West Somerset Railway General Discussion

Thank you. This popped up on my newsfeed just now...

https://www.facebook.com/share/Rp4xRMLjAGu85wVH/

Enough of the good news. I'll let others comment.
Ian C

 

Given the NVR wants to raise £300k, perhaps the WSR would like to share how it has seemingly raised a far greater amount for the benefit of other lines facing financial difficulties?

 

A clue to my assessment:

 

Does 6990 have any turns coming up in future,
Missed the chance at the Gala to have 6990.
Was hoping to have the chance to have 6990 before it left.
Cheers

 

I don't get it.

 

Yes, 6990 is with us until the end of July thanks to the GCR. She will be in regular use on the Minehead diagram on some weekday running in July (Tues/Weds/Thurs) and she feature in a special weekend event over the 27th/28th July with 3 certain other 4-6-0s... More details to come.

 

Nor me!

 

I'm glad I'm not the only one, and yes, I know it's the borrowers.

 

Thank you for identifying the image - I'd not got that far.

I suspect that the name gives us the answer to the observation. If so, the questions about whether that borrowing is good or bad need clarifying in terms of the costs of repayment, the relationship to the lender, and what the loans are secured on.

 

Surely Dave could explain though?...

 

At first I thought it was yet another portrait of Dave and family

 

Does anyone know what’s rostered to work on Wednesday please ?

 

The most recent set of accounts (which are for the 2022-23 financial year) indicate that there is a loan of £291k secured by a mortgage on the Station House at Bishops Lydeard - repayable in instalments through to 2037. There is a Coronavirus (CBILS) loan of £136k repayable by August 2026. The mortgage is split - half is at a fixed rate, half at a variable interest rate (BoE rate + fixed percentage) so the interest has been subject to what we might call the "Liz Truss effect", i.e. has gone up quite sharply. The CBILS loan is at a variable rate. Nonetheless, the accounts appear to show that both loans are being paid down - the mortgage went down by about £12.5k during the year and the CBILS loan (which has a shorter end date) by £40k.

There is a loan from the WSRA secured against two Mark 1 carriages. It isn't explicit how much that is but reading between the lines I think it is of the order of £23k. As far as I can see there is no explicit mention of interest on that loan, so presumably interest free. If that loan is the line I think it is in the accounts, it also went down substantially in 2022-23.

I think in total that gives a total borrowing of £451k, down from £527k the previous year.

Interest charges were £56k, up from £40k the previous year, despite the borrowings having gone down - that must be the impact of rising interest rates.

I suspect that they are far from alone in being a railway with borrowings hit by the rapid rise in interest rates over the last couple of years.

Tom

 

It is good to see the WSR managing down these borrowings though clearly there is some way to go yet. Elsewhere there is "appeal fatigue" when some HRs are mounting sucessive survival appeals, the response to which is lacklustre.

The WSR have a 150 event next month making a visit to the line even more worthwhile:The 150 Event - 16th - 21st July 2024 - West Somerset Railway (west-somerset-railway.co.uk)

 

I’m not sure appeal fatigue is the right term.

Everyone is feeling the financial pressure at the moment, and for families like mine it’s prioritising spending, which sadly means that our discretionary spend is less.


Chris

 

"Appeal fatigue" is real, when so many places are running appeals to keep the lights on following the impact of the last few years. Priorities need to be made, but those running the appeals themselves also need to think about what differentiate them from others. When a number of railways, all of which I've visited occasionally but have no particular affinity to, run versions of "gizza bung", my eyes do glaze over.

 

The interest rate rises are a double whammy for any heritage railway with significant borrowings - the railway’s own interest charges go up, and many visitors have less disposable income so are likely to visit less / spend less when they do visit.

Tom