West Somerset Railway General Discussion

The key is obtaining the freehold, that's probably the real aim, once you own the land, that's where the profit from selling off non operational land lies, But that's only half of the story, what if you have someone who, for what ever reason think they, and only they know best, and no one stands up to them ( sound familiar? ) that mind set could go as far as them wishing they owned the railway, but such is their hold on power, they can't see the damage they do. because in their eyes, they are trying to save something, when in fact they are damaging it, its like ancient medicine , I have a cure, but the side effects will kill you also.

 

But the profit goes to the owners of the company, the shareholders. The current people in control are not shareholders, therefore they cannot benefit in this way. If you recall, similar cases of attempted asset stripping, like at the Torbay Steam Railway, have always begun with someone buying up shares in the company.

 

If a company goes broke and is bought up on the cheap - just how are the shareholders going to benefit; surely they will have been bought out...

 

...for 0 pence in the pound, quite likely.

But that raises, as has been discussed at length and ad nauseam on this thread, other issues about the operating licence and the underlying freehold ownership. I concur with @Bayard that Hanlon's Razor applies far better than any theories about what people might or might not be trying to engineer over the land on which the WSR runs.

 

Just a question, if the WSR Company were to go into liquidation, and an offer was made for the company, would the operating licence be transferred to the new company if the offer was accepted?

 

In this hypothetical scenario the liquidator would be charged with getting the best price for the assets. If it was felt that the best price was obtained by the residual railway powers being extinguished then an Abandonment Order would ensue (“the cycle path scenario”). If someone came along and offered to take on the LRO for railway uses then they would likely have to a) fund the costs of a Transfer Order (now a new TAWO) and b) be accepted as a suitable operator (may need the confidence of ORR etc).

To be honest either scenario looks messy so as has been repeatedly said on here the best outcome is the survival and success of the present Plc as an entity. This is a separate debate to who is best places to manage/run the Plc which will go on for pages and pages...

Regards

Matt

 

Thanks for that , So in reality its unlikely that any current plc director could try to launch a buy out, as much as they would like to.

 

Indeed, that is the preserve of newly appointed board directors who wish to claim they have "saved the railway" by means of optimistic accounting the following year...

 

To mis-quote William Whiting then...."Eternal Father, strong to save.....all those in peril near the sea" :-)

 

It's kind of difficult to ask for donations on the basis that "the railway needs more donations, if it is to survive"*, without creating that impression.

*from the company website

 

What is the basis of your assertion that they would like to?

 

A post by @Andy Norman millions of years ago (Actually a few months back). Even the thought of looking back to try and find it is making me feel giddy...

 

Thanks, so not a direct quote from the individual.

 

It seemed pretty convincing at the time, it was a plan Andy was in on, it was his rejection of that plan that ultimately led him to being kicked out according to his own narrative, assuming I recall correctly. I think maybe back in April time? Against my better judgement I shall have a tentative look for it, wish me luck....

 

Why ? That's the very impression the PLC continually maintains ....

 

Talk about needles in haystacks, but I remembered I had a phone call about it and vaguely remembered that it must have been in late April given what we talked about, and I found it! Make of it what you will, but that's where a lot of the speculation on that sort of thing has come from (although you'll see certain posters were merrily pushing it as a theory even before that with zero evidence at all!).

 

Congratulations on succesfully surviving your trip down the rabbit hole. A fairly clear statement; I don't recall it was ever satisfactorily refuted either.

 

Didn't the PLC itself state a year or two ago that is needed £500k per annum to restore the track to appropriate condition? And hasn't it then declared either losses or, for one accounting period, an apparent profit of only £300k? We don't need to create an impression of financial peril: the PLC itself has declared financial peril and begged for alms.

 

I don't think it was ever refuted at all, not by those on here who tend to supporting the Plc board, amd not even in a hastily written and even more hastily retracted press statement!