West Somerset Railway General Discussion

I'm sure they'll have been trying that avenue hard - but unfortunately none of the directors' numbers have come up in the draw yet!

 

Re-opening for any railway is something of a financial gamble.the preparations are significant and even if you have continued inspections during shutdown there are still a lot of things to check and many new items of guidance to apply.

From what has been said in public i would deduce that the WSR plc perhaps have very little left in the kitty with which to experiment and some significant expenditures to incur to reopen.

I suspect that there may be no staff who would be considered "in ticket" due to the time since the last train. Overcoming that will mean training days without the public, a further drain on resources. If you have little money it is a big ask, and I could see it being possibly the least risky route through to stay shut provided you beleive you can raise enough money to reopen later.

All that said, not opening carries many problems also and the longer anyone stays closed the harder it will be to reopen. This is a difficult time to run a railway.



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No more than a half-educated guess, but with the Company PW gang apparently disbanded, could it be that the (smaller and less well equipped) volunteer gang might need a tad longer to complete outstanding work? Even when they do successfully complete the required tasks, and I'm confident they will, how will that work now be signed off for use?

 

Last year the new management claimed to have saved the WSR from oblivion. Whether that was true or not is still unclear.

One of the steps in that process was selling a locomotive off the railway despite some remarkable fund-raising to allow it to remain, thus losing much goodwill. Subsequently the same management has continued its course of alienating many of the railway's volunteers and potential supporters. That is certainly true. And it keeps going from bad to worse.

Funds are desperately needed, but individuals who could contribute distrust the management's will and/or ability to use such funds appropriately; and the railway's structure, with multiple organisations, discourages grant-making bodies from helping. Meanwhile the management digs itself deeper into the hole (in both finances and goodwill) by paying lawyers.

The PLC's response to the Bailey report suggested some willingness to be flexible, yet it refuses to take a few simple actions that would immediately improve relations; particularly to withdraw (or even just to defer) the notice to quit and to publicly confirm the re-instatement of HR procedures for volunteers.

Whether this is cockup or conspiracy matters little, as the results are much the same; but recent posts about resuming operations do suggest a serious shortage of essential skills.

 

I doubt the Lottery would entertain an application from an independent commercial company.

Time for 'changing shape' methinks

Steve

 

Many of the apparently irrational decisions of the WSR management over the last year or so make much more sense if you assume that the £300,000 "profit" was just a bit of creative accountancy and that the railway is skint and has been for years. There is a pattern of behaviour common to companies that are desperately short of cash and the WSR has certainly been showing signs of it.

 

A very brave move Steve

You are a respected figure - IMHO in the WSR family so your blog should carry some weight

 

Sorry if my post yesterday upset anyone. it was written in frustration of trying to explain to a rather young greatgrandaughter why the trains she loves so so much aren't running.

 

However the SVR is owned and operated by a non-charitable shareholder-owned PLC just like the WSR is.

Presumably the body receiving the money in their account is the SVR Charitable Trust. The information put out, though, doesn't make that clear.

 

Comments have been made - quite correctly - about the sheer amount of time and planning work needed to re-open the line after 'lockdown'. Similar arguments have been used by businesses in other commercial sectors to explain why they have not yet re-opened. But none of this explains what - if anything - had been done on the 'planning for re-opening' front in the many weeks since the lockdown started. I know that 'government advice' has been conflicting at times and often late in arriving, but I would have expected that a significant planning 'framework' could have been put in place several weeks ago, just waiting for the necessary government advice to enable the fine detail to be completed. It is difficult not to get the impression that the Plc has merely sat back and waited, and is now suddenly finding itself woefully unprepared and in a bit of a panic as to how and where to start. Far better surely to have spent time, effort and resources on 'behind the scenes' work to be ready for re-opening at the earliest opportunity than trying to evict long-standing tenants and sending legal letters to head teachers etc. Happy to read soon on here any evidence to dispel that impression...

 

With no managers in post and the staff all furloughed it is difficult to see how much planning could have been done. Such work could only have been done by a very small plc board.

 

... in which case, how have other railways managed to get to the point of imminent re-opening?
Just curious....

 

I looked at the SVR website but found nothing to explain the way the owning/operating Plc and the membership body (a charity - the link to its articles failed) work together. On the face of it then, the charity can lob money at an independent commercial company. In the case of the WSR, the Plc is not accountable to WSR's charities, so I assume same for the SVR. In which case, the Heritage Lottery might have looked favourably at an application from the West Somerset Steam Railway Trust (already in receipt of Lottery funding for the Gauge Museum makeover) and maybe also have gained a six figure sum to help pay the Plc's wage bill. Maybe they have applied. Best ask 'em.

Steve

 

Tell her the story of the gingerbread man. Then she'll understand.

The problem is that in the case of the WSR, the fox may have recruited some supporters who either cannot see the end game or believe they will have a senior role in whatever comes next. I have not read the articles of the plc for a little while but I think there is a clause where no director can be removed without the agreement of all other directors. As long as the Dear Leader controls at least one other director then he cannot be removed by that means.