Which railways will still be with us in 10 years?

I've got no problem with the making money bit. Without profit no business is safe.

I don't like the way they treat volunteers by excluding them from all but the most mundane of tasks like painting etc.

If they are to be treated as a heritage railway (in the accepted sense of the phrase) and thus be discussed on this forum perhaps they should create real oportunities for volunteers. Perhaps we shouldn't discuss that particular line for that very reason?

But we drift off topic about the lines that won't be around in 10 years.

 

That's why we have you! It is very important that younger members who show an interest in the often less glamorous side of heritage railways are given the opportunity to develop. However, I think that sometimes they are greeted by older members on committees etc with derision which stifles development, or when they do get an idea through they are left to manage a project with no help from other members who will them tell them after the event how they could have helped. Each generation is only a caretaker for the nest generation coming along behind. Without whom there will be no preserved railways.

 

Now there Ann I have to agree with you 100%, weel said.

Regards
Chris

 

Ann,

I whole heartedly agree with you're sentiments! without the younger generation there wont be no preserved railways - Although i think the older generation sometimes need to understand this and for there to be a happy medium....

 

I made the same point as Ann on the previous page of this topic. Everyone ignored it!


Keith

 

Andy, you are spot on, since the start of the new season, the BWR car park has been full up and with cars parked up adjacent roads

Forecasts are that this recession will mean growth in the home tourist industry, signs are that this is likely to be the case, although at a lower level so far than forecast

 

Keith that might have been your intention but when I read your post that was not how I interpreted it. It appeared more of a moan that young people aren't allowed to do the glamorous jobs. I am not talking about the glamorous jobs but those without which there would be no railways. Boring jobs like organizing working parties to clear plots for buildings and then painting said buildings. Some of these are dirty others involve sitting in committee for hours on end where others will try to dissuade you or be very apathetic. I do know what they are like as I have done this in the past when I was in my mid to late 20s. It was an uphill struggle then and eventually the frustration lead to me and my then partner moving to another railway and I vowed never to go on a railway association again.

 

I'm not sure how you picked that up from my comments, but that was certainly not what I wrote or what I intended! I am not talking about glamorous jobs either, in fact I would rather be a 'background worker' than be public facing and/or 'glory hunting'. I have worked at various heritage volunteer organisations (not all railway related) and even getting basic information from society committee members was virtually impossible! An example on a railway theme, trying to actually take a part in the restoration of a carriage was made difficult and frustrating by the small group involved wanting to keep every job to themselves (I'm talking dirty jobs like paint stripping and cutting out rotten wood here!). Overall my impression of heritage volunteering has left me extremely disillusioned and disappointed with the people involved, to the extent that I no longer volunteer with any organisation - I doubt that I ever will again.


Keith

 

That's sad. Have you told anyone on the railway how you were feeling before you made the decision to leave? It is important that those involved with volunteers know when they are feeling disillusioned. I can only say that at Swanage we have a very active young persons group who are then encouraged to move into other areas when they are old enough. Without this group we would not have as good a railway as we have. I know that most of the other volunteers appreciate what they do.

 

It happens on all Railways Keith, there are always people involved with a project who think it is theirs and theirs alone.

These selfish people are destroying the very movement that think they are helping and preserving, and it appears from where I am sitting that these people have got to you.

Fight back my friend and show these cretins your metal for if you were living in my neck of the woods I would grab you as a volunteer with open arms.

keep your chin up.

Best Regards
Chris

 

Hear hear! I thoroughly agree with you Chris =D> =D>

 

Firstly, as a point of information, it is Charity Commissioner Rules that restrict having paid employees of a Charity on its governing body. This used to be a more or less outright ban, I think with the exception of the Chief Executive or whatever the senior paid management post was called. It even extended to using self-employed Trustees for Charity work and I know of at least one Trustee who felt the need to resign from the Board so his business could bid for work from the Charity in question. It is certainly possible now for the senior member of paid staff to be on the Charity's Board.

(BTW - there are also VAT consequences for an entirely "volunteer led" organisation if it charges an admission fee to whatever it owns, but that is another story!)

My main point though is how refreshing it is to see the importance of what is poshly called "governance" these days actually recognised in a heritage railway setting. My own experience is that any form of management is seen as a bad thing - an unnecessary evil, and that anyone putting themselves forward to serve on management committees or boards is naturally seen as some sort of raving egotist, out for their own ends and never with the good of the orgnisation in their minds.

I do have quite a bit of experience, having become a heritage railway Director aged 25. There were plenty of peiople who had served longer as volunteers and some made it gently clear that they didn't totally approve of me being in these posts but who would run a mile if it was suggested that they might like to join the Board or whatever. This peer pressure is one of the major reasons, certainly in my experience, that youngsters and other people just starting with an organisation can be very hesitant to consider joining the governing body. A friend of mine, who holds quite a senior post, finds himself asked if he is going to do any proper work at all every time he is at a meeting instead of wielding a paint brush - and feels compelled to disappear to do "proper work" as soon as he can when official duties are over.

Yet, certainly, again from what I have seen, a lack of "management" in sufficient depth can be one of the biggest limiting factors for any heritage organisation. By this I mean that the people even in a seemingly large organisation who not only oversee day to day operations but also look at longer term strategy, developing relationships with external bodies, fund raising, grant applications and all the rest that is involved with running something like a heritage railway are all too often the same few people and at best number a couple of dozen and frequently considerably fewer.

If you look round the railways of the UK, the ones where plenty seem to be happening clearly have good support resource of people who maybe can't fire or driver an engine but have the knowledge and contacts to ensure that partnership funding is available for £100,000s of grant assistance to development projects. The West Somerset and North Norfolk both spring to mind as clearly being very good in these areas. I suspect that both have literally one or two people with the right skills and contacts, and boundless energy, who drive the process but how many other lines have a position where if a grant opportunity becomes available, the panic is who is going to write the application, where is the overall business plan, do we have the details of the project? This is a vast amount of work.

To make matters worse, usually when a small group do manage to put together a bid or a plan, some of their peers then take great delight in ridiculing it and campaigning against it. I have personal experience of writing an introduction for a business plan, as much as a suggested format as for its content, and having it called the biggest piece of cr*p ever seen when presented to the board, as well as seeing others (in a wide variety of areas) spend many hours both in behind the scenes and restoration work only to have the "experts" (who run the service, so are far more important) deride, undermine and even deliberately damage the output of those labours. Too few recognise that you can being working just as hard for your railway at a PC at home or wearing a suit at a meeting as you can with a shouvel or hammer.

Sadly, Railway Preservation seems to have more than its fair share of people who must, as children, have enjoyed a day on the beach best when they could run up and kick over some other kid's sandcastle!

The final output of devaluing management of volunteer organisations is that people who would be able to contribute feel they don't wish to receive the "them and us" stigma of being on a management body, so when elections come around, too few candidates are available and anyone can just walk on to vacant positions. Being on the Board becomes some sort of long service award, and if unsuitable people are then able to get on it, those who would have something to contribute shy away even more and the poorer the board's reputation in the organisation as a whole.

Volunteer railways should have a great strength in having coal face workers (pardon the pun!) on their governing bodies, and being able to mix the membership of those bodies between those with knwoledge of the specific organisation and what it does and those with wider world skills who could never be afforded as paid managers or consultants. But sadly, this always seems more likely to produce conflict than strength, and, to get back to the title of this thread, I genuinely believe that those Railways most likely to survive are those who get management right, whilst those who fail to address this issue are under a very real threat of extinction as a direct result.

 

some very good points raised there Bean Counter, and I am reading them with particular interest as I have put my name forward as a Director for my line at the age of 31. I must admit I am viewing this prospect with a mixture of exitement and trepidation, there are so many other pressures on such as work, family etc and as you say there are many who will be quick to jump on the bandwagon if you are not seen mucking out with everyone else getting your hands dirty.

I think the trouble is that there is always a certain amount of pressure as a Director, volunteers crave nothing more than expansion and progress, stagnation can leave a very negative strain on the whole morale of the railway. Particularly when you hear that other railways have received 'X' grant and have raised 'y' amount of pounds. It's almost like a football analogy- the supporters want a management that brings them sucess, if not they are quick to voice their opinions.

However there is a very relevant phrase here 'it's not what you do, but the way you do it...' This is especially relevant when dealing with a volunteer support base, once this body feels that it is being marginalised then the road can only lead to internal strife and an eye off maybe what the real issues are, such as focusing on motive power requirements for the next few years, or paying off the bank overdraft.

 

More power to your elbow !
There have been many cogent points written on this thread and they should be made compulsory reading.
I suspect, however, many contributors will have certain people in mind on their railway's 'boards of management/committees' who've been there years, still living the past, and run out of fresh ideas to take the respective railway forwards.
A lot of railways gave up 'playing' trains years ago and adopted the 'business-lead' approach as this was the only way of survival.
This is, in my view, the only way for heritage railways to survive.

 

I am all for the "business-led" railway. There has to be a cogent business reason for the railway's activity, but there is nothing wrong with playing trains. Fun and camaraderie are in fact critical to a successful volunteer organisation. At the end of the day, playing is exactly what we are doing. Hopefully we do it professionally and safely, but we choose to spend our leisure time on this activity. I think that the ability to combine good business practices (that ensure the railway attracts enough customers, controls its costs and delivers a good "product" that people will pay for), with fun for the volunteers is what will take railways forwards (or not). In fact this is just an extension of good business practice - staff retention and recruitment. Some lines seem to forget that the staff are the most important asset.

 

There are considerations other than financial - the Fairbourne Railway is possibly unique in that it runs so close to the sea that global warming and rising sea levels represent a serious threat in the future, and there may be others facing the ame problem.

 

This thread seems to be unduly "lococentric". Having said that it should be a matter of grave concern that no-one has reboilered anything larger than a Stroudley "Terrier". Narrow gauge lines have an infinitely better record in regard to reboilerings.

Certain narrow gauge lines, for example the Ffestiniog amd Welshpool and Llanfair, have renewed a significant proportion of their lines with brand new rail. Has any standard gauge line tackled this issue?

Mention of the W&L prompts the thought that anyone who can get hold of its latest accounts will find them interesting reading. I believe the IOWSR demonstrates a similar financial prudence. A railway can have any amount of success in attracting volunteers and pasengers but if they cannot convey them economically then it will fail. There are examples of lines which subsidise uneconomic refreshment facilities or have far too frequent train services or use vastly oversized and expensive to run motive power. This is plain daft!

 

I quite agree, although when these accounts are published , too few have a proper breakdown of where this money has gone . To protect the guilty the losses generally are lost in a "black hole" who place the blame on everyone but themselves, so much like New Labour.

I would suggest that we have the "headless chicken" syndrome here or burying one,s head in the sand hoping it will all go away, IT WILL NOT".

Regards
Chris

 

The comparison between Narrow & Standard gauge lines regarding reboilering & rerailing is rather invalid.

Generally the Narrow Gauge lines have been in preservation for longer having been inherited from a variety of previous managements most of which were bereft of cash & left their railways in a very rundown state.
Both Pway & loco overhauls suffered accordingly.

In comparison ex BR lines/locos were at least heavily built & until more recent times kept in good order - as a result the NEED for reboilering/rerailing is only now starting to become more presssing as residual life runs out.

The real problem though is that an NG boiler is likely to be much more affordable than a boiler for a medium sized SG loco and the same probably applies to track items.

 

The subject of the thread is which lines are going to be with us in ten years. Whatever the historical cause narrow gauge lines are likely to be in a better position simply because they have faced up to issues of large scale renewals. It seems that the U.K. is now unable to construct boilers for large locomotives simply because no-one has ordered any so the skills and the equipment have atrophied.

If nothing else the Tornado project has demonstrated that new construction is likely to be more economical in the long term. However Meiringen has to be kept in orders or it will disappear.

Similar considerations apply to all other fields. Gauge corner cracking, for example, is not a phenomenum confined to Network Rail . The diffused, even undisciplined, structure of much standard gauge activity will not assist in a rational application of resources across the various fields.