Swanage Railway General Discussion

Issue corrected.

Thanks for the comment.

 

The priority is to remain solvent and not to go into administration. That’s how close to the edge many heritage railways are.

 

check a couple of threads on facebook and it is obvious that a lot of punters believe that HR should address the issue of long heralded but unfulfilled promises.!!
Surely it must be a priority in any circumstances to get the Herston Carriage Shed completed
Some interesting images of The Old Oak Common Turntable, Could it be on its way to a GWR themed site?
Does the SR need it is the question

 

Interesting black Friday event, steam and lights tickets reduced to £19. So far no one else seems to see a need to reduce prices.

 

Fairly sure I've seen the Severn Valley advertising a Black Friday type offer

 

13/03/21 Swanage Railway Carriage Shed Appeal for 65,000gbp in addition to funds already raised 167,000gbp
"Critical Project" says chairman, completion slated for early 2022 after November 2021 start
Yes,that projection faded but it is still up on the web .Nothing from SR site as to a new start date for this project,or indeed if sufficient funds were raised.
SR Board perhaps could inform the membership of any further postponements of the project.

 

Have you any idea what its like to be involved either in a heritage railway (to use colloquial terms) at Board / Management level? The last 36 months has thrown crisis after crisis at those in charge: Covid, falling volunteer numbers, coal availability and cost, and now raging inflation which will wreck budgets for costs and income. What was a relatively enjoyable hobby is for many turning into something of a recurring nightmare that I suspect many won't be willing to endure for much longer.

No relation to the Swanage Railway but I'm sure they'd welcome you as a volunteer to help with communications, only if to free up someone else's time to look at the impending crisis facing the sector.

 

When are you going to listen?
The railway (and many others like it) are trying to SURVIVE. The last thing they need is someone like you banging on every 5 minutes about projects that were planned pre-covid.
Please give it a rest and let the management get on with putting the railway on a more stable footing.

 

Not to mention the ORR beating everybody up.

 

The guy is like a stuck gramophone record. His strategy is clearly to ignore obvious (and frequently stated) realities; always take the contrarian view, and thereby cause maximum annoyance.

As an active volunteer who is only too aware of the unprecedented difficulties currently facing the heritage railway movement I find his views and continuing presence on this forum offensive.

 

This post on the KESR thread is very apt as it could and does apply to any Heritage Line. However I suspect our Canadian correspondent will choose to ignore the real facts.

https://www.national-preservation.com/threads/kent-east-sussex-railway.908661/page-25#post-2779992

 

Certainly going to be a drive to keep costs and expenses down over the next year or so to survive and I suspect for some railwayscsurvival will depend on the enthusiasm of volunteers to keep things going. An interesting thought though as original closure of the line recedes into the past and people only remember it as a preserved railway, how to preserve and present the history will be important to those not around those many years ago ?

 

I’m sure if you give those in charge a blank cheque from those millions in your bank account those responsible will quite happily oblige,
We’ll wait and see…

 

And if they go broke there will be no credibility to lose.

 

It's refreshing, and encouraging, to see posts like this where individuals have understood the existential threat to heritage railways. Volunteers involved in leading and directing them are no different to the many others involved in keeping them going..........they do it because they enjoy it.
It's possible to get enjoyment from helping navigate round the financial, regulatory, legal and and commercial rocks but that means, for many organisations, a radical change of course. That's bound to upset those who fail to grasp that lockdown, inflation and recession means the old way of doing things, and the plans on which that was based, no longer work. The heritage railways that survive will be those with a leadership that sees the opportunity to do things differently and embraces the changes involved. The biggest threat is that, whether they are volunteers or paid staff, the relentless and often ill informed criticism and negativity on social media (and we see classic examples of it on here) will destroy their enjoyment of rising to the challenge and they throw in the towel.

 

I quite agree with all of what you say here. What those people in leadership positions frequently forget though is to lead. We have many many examples where the rank and file feel they are not well communicated with. So I think the railways that survive will be those that have leaderships that grasp that particular challenge and incorporate it into the changes that need to happen. Otherwise we will continue to see an erosion of trust to the point where large numbers of volunteers walk away. That will be disastrous, because they will take with them experience and skills that few if any HR has really got a good robust plan to record.

What is your view of the state of leadership/volunteer and paid employee communication in HRs?

 

Don’t feel that they are communicated with or don’t like the message that is being communicated? An important distinction and, from significant personal experience, it can quite often be the latter, especially when in recent years the message is not as positive as it once was.

Not to say that a lot of railways, including the one I volunteer on, couldn’t do a lot better on the internal PR front.

 

The last three years have thrown in massive challenges, to all sorts of organisations. I'm much less convinced that the answer will be a "radical change of course" in most cases, or that the implication that the old structures need radical change is justified.

 

And what seems a radical change to one is immaterial to another (and vice versa)
(See diesels, liveries, tickets etc etc).

Good businesses generally survive the recession (albeit that is something of a truism).

One of the problems non-profit-driven entites face is defining success. I'm not sure there is any common view of exactly what a preserved railway is, or what it's for. Any railway that has a clear idea of what it thinks it is for, and can carry enough of it's supporters to make that work will be in a better position to go forwards (and efficiently divests itself of those assets and people that won't work with them).

I don't necessarily agree with the Bluebell's plan, but it's got one, and thus a yardstick to work by.