West Somerset Railway General Discussion

It doesn't make it acceptable. The terms just don't work anymore. Both parties need to work together for an outcome which it seems the WSR PLC want to do.

 

Well they did previously. I think it's well documented they want to move the PWay to Washford.

 

So just because other companies pull unethical stunts like that, it's ok for the WSR PLC to do so? Very interesting. Have you got any business connections with the JJP business empire by any chance?

 

Do you have anything other than your unsubstantiated opinion to back that up? What does the site consist of? A station building that must be used as a station building - who is going to want to rent that, apart from another railway group? - and a yard, with no buildings on it, which is only accessible off a busy major road, on a bend with limited visibility over a working railway line - ditto. The question is, not what the site is worth to the Plc or the S&DRT, but what it is worth to another, outside, organisation, which is very close to zero.

 

No it isn't. Show me the evidence.

 

In which case the PLC should have engaged the S&DRT in constructive dialogue. They didn't. The serving of the notice to quit was a bolt out of the blue.

 

Welcome Mr Smithers,

Can I ask your personal opinion on one hypothetical episode ? Consider if a privately owned locomotive were to be dropped off at some railway workshops to the surprise of many as there had only been an agreement to talk about it possibly at a future point, but it arrived anyway. Consider that a very successful fundraiser was then tasked with raising £1M to fund the restoration in the name of the host railway for this privately owned locomotive. Add into the mix the possibility of events being held with local technical colleges where they were offered the chance to do some work for the railway but would be on that privately owned locomotive. What would your view be ? Where would your moral compass point ? What if some components belonging to the railway yet suited to that loco were to be moved to where the unrestored loco was kept. Would that ring any alarm bells with you ? At which stage in this imaginary tale would you think that something wasn't quite right ?

I totted up all of the systems, planning tools, business forecasts, specialist reports, safety case tracking and performance analytics that I have produced for the WSR. Never mind the getting up at crazy o'clock in the middle of winter for coach heating as that was really good fun with excellent people. I played a central role in ridding us of the 6+1 and trod the pavements doing leaflet drops to get more volunteers (that was a total shambles but never mind) but so did many others. I have also been asked directly and indirectly to consider joining the previous 3 boards but could not devote the time to doing the job properly. I think I can be described as a genuine supporter with the best interests of a railway that belongs to volunteers, employees, shareholders and stakeholders alike.

As a final question, how do you rate harmless satire against threats of physical harm ? I'm just asking hypothetically ....... of course.

 

Speaking of helping others, will you all be helping the SDRT move out of Washford, and get set up in a new location to the same level they had gotten to there, if they have to go?

Noel

 

No they aren’t. That is the problem.

 

You imply that the animus against the Chairman shown on this thread is something personal. Well, possibly it is, in the case of a few ex-volunteers, but the majority of posters have never met the man and know him only through those of his sayings and actions that are in the public domain. As for the others, they may bear a grudge, but you have to ask yourself why that might be, when very few other people in the railway preservation world have people that feel in such way about them and are sufficiently upset to go public with their feelings. For myself, I have never met him, my only contact, if you can call it that, was his appearance in a fund-raising video and I rather warmed to him as a fellow railway enthusiasts who cared deeply about the railway.
The problem is that nowadays everything has to be black and white. Regardless which side of this particular debate they see themselves on, I see the same attitude coming from so many posters: "if you are not with us you are against us", "if you are not part of the solution you are part of the problem", "us and them", "this or nothing", "the only game in town". Shades of grey are not allowed. If the Chairman is doing his best to save a railway that he identifies with strongly, then no criticism is allowed. The only possible reason allowed for criticism is a personal hatred for the man and/or the railway, and by extension, everyone else who is working so hard to try and bring it out of its current problems. Unfortunately the best is often not good enough. The captain of the Titanic was doing his best to take over three thousand people safely across the Atlantic, but because no-one warned him of an iceberg ahead, most of those lost their lives. Imagine the public outcry there would have been if it had later come out that the captain had been warned of the iceberg, but had but had done nothing but accuse the lookout who had brought the warning of having a grudge against the captain and crew of the ship and simply being interested in slowing the ship down and making it late to discredit the shipping line.
I don't believe any of the speculation that appears on here about anyone wanting to buy the freehold and sell the land for development, I see that as an attempt to manufacture an enemy about which you are right to complain. I see it as part of a campaign to raise funds by borrowing money against anything that can be used as collateral and selling anything that can be sold, a campaign that has taken the railway into areas where it had been better it had not gone. It is a fairly common strategy used when trying to save a company that is not only short of cash, but has huge liabilities on top of that. It is what you would do to turn around a normal commercial company like, say, a bus company. However the WSR is not a normal commercial company, because much of its income is in the form of donations of time or cash and not from commercial activities. That means that the WSR has a second customer base that must be kept happy and, whatever the intentions behind the actions of the current management may be, the outward appearances are that this income stream is being treated as a given, like a rent, whilst these customers are being alienated. Without these customers, the railway has a very slim chance of surviving indeed. That is the iceberg which the "haters" are actually trying to warn about.

 

Agreed, but were they asking for the public to contribute money to keep them afloat?

 

You missed the bit about the PLC chairman telling the Association chairman to Foxtrot Oscar. Presumably Mr Smithers regards that as all fine and dandy as well? I do wonder what would happen if Chris Price made the same remark to John Bailey!

 

There reaches a point where everything becomes so toxic that it might be a blessing if the company did collapse and the West Somerset Railway was forced to change, or fold , some of the most recent posts clearly are from people who on the face of it complain about being hurt because the company is being questioned, so lets turn it on its head, what about the feelings of the volunteers from the S&DJR Trust, who through no fault of their own are now set to lose what they have spent 40 plus years doing, Don't they count? or is it because they are not an GWR themed trust, they should not be on " your railway" ?

 

We've been through this dozens of times before Martin, it seriously risks the existence of the WSR. If the WSR were to fold, or would be a major disaster in preservation. Which is why y of us are so concerned

 

I would like to draw attention to an area of Steve Edge's web site that I feel could be of interest to folk who post on here.
At the bottom of the home page on wsr.org.uk there is a butterfly image clicking on this takes you to Steve's blog "Changing Shape" I have found this to be of great interest in particular the replies given by various responders.
Keep up the good work Steve.
Regards
Geoff

 

By and large the heritage movement, and not just railways, has been expanding and enjoying great success in most instances. Not quite on a crest of the wave, but thanks to volunteers and peoples monetary generosity most were doing quite well. Only WIBN and obvious non-starters have fallen by the wayside.
Covid has been a wake-up call for most heritage sectors in so far as very few were prepared for the unexpected it seems.
A collapse of the WSR should, in my view, cause a major re-think in how heritage attractions see their futures - I daresay the forward thinking ones have already done so. Ideally consolidation of funds should take precedence over expensive projects, especially where those aspirations rely on donations for their achievement.

 

While weeding up at Minehead the other day I was taken aback by the absolutely stunning condition of 9351.. I saw its transformation while I was at Minehead working on 6024 as it was on the next road to the King but to see it in the sun it was amazing, a credit to the guys who worked on it.