SVR General Discussion

Place Arts Council into “ “. The point I was making is that there is a focus on new streams of funding (which is fine) and that funding being for different things from what railways have traditionally asked for such as ecology (and this is fine also).

Alongside the above the new orthodoxy seems increasingly to suggest that volunteers are ok, up to a point, but in fact many (most?) jobs going forward will be paid, because one employee is worth 5 volunteers. Again I can see this argument is right in some cases. We also need to make better use of volunteers and to accept that there could well be fewer volunteer hours in the future available due to changes in demographics etc.

However, having said all the above, I believe that what this new orthodoxy covers over is that very significant levels of volunteering will always be necessary. They will also always be desirable. A railway anchored to the wider community through participation is always going to be more resilient because of a wide support base. That has been shown over and over again.

I genuinely worry that the way the future is being discussed by senior HRA figures will have the unintended consequence of appearing to diminish the role and future of volunteering.

 

None of the senior HRA figures that I know would want to diminish the role and future of volunteering. They're all volunteers themselves! What they're not doing is looking backward through rose tinted spectacles. Volunteering is in decline everywhere. It's not unique to the heritage railway sector although that has probably suffered disproportionately as the result of ever more intrusive regulation. That can so easily take the spontaniety and some of the fun out of the experience.

It seems sometimes as if for some preserving the ethos of volunteering on heritage railways is more important than preserving the railways themselves. If changing demographics, economics and regulation ( especially in areas such as documented competence management) shift the balance then management has to respond appropriately. Sometimes you'll see it suggested that they should reduce the paid staff and increase the number of volunteers. (That's where the one to five or seven ratio becomes real. Reduce cost by getting rid of a full time paid staff member and you may need to recruit around five to seven part time volunteers to replace one employee). The unpalatable truth is that eliminating substantial labour cost has a disproportionate effect on service levels...or even the length of the line that can be retained. By all means try and recruit additional volunteers but if they're not there in the required numbers then surely preserving the whole railway is the primary objective. It may not reflect the traditional purist volunteer centric view of railway preservation but needs must?

The environment in which heritage railways have to survive has changed beyond recognition. Those that can't adapt will deserve to fail. Some members and volunteers will resent change. Comments like "Our founders would be turning in their graves" are understandable. Actually what would really set them spinning would be a blinkered complacent response. Change doesn't mean rubbishing past achievements and those, especially volunteers, that made them possible. They were right a the time but new challenges demands new thinking.

Probably the surest way to undermine volunteering and its contribution to heritage railways is the suggestion of enforceable volunteer rights which would lead, inevitably, to a right to volunteer in the first place . One can only imagine the size of an HR function ( probably paid) that would be needed to cope with that fundamental change. It's a topical subject because of recent allegations of discrimination. No one is advocating discrimination against volunteers on any ground even though it is not illegal. However turning volunteering into a contractual relationship would be a sure fire way to reduce its benefit for heritage railways and, for some, it could undermine their financial viability.

 

I don't think that's quite right. I'd say the view was preserving the ethos of volunteering is essential in order to preserve the railways themselves. In other words, if we lose that ethos of volunteering, preserving railways becomes unsustainable. It's a stark contrast between the railway we both volunteer on where we have maintained last year's steam service, with very few paid staff, and the railway up the road rarely putting more than one steam service out a day, with a large wage bill.

Paid staff are inevitable and I don't begrudge that for a second, but I think the above shows what happens if you come to rely on them to do too much - when the tough times come, it's a lot harder to weather the storm.

 

What this discussion has shown quite clearly, I think, is that quality of management is all important, and also that there is rather muddled thinking on the part of some regarding the value of volunteers.

To deal with the first, it's no use being a managerial genius if you are not a leader. In our sector the "Neutron Jack" (Jack Welch, CEO of General Electric in the USA, who routinely fired the bottom-performing 10% of his workforce each year "pour encourager les autres") would not go down well. People-person skills are crucial to carry along those who don't actually have to be there! I think it is a talent that is seen all too rarely, but most commonly seen in those who wholeheartedly embrace the "MBWA" philosophy and take the trouble to listen and deal with issues they learn of in this way. It's something that should filter down to Governing board members too - sending them on a tour of the railway when they are elected is not enough, such visits should be made regularly on both a singular and collective basis so they stay informed as circumstances evolve. I don't think that @Linesisclear's last post really shows an understanding of what the volunteer ethos really is - imho, at least, it is a desire to recreate a worthwhile representation of a bygone era, working together to do that. We're not wanting to build a successful tourist attraction per se, but we recognise the need for what we are creating to be that, provided the goal remains the recreation rather than the creation of a money-making machine! I don't think many of us are so blinkered as to not recognise the need for paid help, but we do want the paid help to be working towards our collective aim rather than their own interests. It's when they start wanting to adapt things to make their own lives easier, or start trying to sideline the volunteers as an inconvenience that trouble usually starts, as they have forgotten why they are there in the first place.

It may well be that volunteer numbers are in general decline, but I don't think that is the whole story. How they are recruited and integrated can vary very widely, and some groups are more successful than others - it is very much about the esprit de corps within a given group that matters in this case. Never take volunteers for granted and don't push them too hard. I'm not an NYMR footplate crew member, for example, but I've been told that the long hours demanded in the past by Whitby operations have led to some walking away, to the point where it can be a real struggle to find crews. Who can blame them? They've been taken for granted and it has backfired.

 

The only person who seems to be worried by that prospect is you! I haven't seen anyone else raise that as a demand. The issue in the present case (*), and also in the East Lancs case, seems rather that the senior management are apparently deciding who can or can't volunteer on a whim, without any form of process. Regardless of whether that is or isn't technically within their gift legally, capricious and arbitrary management concentrated into the hands of a very small group is dangerous in any organisation. The more serious the grounds for removal, the more robust and transparent I would expect the process to be - that doesn't mean all the details of a specific case widely published, but certainly having a documented process and appropriate range of decision makers.

(*) Edit - I meant the WSR case, was thinking this post was on the other thread ...

Tom

 

Not that long ago I said in a post that volunteers will move heaven and earth to make things happen if they think that what is being asked it right. It is not a question of volunteers accepting the decisions made by railway leaders; it is a question of railway leaders getting their volunteers to think that what is being asked is right. Those railway leaders that don't accept this premise will struggle to manage their railway.

 

But I thought our current administration liked giving money to wealthier regions?

 

There was an interesting presentation given to the HRA recently by Sarah Tagart of the Kent & East Sussex Railway. In that presentation she proudly stated that their latest volunteer recruitment drive had resulted in 200 new volunteers over the last 12 months. I asked her how many of those new volunteers had stayed the course and the response was that the figure of 200 was those that had. If true, and I've no reason to doubt it, that is a fantastic achievement. I can't see Kent as being much different from the rest of the country generally so something similar ought to be achievable elsewhere, given the right approach to the problem.

I am involved with the NYMR footplate department and your suggestion about long hours demanded by Whitby operations is way off the mark. Long hours has become a problem but it is largely as a result of the volunteer ageing process. The older we get, the less we want to do long hours. The big problem at the NYMR has been that they haven't been appointing new footplate crews in anything like the required numbers necessary to keep the average age static. Several years ago I said that the railway needed to be appointing 5-7 drivers and a similar number of firemen each year to keep that number static. That hasn't happened and the price is now being paid. Strangely ,enough, it isn't running to Whitby that is the current problem but the bringing into service of the new carriage stable. Shunting that at the beginning and end of the day has extended what were already long hours to beyond 12 so turns have had to be split resulting in more crews being required and then complaints from many that turns are too short, especially if you are travelling reasonable distances to attend.

 

Apologies on my part - cumulative misinterpretation of a number of sources down the years on my part - but the basic conclusion remains the same - ask more of people than they are willing/able to give and they will melt away.

 

A question please :
In the shed yard approach at Bridgnorth sits a Boiler which to me looks like it's from a GWR 57xx Pannier. Is this the spare from long-dismantled 3612 or from another under contract repair? Or perhaps it's from something very different........

 

Thank you. So the moral of the story remains, never trust random people's posts in local newspaper comments sections!

On the actual pricing, my initial reaction is that "return for a tenner" would be a more appealing proposition if (big big if!) the sums added up. However my second thought is that maybe it makes less difference these days, now that fewer people use cash and so the convenience of nice round numbers is less important. (The Wetherspoons in Bewdley now charges £9.03 for bangers and mash with a pint. I'm sure if cash were still king they'd have made sure it was £8.95 or £8.99.)

Oh, also in relation to social media, I'm sure the powers that be know about this already, but Facebook is definitely *not* fashionable with younger people now. Among my teenage/20s relatives it's seen as "old people's social media" (old meaning anyone past their 30s!) and most of them don't use it at all anymore. Food for thought maybe.

 

It is a 57xx boiler but IIRC the one previously fitted to 5764. I think that loco currently carries the ex 3612 one. (But in their previous lives all these boilers will have been on a number of different locos as the GW owned more boilers than locos as boiler repairs were more time consuming than mechanical ones).

 

I do think Tom’s a little bit lonely over on MySpace.

 

I see its mentioned on the SVR Facebook page that Pendennis Castle is to work the normal
S1 diagram on both next Saturday 22nd and Sunday 23rd April.

 

Thank you both for responding. My question could have been a bit clearer - point is that there's still three 57xx boilers on the SVRs between two Panniers as I'd thought.

 

Or they could have made it £9.09? We'll never know, and Wetherspoons do take cash still.

I was in a supermarket car park last month while walking through on my way elsewhere and my shoelace came undone, so I went over to the side and found 28p in a bush on the edge of paving, people throw away 1-2-5ps with quite regularity. Using card means you never have tons of small denominations. What about when you overshoot at the petrol station? £20.01. Arghhhh!!!

Cash has an element of accepting money goes missing, people mis-calculate change and notes, giving change of a £10 rather than a £5 etc or accepting a fake. It was usually a 2% variance you could get away with in my previous jobs on tills without being searched.