West Somerset Railway General Discussion

I was worried for a bit - I had a look online at Nat Preservation.Com this morning and found WSR had dropped down to the second listing on the page. But, alls okay now, its back at the top of the page again (and again)!!

 

People were indeed very willing to put their hands deep into their pockets to fund the purchase. However, there are many people out there, me included, who can say with experience that buying a loco is the easy bit. People may be willing to donate (say) £5K of their precious savings but, when you later come back and say that actually we need five times that from you to restore it, many won't be able to do that. As has been said, it is probably the best solution for loco and railway in the present circumstances. Locos become available, either to buy or hire, on a regular basis and, when the time is right, I'm sure that a suitable opportunity to boost the WSR locomotive fleet will arise. Let those who have volunteered to take on the enormous task of dragging the WSR out of the hole it has found itself in get on with the job and give them the full support that they need If they get pi**ed off with the job and all the criticism made, I'm sure that there won't be a queue of other suitable people ready to take the almost poisoned chalice.

 

TEST.... having trouble logging onto here ? & updating is it me or NP ? any others having probs.......last post I can see was on Sunday

 

I see that the WTT for the Winter Steam Festival has now been published and is available for download.

It includes the loco allocations, and can be viewed at WSR.org.uk

 

No Malcolm, it’s not you. Just been quiet for once.

 

I see that the T3 loco appeal at Swanage has raised over a third of its £350,000 appeal in the first six months. Well done to them. A fine effort.

As it's nearing the season of good will I thought it about time to a make a further donation to the WSR track appeal. I went to the WSR home page, clicked 'Support us', clicked 'Donations' and then clicked 'Support us with a donation'. After studying a near blank page and clicking it a couple of times I decided to give up.

On the plus of this is that the T3 loco appeal has just gained another supporter. <BJ>

 

As I understsnd it, donations are now being channelled via the WSRA & WSSRT so they can claim Gift Aid and increase the value of donations.
The WSR,org site, http://www.wsr.org.uk/ , has donation links that work.

https://www.justgiving.com/campaign/railrenewal2019

http://www.wssrt.co.uk/

 

Is there any news on the future of 44422?

Chris

 

It was £563k as at 31/12/2017 (2016 was £769k)
There was still a profit being made in 2017, & that was with £250k extra being spent on track prior to Flying Scotsman visiting.

The 2017 accounts & report do state that the expenditure on track & infrastructure wasn't at high enough levels.
Hopefully the extra spent in 2017 will be of long-term use, & that some of the reserves now get spent in the closed season that's about to start.

 

They may gain 25% on Gift Aid donations via an association or trust but unfortunately they lost 100% of my donation.

If a member of the public wanted to donate to the WSR surely they would first search the WSR website.

A basic requirement for donations should be from the home page. Make the message LARGE AND CLEAR for all to see. <BJ>

 

You haven't lost the opportunity to donate just go along to https://www.justgiving.com/campaign/railrenewal2019 and enter your card details.
Unless of course you gave the donation to someone else.

I agree with both these statements. You should bring them to the attention of the WSR Plc's webmaster.

 

.

 

There's been some speculation linking it with a return to the CVR, but the NSRC claim to have recieved no official offer to have the engine... https://national-preservation.com/threads/churnet-valley-railway-general-discussion.177295/page-69

Either way, no official news to report.

 

All this talk of how difficult it is to donate is laughable the wsr is in Massive debt and without donations will cease to exist they are on the slippery slope to closure any company with this amount of debt needs to raise capital fast just look at all the big names on the high street who have had the same problems and are no longer trading.

 

Thank goodness for that! With any luck, it will happen more often.

Noel

 

Hang on there with the careless use of language.

Yes the WSR needs considerable investment in its infrastructure on an ongoing basis (which heritage railway doesn't?) but it is not, as you claim, massively in debt.

 

There are currently 4 outstanding charges on the WSRplc
https://beta.companieshouse.gov.uk/company/01010188/charges

Without the figures & payment terms, no-one can say whether they are "massively in debt" or not.

 

Decent having WTT for WSF. wants the extra spice added I can't see much differnce

 

Anybody know if they are using the QB for breakfast/lunch service or if it's private hire?
I wish I could make this event, would have been nice to have seen 7752, I assume it's going back to Tyseley before the SSG as it's not on the loco list?

 

Is it a prerequisite of being involved with the West Somerset that you must use initials as much as possible.
Or is it a way of keeeping us from foreign parts ignorant of events?

WTT Work takes time.
WSF What's his face.

JUst looked and after 2 days of out in the wind and rain I see that WTT is the working timetable and WSF - Winter Steam Festival.

But my initial comment still stands.