West Somerset Railway General Discussion

That is of course the stalemate option - which I believe the NI parallel. And there are some who fear that the GFA just froze the conflict, rather than allowing healing.


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There are two types of peace treaty. One is where the two sides get together and realise that they both have much to gain from ceasing conflict, and each side concedes some ground to arrive at a compromise that all can accept. AFAICS that is what happened in Northern Ireland. This is not what is on offer in West Somerset. What is on offer there is the second sort of peace treaty, like the one at Versailles after the end of the First World War, where the victors dictate terms to the losers. Ultimately, that sort of "peace" simply causes more conflict further down the line.

 

Quite possibly, but who knows what the effect will be of having NI the only part of the UK to remain in the EU?

 

What you've missed out is 3) both sides realising that neither side was going to win, no matter for how long the conflict went on. I have seen no indications that the Plc do not think that they can get rid of everyone who opposes their way of running the railway, simply by continuing along their chosen path.

 

While I agree that speculation is not very productive, I don't think sweeping the whole mess under the rug is necessarily the best way forward. The WSR still faces extremely significant challenges, in needed infrastructure repairs, and falling ridership/income; significant enough that if they are not successfully addressed, they could bring the line down (which would be a very sad disaster). The thing is that that the management style, and failures, which brought on the disasters (and no, I don't think that is too strong a term) of the SDRT and the crossing don't appear to have resulted in any real change of course on how they happened. That has to be extremely concerning to everyone perceptive who cares about the WSR (both inside the WSR community, and outside).

Having said that, the PLC leadership are going wherever it is they are going, and the WSR community has decided it's going to back them. So I don't think there's much point in extensive posting here on the topic.

One final observation: I'm fond of a Benjamin Franklin quotation about experience and learning; we'll get to see if this applies to the WSR community, or if they don't reach even that level.

Noel

 

In any conflict there will be those who will reject the idea of compromise and reconciliation. Whether that is hardliners on both sides in Northern Ireland, the Carapintadas in post-Junta Argentina, the Tejerazo in Spain, that is inevitable and so all peace efforts are ultimately fragile. (Ask me in in few months about how things are looking in NI).

Peace and reconciliation requires a high degree of compromise. I must have missed the compromising or reconciliation from the PLC in particular Steve Williams after the WSSRT AGM. In fact I saw the opposite.

How you draw the 'thick line' under the past and where you draw that line is difficult. There are no perfect solutions and they all cause problems somewhere down the line. You can take a polarising approach ie execute the king/execute the regicides (as they did post-English civil war (alienates the losers from the conflict)), you can punish the worst offenders (as they did in Greece post-Junta, post-WW2 Germany (how bad is bad?), you can lustrate (ie ban the worst offenders from holding positions of power and influence - downside, robs you of skilled officials) (some examples from post-Communist Europe), you can have amnesty (another tricky line to draw). You can confront the past (South Africa) or you can sweep it under the carpet (post-Franco Spain).

Navigating a post-conflict situation requires skill, diplomacy, intelligence. Three things I do not see any evidence of from the PLC.

 

British Rail went over to yellow flags / lights for hand signalman giving a proceed instructions at ALL types of signal in the 1990s - even if the signal is a stop semaphore or a colour light only capable of showing on / off or red / green indication or its a distant signal where a permanent yellow flag must always be displayed

The logic behind this is that you only ever appoint hand signalmen during degraded working when the normal signalling system is unavailable. That in turn introduces extra risks so we want drivers to proceed cautiously and not rush off at full speed. The use of a cautionary indication (yellow) thus helps remind drivers of this need to be careful. It also simplifies the rules - at multiple aspect colour light signals it has always been the procedure to only show a yellow flag as a proceed indication so doing the same at all signals removes opportunities for confusion

Prior to that change British Rail used Red / green flags at semaphore stop signals, green / yellow flags at distant semaphore signals thus mirroring the colours in the signal arm spectacle plate.

Thus the ONLY place you will thus see red / green flags used is on the national rail network is when level crossings are under local control and an attendant will show a green flag to authorise a driver to pass over the crossing.

Of course with the advent of in cab radios and TPWS (which needs the train to be stationary for the driver to isolate it so they may proceed without getting a brake application) and the move away from doing invasive engineering works while keeping trains running means hand signalmen are rarely used these days anyway.

Now at the Bluebell, the rule book governing the operation of the railway is a slightly tweaked version of the 1955 British Railways rule book. As such hand signalmen at stop signals will use the traditional red / green flags because thats what was in force in the 1950s. If the railway decided to use a much more recent rule book as the basis of operations (as I understand some have done) then the rules relating to hand signalmen may well have been different and aligned to the national network.

 

>>>The logic behind this is that you only ever appoint hand signalmen during degraded working when the normal signalling system is unavailable...

But that is a different situation from block-post signalmen using hand-signals as part of normal working, eg to flag a train past BA 3 when running-round a train and 'blocking back' to MD, where AFAIK they still use green flags (last time I saw it done)

 

OTOH, 22 years (and counting) of relative peace wouldn't be a bad start in Somerset ...

I get a sense people are in danger of throwing the baby out with the bathwater, i.e. in continuing to focus on the actions of individuals, they are missing the bigger picture of the structural reform. People come and go; get the reform right and it will go a long way to avoid the issues of specific problem individuals. Indeed, the current "problem" people are only the latest in a long line, which the old structure (with no over-arching, agreed, governance) has signally failed to protect against. Get rid of the current plc board but do nothing about the structure is just a recipe for another group of ne-'er-do-wells to emerge from one bit or another of the alphabet soup in the future.

As I see it, the offer on the table is for a membership charity that has full voting control over the operating company. That is not the model I have advocated, though I can fully understand the taxation advantages it brings. But looking at the big picture - it puts a single member-led organisation at the heart of the strategic direction of the railway. That surely has to be a win in anyone's book?

There are nonetheless three really big issues for the future, and it feels to me it would be far more profitable to debate them than rake up past ills.

Number 1 is the terms of reference of the new charity. I put forward a suggestion some weeks (and hundreds of pages) back: it fell on stony ground in discussion terms, but that is clearly of great importance - both the charitable articles and the rules of the new membership body.

That's the minor issue: the other two are much bigger. The first is ensuring the new body has a membership commensurate with the stature of the railway. The current plc has about 8,000 shareholders, but I suspect many are untraceable - who knows, maybe 4,000 are still reasonably active in terms of their interest in the railway? The WSRA has how many members - low thousands I believe. The WSSRT has - what, about 250? No doubt many people are members of several of those organisations. That suggests that even if they all transfer to the new charity, it might only muster a few thousand members (there will be wastage along the way). Compare that with peer-group railways like the SVR and NYMR that have 10,000+ members. The members are the engine of the railway, both in fundraising and oversight terms. How would the new charity get to 10,000+ members? What is going to attract new blood?

Then finally, there is the fundraising issue. I tend to vary from some here in that I don't believe there is a white knight ready to save the railway. 2020 has been exceptional in how bodies (such as the HLF and DCMS) have stepped up to fund railways very rapidly relative to the scale of funding. That is not normal: funding the railway needs to start with the members, either through donations or bequests. Looking at several railway and railway groups of which I am a member, a sustained fundraising capacity of about £100 per member per year is doable: for a 10,000 member society that suggests you could raise £1m per year sustainably. A 5,000 member society - half that, even if you do your fundraising really well. How much money does the WSR need beyond the farebox, sustainably, year after year? I would suggest £1m+.

I think with a fair wind, a new structure could be in place by 2022. But the writing was probably on the wall as early as 2007 (which was when the rail grinding issue arose, which should have been an eye-opener about impeding infrastructure issues). My sense is that between those dates, the WSR has had 15 lost years: for 15 years it has coasted, while other railways have built display museums, rolling stock storage, renewed infrastructure and - crucially - put in place fully engaged fund-raising strategies that are now relatively mature.

Given all that, it does feel like the railway is, if not drinking in the last chance saloon, at least looking through the window and deciding whether to nip in for a few pints. It feels to me like there is a prize on the table of having a single organisation in strategic charge of the railway. I'd be trying to grab it with two hands, rather than arguing about obscure battles of years gone by.

Tom

 

Thanks for that, Tom, however I very much get the sense that, for the present management of the railway, ensuring that they stay in control is the number one priority. All organisations tend to end up being run for the benefit of their managers, with any interference from outsiders, which term includes shareholders and, if a charity, members, being much resented. The WSR has a management that is pretty well accountable to no-one. Why should it want to change that? The Plc's own literature on the structural changes carefully avoids any mention of control by the charitable organisation of the running of the operating company and instead majors on the tax advantages of such a structure. I think it is pretty safe to say that small will be beautiful in the new charity, so that its trustees and the management of the operating company can all be singing from the same hymnsheet and so that troublemakers, i.e. anyone who wants to bring any form of member control or any other reform, can be kept out. Another advantage of the reform, again, not mentioned in the literature, is that the shareholdings of the WSRA and WSSRT will no longer have any voting power, removing forever any chance of outsiders exerting influence on the company through their shareholding and securing the control of the railway once more into a few "safe" pairs of hands.
If the railway ultimately fails, it won't be the present management's fault, far from it. How can it be the fault of those financial geniuses who turned a £300,000 loss into a £800,000 profit? They will have done their utmost to "turn the business round", it will all the fault of those troublemakers who gave such a poor image of the railway in Nat Pres and elsewhere, putting off potential donors.
I hope to be proved pleasantly wrong, but I'm not going to hold my breath.

 

I don't think one will work without the other. Good institutions can limit bad actors, good actors can make bad institutions work, bad actors can easily subvert bad institutions.

I agree that focusing on individuals ignores that this is not just a single random bad actor, I'd also argue that there is a strong socialisation process at play here 'this is how we do things here', there are clearly plenty at the WSR who agree with the approach, behaviour and attitude of those in charge, so even if the current regime heads off into the sunset there are plenty more who think the same and don't think anyone is doing anything wrong.

If you are going to address the institutions then you have to make sure that you get them right, to get them right you need to have an inclusive discussion, to have an inclusive discussion there has to be a culture change.

Culture change is the hardest thing to achieve, in part because it does mean that people have to look critically at themselves and how they act, and no one likes to do that.

The problem is that Bailey in which everyone is placing so much hope is guilty of unicorn thinking in assuming that changing the institutions will magic away the toxic culture of the WSR. (The assumption seems to be - WSR has too many centrifugal tendencies so hence the solution is to concentrate control - which is fine if the people with the best skills at leading a diverse, complex and fragmented organisation get to be in charge).

I tend to think that nothing will per se solve the problems of the WSR (much as nothing can 'solve' the problems of any conflictual society) but good decisions in establishing a modus vivendi can mitigate the tensions, bad decisions can make problems worse - the best worst case scenario is that you continue on dysfunctionally and underperforming (which kicks the tensions down the road and lets them fester), the worst case worst case is that it all blows up again.

I note today that on the 42 anniversary of the Spanish transition some members of the Franco era military were kicking off. 22 years is a very short period of time.

 

I am starting to wonder if the biggest service that the WSR can do to the heritage railway movement is to completely and irrecoverably collapse.

By doing so it will ensure that for the next few decades it will make it clear to both managers and membership organisations that even the biggest lines can go under and make them all the more concerned that their line doesn't go the same way.

 

I completely agree; structure has to be right for the rest to follow long term. But structures are made by people. And if those structures, no matter who builds them, are built on sand, then they won't be durable.

That's where I make the Northern Ireland parallel. One of the key assumptions of the GFA is the continuation of Ulster sectarianism, and it's embedded into the structures with the idea of community votes. The problem with that approach is that it embeds the structures that the previous problem was defined by, and rewards partisanship and intransigence with power and influence.

I'd like to see reconciliation, because I believe it is in that process of finding what joins, rather than what divides, people that the future of the WSR must lie. Too much harm has been done already, especially to the S&DRT; it must be brought to an end and the focus changed.

And in that, I see posters here having a role. Partly in avoiding our daily dose of soap (yes, I'm also guilty) but more in stepping back from the yah boo sucks name calling that goes on, on all sides. Trust, especially after the last year or two, is very hard to build and very easy to destroy. We all need to reflect on our roles in that, even as where serious questions like the Seaward Way crossing come up, it is reasonable to ask probing questions.

 

The conflict in NI is still rumbling on under the surface though, there may not be bombs going off but the faces are still there engaged in organised crime, and the practice of justice by the barrel of guns and hammers on knee caps.

WSR will cling on with gullible people giving their hard earned money to the cause, and again grant bodies also giving lifelines, the railway should of died in 2020 only luck and the goodwill of grant bodies stopped that.

Will 2021 see the railway put out of its misery? The main players don’t deserve more money to play trains (or not as it is), close it sell off the land they can to repay the grants.

1785 pages for arguments and soap opera style drama! Men of a certain age who refuse to admit their wrong, or even admit things could have been done differently will push the railway over the edge, I’m afraid it can’t come soon enough.

 

I watched one of my steam videos over the weekend. Quite a few of the sequences were filmed at the WSR. The film included various main line locos, visiting locos, pairs of 4Fs, pairs of 7Fs and even the odd Manor .
As I watched the film it reminded me of how important it is to keep the railway running. As the WSR has been in slumber for almost a year it has been a wake up call of how the railway would look if it closed. Let's not hope, as others do, that the railway should have died in 202o. <BJ>

 

That's going to be a good trick, since the County Council own most of the land.

Noel

 

I violently agree with all bar the last sentence of that. There's a forces saying that Prior Planning Prevents P*** Poor Performance. In my view, if that planning does not include getting the structural stuff right, it will guarantee failure. It's the clarity that a good structure, with all involved pulling together, that can help the WSR and in the absence of which, quarrels, confusion and dispute have been able to foment.

 

What I find interesting is that clearly the issues around the lines infrastructure SHOULD have been apparent for over a decade - @Jamessquared suggests since at least 2007 BUT there seems to have been no coherent and sustained attempt to address the situation.

I understand that a presentation was given to the board which outlined what was needed some years ago & @Robin Moira White raised the issues of wet beds and tie bars a good few years ago.

 

The problem, rightly so, should have been addressed but boards must have sat there, hands over ears going la la, we can't hear you, for years, and it continues to this day, they want to pretend all is well, that there is no dissenting voices, why? most likely because to the board it means facing the truth, that they all have let things slip, add to this an new broom who see's any dissent as personal, and you can see how things have progressed, you can change the people, but the problem will remain, to many people on the WSR, seem to put person hatred before anything else, if recent events are anything to go by, the line can die, and it will be the other parties fault, and an PLC, that put retaining their own power above whats right for the longer term future, IMHO, No one comes out of this looking clean, they are all as bad as each other, except maybe for one group, who wanted change, but also, you have to question motives, and why some people are seen , on both sides as being to toxic to bring people together.