West Somerset Railway General Discussion

Oh Dear no way back now then, but will they take Everything with them? - it was a bare brownfield site before they arrived!

 

Having finally got to the current end of this thread I am now so overwhelmed by the total shitfest and dodgy tactics for ulterior motives that I just cant get my head around it all. If I was looking for a railway to start volunteering at and become a member of I would not go near the WSR or put a single penny their way. I mean as a volunteer if you voice a personal point publicly that you don't agree with the fat controller over something you get your pass and your work permission revoked. A supporting group getting evicted based on accusations that are proved to be lies and legal constraints in their charity constitution preventing them doing as the fat controller demands. Fight after fight between different support groups. Christ almighty who would want to be entwined in it. Not me that's for sure.

 

Razed earth would by my favoured method, track gone(scrap or store), shed building gone(scrap or store) and concrete floors in the shed broken up.

 

Lets stop, look at who , or what is actually pushing any agenda, the only person who has any power has to be the chair of WSR plc, He on the face of it has the rest of the plc at his command, but, he actually is not in a strong position because, he does not personally hold enough shares to hold off either the WSRRT , or the WSRA share holding, so he needs to play them off each other, to nullify each other, that's why a senior member of the WSSRT has been given a board seat, and probably the same was in the past, done by previous chairmen, only plc chair that seemed even handed, was the previous one, that's why we have seen the current PLC board come out against some new prospective trustees standing for election, because the present chair knows he is toast, should they win, and the existing board could be swept away also, if the WSSRT become allies of the WSRA ,before emerging as a single charity . This is why we have seen the present spectacle of a board member, coming out against elections to his own organisation, its nothing more than desperate people wanting to hold onto their power as long as they can.

 

I will be at an AGM this weekend, where there was a roughly 3 month delay in receiving the reviewed accounts from the independent examiner because the accountant had been furloughed during Covid; they had been submitted for examination in good time before Covid became a factor. The AGM has then had to wait a while longer as logistics have needed to be worked out for a combined in person and Zoom meeting.

We should not default to an adverse assumption purely because of delay.

 

If the railway is planning to run Santa specials, does this mean the issues with signing off trackwork, and the issue, whatever it was with the level crossing at Minehead are likely to soon be resolved?

I thought the former involved staff no longer on the railway (though I realise expertise can be hired in if it can be afforded) and the latter was in some sort of impasse, the nature of which escapes me, and there are too mamy pages in this thread to go back over to find out.

Is the level crossing issue a matter of public record, or is it another of these leaked half stories, and if known, what needs to be done, and how quickly could it be done?

 

I expect they will take everything that might be useful on the new site (inc any track they own). I would also expect any unwanted items to be sold to help pay for the move. I doubt they would be petty enough to break up concrete building foundations, but any building that can be dismantled and re-erected elsewhere certainly should be (assuming they have a site willing to allow that).

 

Good point. Makes sense.

 

Repeating a contribution I made recently.

 

I can't answer your question but I don't think the steam locos are "trapped" at Minehead. Certainly it sounds like passenger services in and out of Minehead are out, but occasional one off non-passenger movements ought to be possible.

 

I think it's also an important sign of how frayed trust is.

 

Back in the Jurassic Age (WSR time ) in post #29983 I gave a little detail based on the 2018 Confirmation Statement. As well as the 4 shareholdings mentioned by Tom there are another 14 individuals who have holdings of 50,000 or more shares. (3 of them well over 100,000 shares.) Indeed the top 18 shareholdings account for about 45% of the total issued.
Pat

 

That sounds ex-LMS to me, I discount those posts ...

That's more like it - though sadly it (a rather lovely Stirling F1 4-4-0) was scrapped in December 1947 so never got the extra 30,000 added to the number ...

Tom

 

There are indeed a good number of people within the heritage railway movement and without it who would make good directors. How many would want to take on this poisoned task is a different matter. I would be interested to see some names. But not on here!

 

This is a totally ridiculous and groundless accusation. Noone could ever accuse him of that. Viciously? Have you ever met him?
You would need to supply your evidence (by pm if you prefer)

 

Even if the land did belong to the company, its sale would still not enrich anyone except the owners of the company, the shareholders. Usually an asset stripping exercise such as is being alleged here is carried out by the owners of a company, in conjunction with its board of directors, not the directors acting on their own. I definitely think that this is a case for Hanlon's Razor. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanlon%27s_razor.

 

Well given that 14 candidates applied for election to the WSSRT board and were soon whittled down to 9 by their "reception", finding a similar number to do the same for the WSR Plc board might be quite a challenge. A hide like a rhinoceros would be a required attribute. However, the assertion that the current board is "the only game in town" simply because there are those that will use unpleasant means to shut down any other game, while it may be convincing, is not really the image that a railway company reliant on donations wants to portray.