Lynton and Barnstaple - Operations and Development

...but surely informative to read anyway for someone with an interest in the L&BR ?

 

In case there is anything to be gained, I have had the 2012 negative scanned and is attached. It would seem any detail inscribed in the metal is obscured by the black paint, but @Dave can have a look. I have a picture of Percy Moore operating the Chelfham frame (as the Porter-in-Charge) after the Chumhill accident in February 1913. Unfortunately the print was made far too dark for the detail of the inside of the box to be clear (and pointless to be reproduced here), but under a glass the lever plates on levers 1 and 2 are just visible, and appear to be similar to those in H. F. Wheeler's pictures he took in 1935. I conclude from this that the Pilton Yard signal box plate was probably an original from 1898 and therefore probably made by or for Evans O'Donnell & Co.

 

Well, it was a request, not an instruction, but the email also says:
P.S. If you know any Trust members who might benefit from this information, please feel free to pass it on to them.

 

Yes I did see them flying as well

 

I'll have a closer look at this later this evening

 

The more that I look at these various images, the more that I feel that I can see 'something' there. However I remain puzzled how this avoids the fixing bracket that surely must have run down the centre of the back.

 

From a slightly different point of view: I have always been concerned that to claim gift aid in conjunction with a ticket sale would over egg things and cause the major tax concessions that were made to the railways c.1930 - when the passenger carriage duty on tickets and also rates on railway property were abolished - to be questioned and something else imposed or reimposed.

The abolition was done in rather rather obscure ways: passenger carriage duty was ended on condition the railways spent a capitalised sum which was matched by government grant on stations, permanent way, rolling stock - the passengers did not immediately see cheaper tickets - the rates on what were for conveyancing purposes "railway hereditaments" just ended.

There is no VAT on railway tickets for people on the basis there is a journey being made, there would be if it is part of an all in ticket to a fun fair.

Forgive me if this is rather unencourageing but there are possible sleeping dogs best left unawake. There are grey areas and to take legalistic advantage of rules might backfire.
Clever stealth tax has backfired on the government here and after two international financial crises, Covid, and then an energy/trading crisis in the last twenty years there is real financial stress in the overall public finances. There will be no ready will for continuing what could be represented as archaic exemptions. Inflation is reducing but it is too soon to be sure it has worked out.

 

The Talyllyn have worked this way for a while as do others. The ticket becomes a donation often an additional amount is added. The wrinkle is that the transaction/donation is then with the charity not the company, so I think in some places has meant that ordinary fares become vat-able because they cease to be travel tickets and become an entrance fee. It isn’t straightforward I think and getting a compliant scheme has proven difficult in some places.

 

There was an earlier discussion on this subject (about reclamation of Gift Aid on fares) on a different thread. The NYMR (amongst others) operates on that model (which is in itself interesting, since they are somewhat comfortably the largest heritage line in the country by passenger numbers and income, I believe).

On that thread I asked the question:

Has the NYMR found a way round that such that it can benefit from GA while retaining the zero rating of a transport undertaking?
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To which @Lineisclear responded (in part):

Short answer Tom....Yes! As the NYMR Finance Director has wryly observed conflicting logic in tax law is not unusual so please don't ask me to justify it from that angle. The nearest I could get is that the admission charge involves transport to view the work of the charity. [My emphasis].
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It feels a bit contrived to me, but demonstrably there is a precedent. Of course there may be all sorts of other impacts, but right here, right now, that is the operating model of the NYMR (and I believe the Isle of Wight Steam Railway as well).

You can read the whole exchange starting about here: https://www.national-preservation.c...ailway-governance.1422069/page-6#post-2799586

Tom

 

>>>The nearest I could get is that the admission charge involves transport to view the work of the charity...

I'm bemused by the thought that visitors to WB would be getting 'transport' on the train to go to KL to see "the work of the charity"

 

I'm not. The train is part of the work of the charity, so travelling on it is a means of experiencing that work.

Full credit is due to those who've identified the opportunity.

 

In the NYMR case (and I assume similar in the case of the IoWSR, but the discussion was in the context of the NYMR) the entire railway is designated as a museum. So any journey on the railway in effect becomes an immersive experience within the museum, seeing the work of the charity.

I could see it might be a rather problematical piece of string to pull on, though. Following the logic through, it really treats the railway as a living museum, i.e. an attraction in and of itself. You might then start having some awkward conversations if on the one had you promote the L&B as a similar living museum in order to explore the (undoubtedly useful) Gift Aid angle, yet at the same time are promoting the "gateway to Exmoor" transport angle as part of your pitch to the planning authorities.

It feels to me there is a continuum here that gets to increasingly shaky ground. A place like Beamish - which has several fully functioning railway systems - is clearly a living museum, and clearly the only reason to ride on the trains is to experience the work of the museum. The Isle of Wight seem to make the same claim, and even though the line is 5 miles long, I don't think there is any great pretence that it offers a transport system: the number of people who get on at Wootton with the express purpose of making a connection at Smallbrook Junction to travel on to Ryde must be vanishingly small. But in the NYMR case - and potentially even more so in an extended L&B case - I'm sure there is some part of the pitch to the relevant local authorities that the railway opens up access to a national park without encouraging excess car journeys. Yet if you believe that, it is harder to justify that the sole purpose of riding on the train is to "view the work of the charity" which is the basis upon which the Gift Aid claim is made.

In other words two things seem true to me. The first is that clearly some railways have made that opportunity work for them. The other is it probably pays not to look too far under the hood of just how! (Or, more cautiously - think through the implications of going down the same route with eyes wide open).

Tom

 

I believe (someone correct me if I'm wrong please) that the South Tynedale and the KESR also claim gift-aid on fares. Somehow.

Worth mentioning that if you're lucky enough to be a 40%+ taxpayer you can claim some tax back on charitable giving on your tax return too... so keep your receipts from lines who do this!

 

I think this combines two claims. There is a VAT rule which has long been established to apply regardless of the utility of the destination station (e.g. Killington Lane). That exists separately to (and for a different tax) the Gift Aid concession being used by a number of railways.

Now that the opportunity has been identified and is being used by multiple railways, my view is that the two will co-exist quite well for as long as the government are willing to permit charitably owned visitor attractions to benefit from Gift Aid. This "loophole" has been exploited for a long time, and the Gift Aid rules are designed to facilitate it subject to certain constraints - notably donors either paying more or getting free re-admission.

However, if I were budgeting for a railway, I would not include that tax uplift in my long term plan much more than a tax year out. At some point, someone will shout "loophole" and the normal political campaign to prevent leakage will kick into life, regardless of whether that's necessary, desirable or proportionate.

 

I can see where you're coming from but from purely personal experience, there is only one heritage railway in this country I've ever used for A to B transport- as part of a longer journey, and that is the NYMR. It was about 35 years ago and my father and I went something like Saltburn-Middlesborough-Grosmont-Pickering-bus to somewhere, then got in our car (which we'd parked there a week previously before some long-distance hiking) and went home. Sure, we were interested in a ride on the NYMR, but our primary purpose for visiting was as a means of transport. I don't know if gift aid was even a thing back then, but I feel like it's a bit of a dangerous game to start focussing on why people are travelling.

Going back to the L&B and the 'Gateway to Exmoor' angle, you can be the way people see and Experience Exmoor by riding up and down in a train on Exmoor, experiencing a traditional mode of transport (instead of driving around in your car) while you do it; it doesn't have to mean that you go to Lynton for a day on the beach.

 

Something like this happened when Chapelon died: he had provided for his papers including everything that would have been included in the never published, second volume, the calculations, revised in the 1950s of his magnum opus " La Locomotive a Vapeur" most unfortuneatly the executor he had appointed was incapacitated and this among much else was lost in house clearance.

 

During Covid there was an interesting side effect of all this. Those that had their ticket treated as an entry fee could definitely not open. They were visitor attractions and must remain shut. Those like the MHR for example that charged for travel could have run trains quite legally. Of course no one would have turned up because you could only travel for work purposes, so we weren’t open, but being a transport undertaking under the law did simplify some things.

 

Many years ago I had go for work purposes to a place in the South Hams. I claimed - and was paid - for a steam train ride on the Paignton - Kingswear line and the ferry across to Dartmouth! And the return journey...

 

Finally had a chance to have an initial look at that scan.
Can't really see any more than what we found before but here are various images I've saved during processing.


Edit: will have a other go when I get the chance

 

The paperwork for the AGMs has just arrived on my doormat in East Sussex. Bright yellow envelope so you don't miss it.