West Somerset Railway General Discussion

For [Insert your deity here]'s sake, the new management team barely had time to warm their chairs before the ORR walked in (that must have been nice for them) and they are evidently working on/to a plan to turn things around.
How about giving them a chance?

Ah, I forget, this is the WSR thread, home of the keyboard warriors.
Oh, and FWIW, I would cheerfully say that to your faces in a pub before walking away to leave you spluttering into your pimms.

Available from Amazon and good booksellers.

 

Good to see he has employed a professional writer to draft it.

 

8-9 June. I understand the event will be publicised as soon as details are confirmed.

Steve

 

The statement says:

invest in and improve our infrastructure significantly at a considerable cost of £140,000,

I agree that it does not suggest that this ends the expenditure - however, it does suggest that it is all that is needed at the moment and that it has transformed the railway

 

I thought the wording was a little strange - £140k is a "considerable cost" (which I don't disagree with!) but a few paragraphs later the railway will need to raise £500k per year, every year, for the forseeable. Still, I suppose it's only £125 per shareholder p. a. (similarly when I read that the attendees had over £3k on them in cash there and then to drop into the donations bucket I thought it sounded like a lot, until I realised it was a tenner each)

 

My interpretation of JPJ's statement was that the cost to implement everything had cost £140,000, not the works themselves.

There was also the clear and unavoidable statement that was that WSR PLC was close to insolvency, and needed an extra £1/2 million a year to keep afloat.

On other railways such as the Talyllyn, the TRPS bails out the TR Co. annually. Can we expect the WSRA to do what the TRPS has done for the past nearly 70 years?

Doesn't look like it sadly.

Cheers,

Julian

 

https://www.west-somerset-railway.co.uk/events/detail/west-somerset-railway-40th-anniversary-weekend

 

There are two sides to safety. The first is running a safe railway. The second is being able to show that you are running a safe railway.

I am sure the WSR hs been operating safely but can it prove it. To prove you are running a safe railway you firstly need the right documentatrion setting out how the railway will be run safely. Far more important is the paper trailto prove you are enforcing the safety documentation.

On many railways rules examinations are every three years. Are the examinations up to date with a paperwork trail. This only shows the staff know what they should do. To ensure they are applying the rules you may appoint inspectors to turn up unanounced and watch you at your job for a couple of stations. On saturday last I had to demonstrate train prep, brake test and shunting. The inspector filled out a form shownig the results of the test which we both signed. This form is actually more important than the rule book itself

 

I don't think you can compare heritage railways with each other in that way.
As I understand it the TR Co. is the operating arm of the TRPS, so it's comparatively easy for the TRPS to give money to the TR Co.
Things are rather different on the WSR. The WSR Plc and the WSRA are legally separate (a distinction that many here seem to find hard to understand), the WSRA is a charity and it's not quite so easy for a charity to just give money to a Plc to prop up its finances.

The WSRA is helping the WSR Plc by funding the completion of their locomotive 9351.

 

I think that the majority of people on here do understand the difference between the WSR/WSRA set up and other railways. A significant number of these people also believe that it is one of the fundamental problems that affects the railway in the broadest sense and is a hindrance to its successful operation. Changing that is not an easy thing to do, though. With will, a one railway mentality will win through on the ground but, legally, it can't be without change in the structure governing it.

 

Not directly, they have raised the funds with a separate appeal to the public.

 

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Every once in a while a post appears that makes me laugh out loud. This was one of them.

The WSRA took on the assembly of 9351 which the WSR plc workshop did not have the capacity to achieve before the 2019 peak summer season.

The work is being done by staff and volunteers at the Williton Restorations facility, run by the WSRA under the management of Ryan Pope, the WSRA’s Engineering Manager, (working closely with the WSR plc’s project manager as the customer’s representative) and overseen by Jacquie Green, the WSRA’s General Manager, and ultimately the WSRA Promotions and Trustee Boards.

The WSRA Trustees agreed to underwrite the project and have then been vigorously fundraising for this specific project. We have raised all but around £3K of the cost so far (using the ‘gift aid’ facility generously provided by HMG). We have ensured (with some valued help from the staff involved and an engineer) that details of the project progress are in the public eye and explained so that non-loco types (like me) can understand the quality of the engineering being carried out.

Several Trustees spent time at the Stakeholders meeting explaining the progress on 9351 to the assembled supporters (while others were having their tea breaks) as part of the fundraising ‘push’.

But that all, is dismissed as ‘not direct’ assistance to the WSR plc? (We Trustees see it as assistance to our Railway in accordance with our charitable objectives.) If I were not laughing so hard I would be spitting.

This is a time for pulling together, not chipping away. I did have a good laugh at this post (and the earlier one criticising the WSR plc for reaching out across the heritage world for assistance) but I would rather have the remaining funds to close the £3K funding gap for 9351. Did I mention that? Or that your donation is increased by 25% by HMG if you are a UK tax payer?

That would be ‘direct’ help to the Railway.

Nothing to do with the WSRA.

Robin White
WSRA Trustee.

 

West Somerset Railway - Then and Now

1972 - 2019

Collection of Nick Jones/ Robin White

 

And where do you think the money provided by a grant-giving charitable body should come from? If it were possible to generate a surplus of, say, £500k per year solely through trading activities from shops and cafes, no doubt the railway would be doing so.

The bottom line is that (1) the directors of the plc believe that they will need an additional surplus of £500k per year, year-on-year, to enable the renewal of the railway and (2) that money is unlikely to be available by improved trading alone. So that leaves the supporters of the railway to fill the gap, essentially through altruistic means (*), as already happens on many other railways.

There are, I believe, somewhere in the region of 4,000 WSRA members. That shortfall represents a donation of about £10 per month per member, or just £8 if you can reclaim the Gift Aid. That's not much to ask, is it? Rather less than a pint of beer a week.

(*) I avoid the word "charitable" so as to leave the possibility of buying shares within the scope of such altruism.

Tom

 

I, and I'm sure many others, are finding those "Before and After" pictures very inspirational and a credit to the many hundreds of volunteers and thousands of supporters who have dedicated so much time and effort to the WSR.
Long may it continue despite some of the obvious - and not so obvious, problems.
I suspect many, if not all, heritage railways skate along the edge of viability at various times, but these days it tends to be more obvious and immediate with (Un) Social Media......

 

Another reminder of what is at stake - even though I'd rather they had left it as 'Crowcombe', without the 'Heathfield'! Or maybe that was the original name?

 

It was.

 

As I understand it, the 'Heathfield' was added to make it clear that the station is over 2 miles from Crowcombe village,. with part of the walk along the busy Taunton Minehead road. Stogumber station in s actually closer to Crowcombe village.

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You are correct.