Lynton and Barnstaple - Operations and Development

If you ring the IT Helpdesk, the first instruction is to "switch it off and back on again"
To be honest, that is where you have got to now. I have seen this time and time again in all sorts of organisations, not just railways. Over time, they become stale, and need a reboot. The WSR went through this during the painful 2013 to 2020 years and only now are we through that. There is a reason we have general elections every five years too, to refresh and rejuvenate.
The L&B seems to have got to this stage now. I didn't think that was the case, but yesterday I visited Woody Bay and I heard the staff talking about the situation. This convinced me that more effort now is going into the politics than into the railway.
Time to draw stumps and reboot the organisation with a completely fresh set of people to take it forward. And the sooner you can do that, the better. You have probably already set things back five years, any further delays to reboot will just make that worse.
Ian

 

Very sadly, Ian, I fear you could be right

 

This is looking at the problem from the wrong end of the telescope almost.

I don’t think the trustees have concluded anything about what is best for the future of the charity. It looks very much like they have failed to execute a strategy, possibly because they haven’t been willing or able to be flexible and adaptive enough. The response to this strategic failure is to behave very defensively towards any and all who either ask “what now”, or suggest deviating from the failed strategy. All other behaviours seem to be a part of this dogmatic mindset.

Successful people and organisations tend to have a very clear objective, but be very flexible about its achievement as they learn over time. The Land B is not displaying this mindset.

These then are the things which concern the “thinking” part of the membership, because they suggest a board which is not able to deliver its duties.

The situation is quite different from the characterisation of being members clamouring for something the dowry trustees feel duty bound to turn down as not being the best for the charity. Rather I think it is the case that many members know that the the board is failing and needs to change. That’s called accountability, and there are far too many places where accountability is in short supply and the tools available to bring it about are too limited.

 

The L&B do have the turntable, its in need of some serious work and needs some new parts

 

Well, that's good news Andy! We probably all need a healthy dose of good news with the unconscionable carryings-on emanating from the Miles-Cowling cabal occupying much of our thought concerning the L&BR.

 

There speaks a voice with the relative (unfortunate) experience, if only the Trustees would take serious note.

 

The Trust has owned the TT for many years now, during which time it has sat rusting away in the grass at WB, so any 'good news' has long since passed. Apart from the brief plan to use it as a sector plate at PE, I'm not aware of any serious proposal for it to be brought into use any time soon. And given its limited original historical use, other than a 'nice to have' relic from the L&BR's past, what benefit will the railway get from it operationally anyway? Admittedly it is a shame to see it as it is now, but in the grand scheme of things it is probably very low down on any priority list.

 

All very sad but it may rise (turn?) again one day... Talking of priority lists, does anyone know how the OSHI is progressing?

 

They'll turn anything into a musical these days!

 

I'm rapidly reaching the end of the road with all of this I'm sorry to say - and if I am, as someone with all the books ever published on the subject of the L&B, a framed Spy cartoon of George Newnes on my wall along with a couple of Eric Leslie prints, an extensive collection of OO9 models, trust member and EA shareholder, reaching the end of the road, then I can't help but think the whole project doesn't bode well. And I'm only in my early 40s.

I don't know what the answer is - though I do know it's not another new company. Membership hanging on by a thread, and if there was a way of asking EA for my money back I'd be looking at that too now. Ferrets in a sack, on all sides. Either every group finds a way to work together, sharpish, however hard that may be, or it's over IMO. And a quick look at who owns what on a map would show why a group not the trust, trying to do something on their own to the south without the Trust's agreement, might hit a snag....

Happy Monday.

 

I think this gets to the heart of why some (myself included) feel the board may be failing. The dream is being extinguished, and whilst it may always have been a difficult or very challenging dream, it remained tangible. Events since August last year have seen the dream look remote. Perhaps the current board actually have lost some belief too. A re-boot is essential and very soon, before the current crop of supporters evaporates because that will take a long time to rebuild.

 

Exactly, I've got an SVR to save (where things are looking an order of magnitude more positive than they were), and 71000 is nearly back. So of my other memberships I know which I'm more likely to stay involved with / contributing to.

 

The dream is looking remote, because supporters have been marched to the top of the hill and are now having to look back down the slope they've claimed. That's because a vision of victory has been sold, and now we're in a place where that victory has been snatched away - when the 2018 planning victory was in reality never likely to be attained due to a combination of opponents, conditions and strategy.

That requires leadership going beyond "one more heave", and it's hard to see where that inspiration is going to come from at the moment.

In reality, with the combination of the work that's already been done and the options opened by the RVR's success, options are there - but for too many supporters, not in their lifetimes.

 

I too started feeling negative - not because of the way things are with the various components of the Railway but because of the constant outpouring of critism on this forum. I have given up reading and responding to posts from certain individuals - I am sure that they are well meaning but they don't seem to realise the effect they are having on other supporters.

 

I don't think the current state of things an the WSR can reasonably be regarded as a positive example!

 

@H Cloutt - what you deride as criticism others will see as accountability. We have a situation where:

• the Chairman and the Company Secretary tried to rig an election;
  
  
• the Chairman's solemn promise to rerun the election has to date not even yielded a timetable for the election;
  
  
• the Chairman now appears to be pursuing a personal vendetta with Trust funds;
  
  
• based on what John Barton said in Lynton, the extension plan is 'one more heave' for a plan that failed and which generated a great deal of ill-will when it looked like an attempt to bypass the original planning requirements;
  
  
• we need to hurry up with Bridge 65's reconstruction to ensure that Devon Highways will adopt it, but rather than a stand-alone proposal, seems tied into the CFL extension which is bound to be far more controversial than the Bridge 65 reconstruction alone;
  
  
• the financial relationship between the Trust and OSHI / LBBC is at best 'unclear';
  
  
• the Trust seems to have accepted a worse deal for financial support to OSHI than a CIC Director got for a secured loan;
  
  
• the Newsletter has accused ENPA planners of inaction on the s73 application, whereas the emerging evidence is instead that they were extremely helpful and the original application was inadmissable;
  
  
• the Chairman claimed in Lynton that out legal advice was that the revised s73 case was very strong - so strong in fact that it wasn't pushed to a JR nor has the legal advice been published (it can't be secret as the planning lapsed);
  
  
• despite the Chairman clamining in Lynton that the cost of the redline fiasco was minimal, the evidence from the accounts suggests that it was in the order of £100k - so which is it?;
  
  
• everything that goes wrong is always someone else's fault.

Which bit, exactly, of this list is the result of the "constant outpouring of critism on this forum"?

@gwralatea - we can and will sort this out, and we will extend the line. FWIW, I think EA's track record stands for itself, and the way that it has provided trackbed to the Trust demonstrates their bona fides. No doubt things could be better, and I look forward to them improving.

 

The problem for me is that the actions of the trust tend to confirm not refute the criticism seen here.

 

I'm not sure what you mean, things are going well on the WSR now. But this is the L&B thread so let's not go OT.
Ian

 

There is a catch-22; if formal channels are unavailable, how but using forums such as this are those concerned about the governance of their railway to get information out? And if the problems do exist as asserted, how does silence help the railway's cause?

I would be delighted if discussion of the L&B were to be limited to discussion of the latest extensions and works, and governance ceased to be mentioned. Unfortunately, without dealing with the challenges of governance, @gwralatea is likely to be right in his assessment of the future of the L&B.

 

Delusional, but off topic for sure!