Lynton and Barnstaple - Operations and Development

When, AIUI you're sat on a train, and are forced by a ticket inspector to buy a second ticket because there is no internet signal there is something seriously wrong with the way this country is governed. I considered emigrating years ago to get away from this perennial ridiculousness but resisted because of my interest in an old railway in North Devon. Some very poor countries don't have this problem so it must be down to politicians and money. The same happens, apparently, with the availability of charging points for electric cars, which is why I cannot be confident of getting the North Devon and getting back with one and will buy a replacement petrol car just before they are banned. Assuming I haven't gone to the engine shed in the sky by then. My sympathy is greatly with the people just described, past and present.

 

If you setup a construction company to do the paperwork, planning and physical work, you either have to:
a) find suitably qualified volunteers to staff the company, in which case you haven't actually gained anything. You may as well just appoint those same volunteers to a sub committee of the CIC or trust.
Or
b) employ people to staff the company, in which case your costs rocket as you will need to pay them a competitive salary to lure them away from the big money in cities.

It's also worth remembering that it's highly unlikely that contracts would be let to rebuild large chunks of the railway, simply because finances will dictate a "small chunks" approach. Don't be lulled into thinking that the L&B is the same as the WHR - that was a one off, as the millennium fund supplied a large chunk (majority?) of the funding, I think it's very very very unlikely that anything like that amount of funding would be available in one go. The WHR also had the benefit of having the whole trackbed available.

 

Hi Martyn. What I have in mind was something on the lines of the Welsh Highland Railway Construction Ltd:-

Welsh Highland Light Railway Ltd; Welsh Highland Railway (Caernarfon); Welsh Highland Railway Construction Ltd; Festiniog and Welsh Highland Railways
In 1988, the FR had tried to prevent the WHR from ever being rebuilt. But that failed, so they tried to take it over instead. The 1993 Public Enquiry rejected their bid, but the Minister of Transport overturned the Inspector's recommendation. The FR formed the Welsh Highland Light Railway Ltd (WHLR) as a construction company, based in Dinas, and started building the old standard gauge line into Caernarfon. This 12 mile railway from Caernarfon via Dinas and Waunfawr to Rhyd Ddu is officially known as the Welsh Highland Railway (Caernarfon) , a name which is now widely used. Phase 1 to Dinas was opened in late 1997, Phase 2 to Waunfawr in summer 2000, Phase 3 to Rhyd Ddu in summer 2003.

The WHLR was replaced by the Welsh Highland Railway Construction Ltd, a subsidiary of the FR formed specifically to build from Rhyd Ddu to Porthmadog. The FR adopted the trading name Festiniog and Welsh Highland Railways.

 

I'm wondering how the Board of Trustees could possibly manage large fund-raising efforts when they cannot even properly organise such a simple matter as an AGM?
Even there they rely solely on an out-dated postal method of communication...

 

I’d want to understand a lot more about the sequence of events in north Wales before lifting that pattern. Other heritage railways doing significant extensions have not done this, and there are perfectly effective ways in which segregation between new work and existing operations can be maintained.

The issue then comes back, as ever, to people. How many of them, and doing what? There will be too few volunteers (there always are!), and gaps in skills and experience. The structure will need to support the plan, otherwise it will consume time, effort and money without adding to the outcome. And, as we see already, each time you add an organisation, you add another set of boundaries. Which if not done carefully, adds another point of failure.

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

As has been noted before, the WHR situation was totally different to ours and in a different age almost now.

 

You've just described how the railway should manage the project "in the most efficient and effective way possible to get the project done and to monitor the budget."

What you haven't said is what benefit there is of setting up another company to do it. Doing so creates its own cost and administrative burden: more accounts that need preparing and auditing; another set of directors who need appointing etc. Plus there is then all the issue around co-ordination between the "construction" company and the rest of the railway proper: not least because the construction company won't have its own income, so will have to have some arrangement in place with some other group within the wider railway family that is providing funding.

And even when you achieve all that, because the progress construction will be governed by the availability of funds, the construction company likely wouldn't have its own staff or significant equipment, but would hire them in as required. (If you want an example of exactly that, look at how the Bluebell dug out Imberhorne Tip: that required significant heavy machinery, which was hired in about 8 or 10 separate phases of digging as and when funds became available to do the next section, spread over a few years).

Your starting point always seems to be "let's have a new organisation" to carry out a task on the railway. But you never answer the question "what problem / risk is solved by a new company that is present if the work is done within the existing resources?" Creating new organisations has a significant cost and adds to the difficulties in aligning everything to the one overriding strategic objective - so it should only happen if there is some kind of benefit that can't otherwise be achieved. There's nothing in your description of construction that hasn't already been achieved many times by other railways in preservation: it's not as if other railways don't have to deal with things like building regs and planning within conservation areas, listed building consent etc, in maintaining their own infrastructure.

At the risk of becoming all Paul Hitchcockian, it seems there are those in North Devon who are looking at an organisation that collectively is tiny and are imagining corporate structures more suited to a FTSE250 company.

Edit: @35B said much the same thing more succinctly.

Tom

 

Really ?

 

Don't forget it also recieved large amounts of EU money.

 

Lynbarn means the previously standard gauge formation - it's just grammar.

 

Around half the money (£15 million) for the initial construction also came from private donations though. North Wales is one of the most deprived areas in Europe so the EU regional development fund matched donations pound for pound. It would also grant money based on volunteer hours spent on the project.

Yes they did get huge grants but they also had to be seen as a viable, well run project so people would donate time and money and consequently increase the grant money available. It wasn't just a case of begging the Welsh Government for a big pot of cash.

 

If we strip all the groups away from the L&BR Family what are you left with?

A Trust and a CIC.

The 762 Club, Manning Wardle & Co, Bagnall 2819 Co, Blackmoor PLC, Exmoor Associates and Yeo Valley Trust have all been set up to carry out specific tasks and could be considered for now as support groups of the main project.

As I see it only the CIC is in a position to both run and build the Railway. But do you want to risk losing the railway due to something going wrong while it is being constructed? As for the Trust I feel it needs to get back to carrying out fund raising and setting out the direction of travel. But to do that it needs a reset to its current thinking on fundraising as well communicating with the membership.

As I have already mentioned and I am sure that the historians on this thread will tell you chapter and verse about the old L&BR and contractors, but the point is the risk in building the railway would be with the Construction Company and no one else, also it could only progress as fast as the trust can raise the money it needs.

By this method you fulfil the three basic steps in the project build it, run it, maintain it. I do see that once the railway has been rebuilt there will be no point in retaining the construction company, so at that point it could be wound up.

Volunteering comes in all shapes and sizes and it is not always easy to see what floats their boats. Some people like to get covered in mud, where as others like to drive trains, steer ships or fly vintage aircraft. As for me I was involved with the Crossness steam pumping station for a couple of years until the day job became more complex.

So to say that it will be a strain on volunteers I think misses the point, since as I have said we don't know what motives individuals to get involved with a certain project. But what I do know is if you advertise that such and such is happening you will always get the curious that will come along and see what it is all about, whether they stay or not will be up to them.

As far as I am aware there are no other what I would call major heritage railway rebuilding programmes going on in the UK right now, so what has happen to that group of volunteers, besides getting older I would guess that a few of them would still like to be doing something like this again.

As I understand it both the black hand gang and the rest of the world group on the FR/WHR are both keen to assist in the rebuilding of the L&BR, simply because that is what they enjoy doing.

Besides what with Exeter Uni and it civil engineering department down the road as such, we might just yet find ourselves a new Gerald Fox.

 

I have worked for some of the biggest multinational corporations, and they have (relatively) simpler structures

 

The Directors of the CIC presenting the 2022 Accounts this evening for approval clearly dont see the need to have their accounts audited or this would have been done in the 4 months or so that have passed. Should they be rejected by the AGM until this is done ? I am not suggesting there is anything wrong with them (despite the duplicated Profit and Loss Account) but surely in requesting approval an audit is expected ?

 

Looking forward, the Yeo Valley Trust, working closely with Exmoor Associates, has recently launched an ambitious project to purchase the former Chelfham Mill School site for eventual use by the Lynton & Barnstaple Railway. Although the site currently has residential planning permission, located right under the trackbed, the site could be utilised in several ways to benefit the rebuilding and operation of the Greater L&B. The Yeo Valley Trust website - https://yvt.org.uk - now offers secure online donations and even Gift Aid declarations!

This is a big ask, and a long-term project, but please check out YVTs and Exmoor Associates' ambitions...

 

Ah....North Wales NG is not my strong point, as you may have guessed

 

Reading Paul Lewin's article in this month's Trackside 'Seeking a Surplus' makes me wonder what is happening with the CIC operation, especially as there is also an advert for a full-time or 80% Events and Marketing Officer. I hope it will be explained this evening. In a situation where a £131K surplus in 2021 has turned into a £14 profit on 2022 are we making a surplus now ? Mr Lewin's article is referring to his experience on a 30-mile railway rather than a one-mile one, but making no profit, he points out, is a recipe for disaster. I hope there will be news of a turn-around. I do not have access to the 2022 accounts at the moment, but he says 'they have understood that heritage railways that have a workforce with 50% volunteer input and 50% paid staff should typically expect to spend no more than 40% of their income on wages'. When I see the accounts again I will look and see if this detail is provided.

 

I thought that I had read recently somewhere that the CIC had indeed made quite large profit but had then 'given' ~£100K-odd to the Trust?

 

...who then used it to go towards buying a pub?

 

But I don't thing the trust can do that, can it? As I understand things a charity can only give money to a wholly owned company, and since Blackmoor PLC is not such a subsidiary then there have to be some questions asked.