Heritage Railway and Locomotive share holdings

The last Bluebell Share Issue raised, from memory, about £750k in 2007 - that was for the Northen Extension. Subsequent to that I believe several million pounds must have been raised to finish off the work (removing the tip was about £2.5m) and that was as far as I am aware essentially raised by an appeal, not share issue - certainly not beyond the £750k.

Operation Undercover has raised large amounts over the years; most recently OP4 raised somewhere between £400k and £500k. The Covid appeal was about £400k.

Also I'd add construction of "Beachy Head", currently over £1m raised over the years (roughly £100k per year sustainably); again a mixture of donations, sponsorship of parts and sales stand activity, but none of it raised through share issue.

Tom

 

Sometimes there is a limited market in these shares and it is possible to acquire/dispose of them, but it depends on the railway company. They can be a bit like AIM (Alternative Investment market) shares and hence more difficult to trade in. Many years ago I bought some SVR shares for the travel concession, and when they increased the qualifying threshold I didn’t want to buy any more shares. I did eventually sell them via the company secretary and the companies stockbroker.

I did buy some shares in a line when I was a working volunteer and still have them but would like to dispose of them, but this one is not trade-able, and all I can do is donate them to the preservation society so they can increase their shareholding in the operating company. For various reasons I have no inclination to do this, so hold onto them and thus receive the annual report and accounts (by chance it arrived today) at a cost to the company each year. There is a travel concession, and I tried to sell this on eBay but it fell foul of share trading rules, so I’m stuck with the shares till I die and then someone else can sort it out.

Another share I have is a bearer bond in an East Anglian railway. This was really a novel way of the railway raising money at the time, as bearer bonds had died out in the commercial worlds by then. It’s probably more valuable as a collectors item now.