West Somerset Railway General Discussion

Only those addicted to schadenfreude will relish this stuff bubbling up yet again. Do you lot really hate each others insides? If so, there is no hope!

 

The majority of WSR supporters just visit regularly, enjoy the railway and leave the internal politics to others.

 

Blue Anchor track renewals will require the section from Minehead to Blue Anchor to be closed again from 7th to 9th May for completion of the works.

https://www.west-somerset-railway.c...relay-at-blue-anchor-completion-date-in-sight

 

And perhaps if they took more interest in them things wouldn't have reached this state?

 

Maybe, but it really shouldn't have to come to that. The vast majority of armchair supporters on most railways are as @45076 describes, visit a few times a year, enjoy the railway, and if they're feeling really adventurous, might fill in a proxy form for the relevant AGM, and it hasn't hurt railways elsewhere.

 

You are correct, but, looking at it from the WSRA perspective, the membership can only vote for (or against) the candidates who stand. If they are all (with one exception) "White Anglo-Saxon Males of a certain age", we don't get any opportunity to change the status quo.

And, before you ask, were I to have stood, it would not have improved the situation!!

 

I don't think the struggle with the 6+1 was a factor. Once the leasehold had been kicked into touch (was that 2013 or 2014 ?) the Reform Group did most of the heavy lifting and the plc were able to get back to running the railway. Their only involvement was to respond to occasional questions from the RG, hardly anything that would have interfered with the day to day operation. My only regret as a core member of the RG is that we did not have the opportunity to stop the 6+1 progressing the sale of assets at "mates rates" to a member of the WSRA board. Fortunately, the wheels of justice continue to grind away and people have very long memories.

Your closing point hits the nail on the head and is actually mostly responsible for the current situation.

 

Yes I agree there are no easy answers, it needs this type of debate and awareness to think and work through the issues. The fact remains that Funders won’t fund unless diversity and inclusion is clear and in place (as well as governance and culture). In fact the WSRA Board is better than the PLC Board for diversity currently.

However it’s the WSRA’s job to be the members association, going out, getting, attracting and developing new and diverse members and volunteers, including and welcoming all elements of the community. The community around it is diverse (especially with HPC on the doorstep) so why not the WSR?

The current hiatus of just seeing who stands is not going to get the job done, nobody from the wider community knows they can be involved or stand because nobody tells them. The situation at the PLC is worst, nobody was allowed to stand at last years AGM for example and at least one individual new to the WSR was refused the chance to stand as a Director by the Board at that time.

This is not meant to be personal to anybody and many other railways will face or are facing the same thing no doubt, the issues are multi-layered and complex and I’m not blaming anybody, all are volunteers (apart from the GM’s of both organisations). But the WSR has grown to a point where change is needed, the alternative is to continue as the last 4 years and stay as it is with no large scale funding, the choice is with the Boards involved..

I also fit the ‘White Anglo-Saxon Male of a certain age’ so I’m also not the answer !!!

 

So what has been done?
Especially if it was found to be more involved than first thought.

 

Perhaps the problem isn't all white Anglo-Saxon males just those who are not open to new ideas and planning for the true costs and challenges of running a heritage railway?

 

Can anybody point to a UK heritage railway board of Directors which is not composed almost entirely of white Anglo Saxon males of a certain age?

 

In a perfect world, maybe not; but in this one, it did.

When things are running smoothly, no... but when things go off the rails (sic), though, they do have to step in. They are the ultimate backstop against a severe loss of direction.

Noel

 

Depends what you mean by "a certain age" a board aged between 30 and 70 years is almost as mixed an age range as is possible.

Sadly there don't seem to be vast numbers of non-white volunteers from whom to pick board members. (Indeed whereas the passengers on the bus I drive for a living are probably 60 to 70 % non-white, the same can not be said of visitors to the railways where I volunteer)

Females I would admit do seem to be under-represented. (There are plenty of female volunteers, maybe they have 'better things' to do with their time than sit in board meetings?)

 

The latest WSRA board minutes say
there is a “Joint Meeting of the Association, Plc and Steam Trusts Boards on 4 May. This meeting, which will be facilitated by Spark Somerset is to ensure that all three Boards agree the way forward on fundraising and other significant matters of common interest.”

Details of Spark at: https://www.sparksomerset.org.uk/

 

The issues facing the WSR are not, I would suggest, unique to that railway. There are a number of factors widely felt across the sector, which might be summarised as:

1. The fare income alone, or even fares + shop / food purchases, is rarely sufficient to pay the true operating cost of the railway, once it is recognised that the true operating cost has to cover the periodic renewal of very expensive assets.
2. The regulatory / compliance environment is becoming more onerous. This isn't the place to debate whether that is or isn't a good thing; simply to note that it is happening. That in turn has an impact both on staff, and on the duties and responsibilities of those in management and directorial roles; and therefore in the availability of people with the necessary professional skills to volunteer to take on those roles.
3. The demographics of volunteering are becoming less favourable, and certain traditional craft skills (woodwork, metalwork etc.) are now less widely taught in schools; that in turn puts additional cost pressure on the business, because tasks (especially maintenance) that might formerly have been done by volunteers are now more reliant on paid staff; or else require require greater investment in time to bring volunteers up to speed. By and large it is still possible to find reasonable numbers of volunteers to undertake operational roles; it's harder for core maintenance and overhauls, particularly if you run an intense service and can't afford to have, say, a carriage or loco needed for service being worked on by a volunteer team perhaps one day per week but taking up valuable space untouched for six.

On point 1, the length of the WSR makes it more vulnerable than many lines, basically because the true running costs scale somewhat in proportion with length (more infrastructure to maintain; more carriages and locos needed to run a service and therefore more overhauls / maintenance requiring to be funded), but the fare income does not scale with length. (*)

It's not my intention to write a counsel of despair, except to note that the governance issues of the last number of years must have been a massive collective distraction, with the result that the WSR seems to be late in coming to the realisations above, particularly the first two points. Simply to note that what is needed is a widespread culture change; that means across the railway, from the boards of the various organisations realising that they have to work with clearly delineated areas of responsibility, right through to the membership understanding their critical role in fundraising to maintain the railway (but in return, should also have a critical role in setting the strategic plan for the railway: it is unrealistic for the plc to reserve the roadmap of what kind of railway the WSR wishes to be to itself, while still expecting the Association membership to provide capital fundraising capacity).

(*) For an extreme example of that, compare a full price day rover at Swanage or the West Somerset. At Swanage, it's only £1 less than on the WSR, yet the WSR ticket has to fund a core railway operation more than three times the length of Swanage, while having lower passenger numbers. In fact the comparison is even less flattering to the WSR when you consider the carriage and loco utilisation, because the Swanage can to a much larger extent sell the same physical seat multiple times in a day and therefore delivers more (but shorter) passenger journeys with a smaller daily requirement for locos and carriages.

Tom

 

Getting very tired of all of this WSR bashing now.
Let me say this to all residents of Nat Pres very clearly.
If you want to help the WSR and work in a spirit of openness and collaboration to deliver against a set of agreed objectives then feel free to get in touch with me and I'll find you role or have somebody find you a role.

If it's a very senior role that might tale a while and there might well be a stringent interview process to ensure you are the right person for the job. If it's something you just fancy having a go at that is not safety critical then it may well be you can be fitted in really quickly. (There are training, safe systems of work to consider and safeguarding, it is the 21st century after all.)
We have loads of back office jobs in IT, HR Commercial that need doing, loads of work in workshops and on stations. Loads of P-way opportunities. Loads of on train jobs that need to be done. We have a need for more signalmen, we seem OK for guards and we are OK for footplate but there is a steady stream of progression in these departments so there are still opportunities. We have a need for a person to go round and check and replenish all the first aid boxes. so there are Volunteer jobs for all at levels.

Better end with a plug for two upcoming outward facing community engagement events. Somerset Day is being celebrated at both MD and BL with lots of non-railway things to see and do on 11th May and we have the upcoming Yarn Bombing event which the railway will be involved with based at BL. You can find more details on Steve Edges Web site.

 

The Swanage has the advantage that it can maintain a 40min service frequency continuously through the day with just two trains, and therefore in turn they can be short trains with smaller locos. The WSR couldn't physically operate that service frequency even if it wanted to, due to section times.

Unfortunately there is no easy answer to this. The WSR is hardly in a position at the moment to restore one of the intermediate loops.

 

I'm a signalman on another railway, and I have in the past considered volunteering on the WSR. The last time I checked, I wasn't eligible to volunteer as a signalman on the WSR as I live in Bristol, outside the maximum travel radius and time permitted for that role.

My own railway doesn't have such limits - if it did I wouldn't be eligible to volunteer there either! Maybe if the WSR looked at its requirements and compared them to other railways it might throw up some interesting results.

 

As an operational WSR volunteer in a safety critical role (not signalling) I have never heard of the rule you mention. Definitely worth rechecking.

 

Accepting the the truth in what you and @Jamessquared say about Swanage's structural advantages its worth saying that we don't have it easy either. The intensive 40m service has its own challenges and although the scenic location in a cute little seaside town on a rural peninsular makes it attractive for passengers it has the opposite effect on the catchment area for volunteers and skilled staff.

Its becoming clear that the Heritage Railway business model needs to continue to evolve to survive and at a rapid rate. Those with leaderships that are prepared to look at innovative thinking, adapt, bring in the right skills and experience and work together as a team will fare better going forward.

Infighting, Egos, Grudges and being stuck in old ways of doing things could easily tip the balance in the wrong direction.