West Somerset Railway General Discussion

According to the release announcing his departure, the WSRA will have an acting head until the AGM in July. In light of your observation, it will be interesting to see who, if anyone, steps up to take this poisoned chalice.

Noel

 

Very soon after this picture was taken of WSRA Chairman Paul Whitehouse confirming £187,149 of aid to the WSR PLC Chairman, something happened.

The next day Paul Whitehouse's resignation as WSRA Chairman was announced with "immediate effect".

I haven't a clue, Mike, what "KBO" means, and perhaps someone can enlighten us?

I know that "That's all folks!" is the last few frames of Warner Bros animated cartoons.

 

"Keep buggering on" - Winston Churchill.

 

If the WSRA has just given £187,149 to the PLC would it be reasonable to assume that they should have some shares in exchange?

 

That's a new one on me! I know KBO as meaning Kuiper Belt Object - astronomic bodies like Pluto in the outer reaches of our Solar System. A little more remote than a previous post's suggestion of Steep Holm Island as a heritage railway site.

 

Suprisingly Steep Holm does possess the remains of a heritage railway.

I went on a day trip circa mid summer 1972 to Steep Holm Island whilst temporarily employed on an embankment project with BR at Bristol. Much to my amazement the island appeared to have the remains of a two foot rail system which ran from the landing point presumably to some of the wartime gun emplacements located on the top of the island. I can recall no trace of a locomotive so I guess that the line was either hand or winch operated.


Restoring this heritage line would, in my opinion, present an ideal opportunity for any director of a PLC who did not wish to be bothered with heritage group sub tenancies, twenty miles of standard gauge track, the ORR, people living close to stations who object to video camera streaming and of course keyboard warriors. The only permanent residents I can recall seeing on the island were sheep.

Jamie Glover.

 

The inclined sections, at least, were winch operated: some of the pulley wheels are still in situ. Here's a couple of photos I took in 2013

 

Needless to say, the WSR Facebook page is being censored heavily: all comments of an even slightly critical nature are being removed and said commenters banned from the page. They cannot, however, remove reviews, so I am glad I made my thoughts clear in that way whilst I was still able so to do. I am not exactly surprised, but I am disappointed...

 

Someone annoyed that the WSRA could not pay the £200,000 ransom? <BJ>

 

Unfortunately that very rapidly becomes problematic. Essentially that money has been donated to the WSRA by donors with the express purpose of track renewal. So the WSRA can award a grant to the plc specifically for track renewal and honour those wishes.

If instead the WSRA used the money to buy shares, the plc could then entirely properly use the money for any purpose it saw fit - not necessarily track renewal. That would not accord with the donor wishes for what are charitable donations.

I wish I could see a clear path by which the railway could achieve a robust pan-railway governance structure that gave all the stakeholders an appropriate say in the railway’s strategic direction. But all routes to that seem fraught with intractable problems.

Tom

 

I'm not a subscriber to Face Ache but am curious about Brighton Baltic's reporting of Face Ache's censorial activities where the WSR is concerned.

Who is actually responsible for this censorship?
(A) Face Ache itself?
(B) A certain group of company directors who are believed to be located somewhere in Somerset?

I think we should be told!

Jamie Glover

 

Any group on Facebook will have a moderator who has the ability to remove posts and ban people from that group. If it is a company page then it will be done by the company itself. Many people may fulfil this role. The decision to remove posts and posters could be made by individuals or it could be company policy.

Lets say I am a one monkey band company and so I may run my own social media, or a larger company might employ someone to do it, or it might even employ a company to run its social media for it.

The only thing that facebook bans are nipples. Nazis, no problem, conspiracy theories, no problem. Nipples, send in the tanks. (But I digress).

 

Comments such as this still seem to appear on the WSR Facebook site:- "Losing a million over 5 years with nothing done about it sooner, that's impressive. Well, when I say impressive I mean shambolic. Perhaps you could comment on the press release of this week regarding the "cuckoo in the nest". Hardly professional to make such comment in a press release, even if you think it. Lacks class". This was from a couple of days ago (beneath a link to the recent BBC article) so there hasn't been total censorship.

 

A good point. I don’t think the problem is intractable and for me to be positive for once I do see there is a way forward. There were underlining issues of poor governance and structure etc. which were known and the WSR was working through these and beginning to overcome them pre 2019. I understand I can only ask you to trust me when I say progress was being made, but it’s the reason I stayed involved through 2017/8. These issues are of course common as you will know across many heritage railways as they have been very successful and grown at a very fast pace. However, there is now an issue that is quite singular and focused.

It is in my opinion an issue of what the remaining people involved want the WSR to be going forward? What are its values and what do they want it to provide them individually to satisfy their hobby and most importantly how that fits in with the community, the communities funds and people and what they want to build as a legacy, plus of course who is going to pay.

There is no aim or objective to the WSR, its currently just a few peoples narrow opinion. Its currently just there being driven in a specific direction with no accountability.

All that sounds complex but it’s really quite simple and I believe the answers are there: People, Culture, Governance and Structure in that order. It’s in Business Consultant terms a simple business recovery job and always has been for any business who has simply lost its way. It’s nothing to be afraid or ashamed of, it happens to very well-known businesses and it needs to be recognised. It just needs the people to stand up and tell all what they want, which is currently not happening.

I have written a set of 5 core values (happy to pass to anybody as they work for all businesses) which the WSR could use as a framework of governance and behaviour. Many here would have worked with these before and will know if correctly applied they act much better than many pages of ‘rules and regulations’ for people to abide by and they are a positive way of people/groups within a diverse organisation like the WSR to work together for a common aim whilst still being individuals who will not always agree on things and want a voice. This is one simple starting point.

The WSR Partnership Development Group (PDG) would be a good first move for engagement and inclusion. It’s also something that has ‘disappeared’ recently. It last met in 2018 (does anybody know why it was disbanded?). That was inclusive and positive, everybody was represented from the WSR Family so had a voice and influence. The PDG also included SCC as the landlord and a very good ally, supporter, mentor and of course shareholder but they also seem to have no voice within the WSR now.

Include people or exclude people, it means there will be people involved or not involved. In my opinion the WSR is only made up of people and one or two certainly can’t operate the WSR alone, time to decide perhaps!!!

 

And, in something that is a public face of the railway, it is disappointing that people purporting to support the railway will make comments like that where they are likely to be seen by the general public when planning trips, etc.

My comments here are not ones that I would make on that page, because of the collateral damage they could cause.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

Looking back at recent posts and all the negativity towards the WSR, I am left wondering how many of the negative posters are actually actively involved with the WSR? Just curious. I admit, I'm not, but, although I'm surprised at recent events, I'm not being negative and am waiting on the sidelines..

 

By way of balance there are considerably more positive than negative comments and the news item has received more than a thousand likes.

 

Does that include grease nipples ?

 

Didn't it also say that Mike Sherwood had agreed to stand in as 'acting chairman' until July or has that been changed?

 

I think the only thing that’s changed is that Mike has tired of the WSR haters on this forum and has walked.

Can’t say I blame him.