West Somerset Railway General Discussion

The P&D OFFERED £30K more and the board didn't have the luxury of waiting for the money to be matched and collected in which IIRC was mainly pledges not hard cold cash in the bank. the need was for cash was immediate. If you have any sense of business you would understand why the decision was made as it was. Cash is King The board would have dearly loved for the 4110 group to have it but the financial situation was paramount

In reply to Toms comment above I have no contact with the board I am not a member of any organisation on the railway I am just a shareholder nothing else.

 

Rubbish

 

Forgive me but that is a contradiction within the same sentence! Although I agree that membership of a particular body oughtn't presume some kind of "allegiance" to that particular body over and above the WSR as a whole. I still think one of the more damaging things is that every disagreement is viewed through the prism of whether it's a Plc plot or a WSRA connivance or whatever, rather than just people "of the railway" who have different views.

 

Maybe one way of raising money would be to 'sell it' as a sitcom

We already have the script!!

 

I presume your lack of involvement will not hinder you in answering the many outstanding questions that have been put to you.

 

In which case you will have to forgive me for wondering about the source of your confidence about the long-term health of the railway.

Tom

 

Maybe you’d be good enough to tell us what part of Rodneys post is ‘rubbish’.
I was one of many who pledged to keep 4110 on the line, and like many others mine was a pledge to contribute and not actual cash.
Rodneys recollection of events completely matches statements made to me by @aldfort in private messages at the time. Those conversations changed my mind, and convinced me that, with the circumstances as they were, departure of 4110 was very sad but necessary for the survival of the WSR.

 

I received today from HOPS a document headed 'WSR Shared Vision'. It is labelled 'Confidential and Restricted', but there is no indication as to the extent of the restriction nor in what capacity it has been sent out to HOPS addressees if it is Confidential. However there is at least two people on this thread who will be aware of its contents already.

It makes interesting reading. At the same time, IMHO it seems to be advocating an unachievable situation while at the same time decrying a more realistic attempt to achieve a similar goal by a different means.

Hopefully the subject will get into the public domain in the near future, it should keep us going for another few hundred posts....

 

Should make interesting reading then, whats this shared vision? " We the PLC know best" TRUST US, we have a cunning plan

 

Good to know the focus remains on sharing a positive inclusive vision of the future. Not.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

Actually, almost the complete opposite.....!

 

Which business would that be ?

 

YOU ARE JOKING RIGHT,

 

In the world of politics, it is common practice for a new incoming government to exaggerate any problems that it inherits from its predecessor. Such lowering of the baseline also helps the new regime to similarly exaggerate any improvements that it subsequently claims. New governments typically have a "honeymoon period" that allows them to get away with such approaches - for a while.

I simply don't know whether the new WSR regime pulled a similar trick when they took over. Although there had been talk for a long time about WSR financial problems, I do recall being very surprised at the apparent suddenness with which problems became crisis at the end of 2018, but inclined at the time to accept the new Board's word.

 

As pointed out by @flying scotsman123 , it was not what the Plc did, but the way that they did it. If 4110 was up for sale for a given price, then why did the P&D offer £30K more than that price? If the P&D's offer was always on the table and the Plc was offering it to 4110 Ltd for £30K less, then why did they do that and waste everyone's time, if they needed the cash that badly? It's not as if things suddenly went downhill while 4110 Ltd were getting the cash together.
What it looked like to an outsider, and what the actual motivations of the board were is irrelevant, was that the Plc intended to sell it to the P&D all along and were pissing 4110 Ltd around simply to make a show of trying to keep the loco on the railway. They no more expected 4110 to come up with the cash in such a short time than David Cameron expected to lose the last referendum, hence the rapid moving of the goalposts when they did.
Cash may be king, but that doesn't mean the pursuit of cash by any means rules. Every item bar one in @ghost 's list has arisen either from the unscrupulous drive to bring in cash, or from attempts to prevent criticisms of the methods used. To go through your "manor", tapping up all the organisations in it for "contributions" under the threat of something unpleasant happening is something that would be expected if you are an East End mobster, but you don't expect something that looks like the same behaviour from a heritage railway company that depends on public contributions. Even kings need to worry about their image.

 

Almost every word.

Robin

 

Also interesting will be who the sharers are of the vision. I fear it will be a case of "Let's not always see the same hands..."

 

You are a former director of the WSR PLC

You were on the board when the current chairman was appointed, and have refused to answer questions about whether you did any due diligence into his suitability for the post.

It seems a little bit disingenuous to proclaim you have no connection with the WSR

 

Only a few hundred? You've forgotten all the repeats!

 

https://www.west-somerset-railway.co.uk/news/detail/wsr-shared-vision