Teifi Valley Railway

The posts have been a sorry tale of inept management and leadership failings in the past (granted the root cause was the immoral behaviour of the conman), and some sharp observations of apparent weaknesses in the current managerial arrangements. I suppose that could be perceived as being negative. Shooting the messenger though does not address the underlying causes of the criticism does it?

It’s great that there is progress at the Teifi but like several other heritage lines, when a small number of people run a railway’s affairs there is often not enough breadth or depth of leadership expertise to do everything that needs to be done. Basic accounting being a case in point.

 

You might say that after 7 years they should have got the hang of it.

 

There are many different ways of dealing with annual Accounts. Many of my selfemployed clients would throw their sales and purchase invoices and bank statements into a bag or box and bring it over to me to sort out. More conscientious clients would put them into files, which saved a lot of time and effort. Organised clients would send in computer printouts to accompany the documents, which made checking through quick and easy. The railway problem seems to be that the office manager insists on completing the Accounts before taking them to the accountants so they are presented to Companies House in the correct format. This is obviously timeconsuming. As the due date approaches, why not take what you've done to the accountant and let him do the rest? This is an obvious way to avoid the Company being fined and threatened with closure.

 

Some good news about the Railway Society, which for some reason was not reported on the Facebook page. In 2020 the Society received grants of £13,000 from what the charity commission calls government sources. No further information about what it was used for.

 

likely to be rates grants I would have thought.

 

Unlikely because the property is owned by the Company, which pays the rates. There was news on Facebook at the time (2020) of rolling stock renovations so perhaps that was it.

 

I assumed this was covid grants.

 

Again, no because it is the Company that has the LRO and takes the ticket revenue, not the Society. Also the Society has no employees so no furlough obligations.

 

Some news at last on the Facebook page, with pictures of the remains of Sholto. This diesel was originally purchased by Dr Penn together with Alan George back in the 1980s and had an Ailsa Craig engine. It was used daily in the clearance of the first railway tracks and was a reliable workhorse. Unfortunately a misguided CME decided that it needed a more powerful engine, so replaced it. It was a bad fit and caused endless problems with a nonmatching clutch. Once he had left the Railway the search began for an Ailsa Craig engine, now more or less unobtainable. Good news as well that Alan George's boiler checkup is about to start. The TVR is not the same without steam. Could somebody get the strimmer out to tidy up the platform?

 

I very much regret to report that the TVR is once again threatened with closure because annual Accounts have not been sent to Companies House. The London Gazette notice will appear on the 8th.

 

Looks like a repeat of last September

 

I think Companies House will also be taking a dim view given that this will be the 3rd notice issued within 12 months. Notifying them that the railway is still trading should simply allow the striking off to be discontinued but at what cost? Obviously there is the (ever increasing) company fine to be paid but there must come a time when Companies House will decide to prosecute the directors as a failure to file is a criminal offence. There is no real valid defence to prosecution because the offence has already taken place and the fact that the First Gazette notice has been issued means that the directors have not replied to two formal letters in the proceeding weeks. If I was one of the directors I would now be worried. If I was a volunteer or even shareholder I would certainly asking questions of the directors to ensure the company is not continued to be placed at risk (however small) or incurs unnecessary (and quite honestly stupid) fines.

 

What happens to the assets if it is struck off?

 

Becomes the property of the Crown, which presumably they will try and sell.

 

Has anybody told them? Even if it's abundantly clear to those with a knowledge of running a business that this is a problem, it might not be even to those on the other end of the letters, presuming their addresses are correct with Companies House. We're discussing it on a forum but if anybody is on speaking terms with a director there it'd be good to let them know what they're walking into.

n.b. I'm familiar with the contents of the previous 38 pages.

 

It all ends up at Statfold?

 

The directors seem to be quite happy to continue doing it 'their way' and ignoring everyone else - and also having a supporters body that is the majority shareholder that also appears to be controlled by the directors does not help and prevents any sort of 'shareholder revolt'.
Also, not having any shares on sale thereby preventing anyone newly interested in asking questions at am AGM or getting copies of the full accounts (whenever they are eventually prepared) and having the existing shareholders apparently all completely moribund does nothing to ease the situation either.

 

Apart from the trackbed, are there any assets? I think that some (most?) of the locos/rolling stock are privately owned