doesn't infest this thread like that of the wsr one.

Re 4110, I remember reading somewhere that the DSR was looking at opportunities to increase the fleet. It allows them to generate income from renting out engines without effecting the running on the home line.

I always though a large prairie would be a welcome addition to the line.

 

If you look back to the Directors' Report of the last filed DVRplc accounts, this states that they have a deliberate policy to strengthen their own fleet to remove themselves from being subject to 'the vagaries of the hire market'. In other words, spend on internal resource and fleet size rather than annual hire, which depends on availability, others actually delivering a suitable machine and, I suspect, paying over the market rate to ensure supply.

All seems very sensible to me.

Steven

 

Indeed, they seem to be investing in the infrastructure to remove the need for subcontracting out work. Also noted they were pleased with the income generated from hiring out the standard and manor. Once stability is achieved on home operations then this is an area they want to investigate further.
Almost too sensible!

 

Depends how they are looked after, to many so called drivers/thrash merchants, once they are broken you don't see them for dust until a new toys comes they can abuse.

 

That’s the second thread in as many days to mention “thrash”.

Surely in that instance, if the railway concerned has a robust inspectorate system for training, assessing and subsequently monitoring crew (and I have no reason to believe Dartmouth doesn’t have such a system) then you shouldn’t get people with the characteristics you describe promoted to driver in the first place? As for “so-called driver” - I’ve never seen that grade in a rule book: you either are or aren’t.

Tom

 

I am pretty certain that the loco crews on this particular railway are all full time staff so unlikely to be "so called drivers/thrash merchants".

 

I don't know, what they did with the trains at Christmas with all the lights was a bit pimp my ride, although I suspect one is unlikely to see a Prairie tank being thrashed round a car park anytime soon!

 

The last time I travelled on it the driving and firing seemed to be spot on. Not a lot of noise, no smoke and arrived at Kingswear well below blow off according to the red line in the cab as we walked past to the ferry. Did not hear the valves lift once on the return journey either. As someone who got very cross with his boilermen at sea if they lifted the safety valves at sea a joy to travel behind and see.

 

I think the original poster was referring to when locos get hired out to other railways and the other railways drivers drive them. Bit like when some people rent a house and then don't bother looking after it.

 

One notable thing about DSR drivers is they don't spend much time leaning out of the cab to be photographed.

 

Well it's a well-known fact that you can't lean out of the cab and operate things on a GW, unless you have ape like dimensions and I've never seen a T&DR/TSR/DSR/(this years name) footplate crew that fits that description.

 

Ahhh so that is why our Engineering Officers on the steam frigates I served on always sounded a bit narked when making an emergency announcement over the ship's tannoy that safety valves were going to lift. Bleddy deafening if you were in the vicinity of the funnel, as us AA lookouts often were during exercises
Apologies for the drift.............but it's a sailor trait
Chris

 

Sadly in my experience that isn't the case having picked up the pieces from aslefs finest on more occasions than I'd like, if my locos visit another railway I supply the crew, until I'm happy with crew standards .....

 

What does a mainline drivers union have to do with a heritage drivers ability?