West Somerset Railway General Discussion

Yes we have tv programmes about every railway but the WSR and there is no promotion about which I am aware! - Can management change that? I sincerely hope so!

 

Send them a message that if they send you any more, the message will be posted (with the sender's name redacted) so we can get the other side of the story.

Noel

 

Do we REALLY want a series about the WSR, with all the continual bickering and in-fighting? It would be the railway equivalent of Eastenders meets Jeremy Kyle!

 

The railway reality type shows feature the day to day operation of the railway, and usually focus on a couple of ordinary people and their roles on the railway.
They ignore any internal disputes and in-fighting.

 

Hopefully they would edit out all the contentious stuff but maybe not and that could be a reason why they have stayed away!

 

Watching some of these shows is reason enough not to want to participate in yet another one surely?

 

Such programmes can be fine. By and large the Channel 4 carriage restoration series was.

 

With the notable exception of Peter Snow, who seems to lower the tone of any railway programme he's involved in...

 

But if it highlights the railway and draws the crowds, bring it on. Let's face it, the TV series hasn't done the North Yorkshire Moors any harm.

With the negative publicity surrounding the WSR of late perhaps a series about the railway and it's volunteers would be a good thing. <BJ>

 

My comments were in response to Misspentyouth's statement that "Organisations aren't run as democracies", which I felt failed to recognise the general differences between commercial operations employing full-time staff and organisations which are almost totally dependent upon volunteers. I was not, and cannot, comment on the specific actions taken by anybody at or in connection with the WSR, as I have no knowledge of the true circumstances or of any of the individuals concerned. I can however draw on my personal experience to make the observation that, in general, it is better to treat volunteers with respect as they are not easy to replace, whilst at the same time acknowledging that this is not always possible.

 

Thought for the day:

 

He fronts a programme dedicated to "plane spotting" which I gather (I have not dared to watch) makes Trainspotting Live resemble the Theory of Relativity. The ethos of the production company would appear to be more important than who the talking head may be.

 

Size isn’t important?

End of season ECS move to bring coaching stock back to Minehead for servicing. Class 33 D6566, Odney Manor and 11 coaches at Kentsford Crossing.

 

@Andy Norman You cant make an FOI request BUT you can make a Subject Access Request.

Surely there must be a way of appealing against the decision to remove you from footplate duties or at least demand that a formal decision is made with reasons

 

Domestic Facilities booked us a weekend at Holbourne CaravN Park, at Blue Anchor, and very nice it was too (OK, stop laughing)

Middle son & I went to Blue Anchor to get the 124x for a round trip to BL, only to hear the news about the days contretemps - well, we had been to the L&B that morning.

I saw the Pannier on the 144x puffing past, it was rather a change to view a WSR train from the lineside

Supper was a Curry from The Spice Merchant at Watchet and lunch was my first visit to THe Driftwood Cafe at Blue Anchor, excellent view & good food.

What was interesting was how Holbourne plugged the fact that the park was next to the WSR, clearly they see themselves benefiting from The Railway

 

I am sure Andy Norman could propose a carefully worded resolution/motion for the December AGM that would have considerable support on a vote for his reinstatement as a member as a volunteer on the footplate. He could also propose a motion regarding the policies to be invoked for volunteers effectively dismissed, and this could also be retrospective. That would deal with at least some aspects.

Cheers,

Julian

 

Julian, Thanks, I've mentioned it in my next post.

 

Thanks for the info on the SAR, it’s something new I’ve learned today and it may be useful.

Re the Appeal, in normal times the WSR has very good and robust ‘safety nets’ in place which would deal with this. In fact I would normally recommend these to any similar organisation looking for a good solution, as all will know settling disputes in a volunteer lead organisation does need some care from all sides whether there are one, two or three sides to the argument. These were: 1. The HR Disciplinary processes in place for all parts of the WSR wouldn’t have allowed this to happen as they are staged, and involve the process helping people steer their way to a sensible solution without personal opinions and other agendas coming into it. They also had an appeals process within them and they also interestingly form part of the Safety Management System 2. The WSR had a good HR Manager who acted in an independent way to ensure ‘fair play’ from all sides (I helped her to resolve some people issues as a mediator on a number of occasions as at least two working volunteers reading this post will know, so I saw her in action and she was very good at what she did) & 3. A Board of enough people to hold each other to account for their actions.

But if you remove the Policies (first I was told they didn’t apply to Volunteers, then when I pointed out they specifically said they did, they were just removed from the system and remain scrapped to this day so no Volunteer has any HR Policy to adhere too), then you remove the HR Person when she ‘called foul‘ and replace her with your own sub-contracted one and to cap it off there is no effectively numerous Board, you can end up with no accountability and nobody to hold people to account. So the next level is asking the major shareholders (I was also a Member of both the Charities) and the HRA to look at it, none of them wanted to engage the PLC either. Coming onto here to raise awareness (which is in line with the WSR Whistle Blowing Policy) was my following step with the next options being. 1. Going to the papers and a wider public audience or 2. As #jma1009 has just said bring it out at the AGM for a wider audience of Shareholders to consider.

As a footnote I always look for a humorous side to any stressful situation (which this has been for me). Earlier this year before being suspended when I was being pressured into silence I received an email from a WSR HR Person that said along the lines of ‘because you have made a post on Social Media, (I had replied to somebody saying that it was a pity that 44422 was leaving because it’s a lovely engine to fire) you need to return your WSR ID Card because clearly you don’t want to Volunteer anymore’. A few minutes later the HR Person concerned rang me to say “Andy, I’m really sorry to send you that email. I didn’t want to but I was instructed to by Management, I’d refused but they told me I had too, please don’t think it came from me’. I had to see the funny side of it although I perhaps shouldn’t have done as the Person concerned left soon afterward.

I have however had a very recent indication that there maybe people beginning to see that perhaps talking may have been a better way, time will tell.

 

Prior to retiring I thought that volunteering at the WSR would be ideal. With all the bitterness at present perhaps volunteering should be put on hold.

I've visited the WSR just twice this year. I can't believe that in 18 months the railway had gone from being my most popular railway to being my least. <BJ>