West Somerset Railway General Discussion

Apparently it is not the right time and:

Too difficult to run trains and earn revenue
Too difficult to reform because there is no revenue

And yet, despite all these calls for caution and taking stock, the PLC board is still persisting with evicting the SDRT.

 

Agreed, having played a part in some fairly sizeable M&A activities, you would think they were trying to merge ICI and BP.

 

I am sure that there are those willing to be elected to the PLC board who are more than concerned with the way the PLC has behaved, the future of the line and its future relationship with the local community. An earlier post mentioned how much damage to the lines reputation, locally and nationally, has occurred and seemingly little done to alleviate it.
Whether the PLC structure will permit these folk from standing for election is another matter. Past posts here suggest it may not be an easy ride for them.
Hopefully those brave souls exist, just waiting in the wings and keeping their powder dry.

 

To be clear, the 'wrong product' at Northfleet actually pre-dated CTT. MGR trains AFAIK were not labelled even when most loaded wagons were. The MGR concept was to load out from colliery, discharge at a customer not too far away, and return the empties.
The Northfleet operation was a bit different with coal from various collieries delivered up the midland main line from Toton to Cricklewood as standard MGR sets, just as power station coal for the south was also. Remarshalling the short sets into full length trains for Northfleet relied on the yard staff keeping the differing types of coal separate. A simple shunting error, not picked up by anyone checking the train before it left Cricklewood, could mean part of a wrong set accompanying a full set of the wrong stuff.

(The Northfleet trains were made up to 43 when a 47 was added to the 45 or 46 which did the trunk haul, the 47 I believe would have been SSF but not the 45 or 46. When cl56 locos took over, they could handle the full load and by taking advantage of the loss of the length of the 45/46 meant that trains could convey 46 MGR within the length limit)

 

Such as?

 

About 1976!

Neil

 

The problem though is, the damage has been done, the reputation of the WSR Is already damaged, possibly beyond repair,
Now talking on any re organisation, , isn't it doomed to failure because of the following problems,

1 It has to be PLC centric because of the licence etc, you are asking, and expecting an organisation to vote its self out of exsistance, to lose the power it currently enjoys, It won't happen, Some within the PLC,won't want to lose their power, and will try to ensure, they maintain it, even if its under a new heading,

2 All parties have to be in agreement, One has already said it wants no part of this, wanting to stay independant , everyone has to be in, otherwise its not going to work.

3 Past issues tend to always be bubbling under the surface, there is no trust between the groups that make up the family, Infact, they are so disfunctional there should be a chanel 5 program about them,

I expect the PLC to only play lip service , the stance of the WSST , actually strengthens the hand of the PLC, because they know they can delay, and fudge, as long as they like because without agreement from every one, there can be no agreement.

 

A few posts on here have nothing to do with the WSR

 

2 All parties have to be in agreement, One has already said it wants no part of this, wanting to stay independant , everyone has to be in, otherwise its not going to work.
Do the S&D still have an input? Their tenancy is still active so basically they should, or was that changed also when it was turned into the 'delivery' group?

 

Everyone has biases

 

How is it biased to explain the legal position? There have been a number of suggestions that it would be easy to elect other PLC directors. Pointing out that is not the case may be unwelcome news but it doesn’t make the advice biased.

 

So have you checked the Articles? You do seem pretty certain you are right....

 

Mind you, there is the ignore button, mine gets pretty busy.

 

Yes, of course, but posters on here seem to discount my opinion as biased so it’s probably better that they satisfy themselves.

My reading of the Articles is that any opportunity that shareholders might have had to nominate other directors for election at this year’s AGM expired some time ago.....but please check for yourself !

It’s relatively easy. Go to the Companies House web site, Click on find information about a company, type in the full company name then filing history. It will then give you a menu where you can find theMemo and Arts. Look in the Articles under the section headed Directors.

 

Come on Plc board, get a grip! You simply have to liaise with the WSRA for any sort of restructuring process to be effective. On top of that, that would automatically mean you're also engaging with someone with relevant professional experience.

The Plc statement made mention of the fact that they are still talking to @Lineisclear on this matter. Perhaps he'd be good enough to mention this? I understand where he's coming from in terms of the Plc needing to take the lead, but surely this goes beyond that?

 

Last paragraph of The Bailey Report records JB's most welcome offer to facilitate a family discussion as the first stage of any restructure design process. To that end I should like to hear of the PDG chairman extending an invitation for JB to attend next month's special PDG meeting that is being convened for this purpose.

I do feel our plc is circumventing the suggested process by consulting with JB on a one to one basis, thereby excluding other players at this extremely important stage. At the same time I do not criticise Bailey for co-operating with the plc. I'm sure he is equally responsive to any communication from other constituent members of WSR. The key to a successful outcome though is inclusion. One Railway, One Chance.

 

Alternatively, start another charity under the control of the plc and kick out the others. You can then point out that you said it would be too expensive to do it any other way and after all, we are in the middle of a financial crisis so we had to grab the nettle and all that while delivering the transformation.

Job done.