SVR General Discussion

I wouldn’t often post a begging post, but please can people consider making a contribution. I appreciate that the SVR have had a lot of appeals over the years, but this really is a huge impact. It’s severed the line with loco fleet at Bridgnorth, coaches at Kidder, and a leaves us a hefty cost to ferry a loco round by road.

https://svr.co.uk/resilience/

We have (And I optamistically still hope we can have) an amazing Spring Gala planned and I really hope we can deliver it. Your support would mean the world to hundred, if not thousands, of us.

 

This photo is doing the rounds. Looks far worse from down below than at track level.

 

already donated. Member, shareholder and former volunteer so I suppose I should be near the front of the queue, but time to shamelessly get the bowls out again.

 

Thankyou! I know it’s the begging bowl coming out again, but this is one of those very critical moments

 

Donation made tonight & I hope it will help in some small way. Very best of luck with the appeal, and hopefully the damage can be fixed quickly.

The railway will get through this I’m sure.

Ben

 

I had a bit of a falling out with the railway during the tenure of the previous MD and cancelled my membership as did others but the railway now deserves support from us all. I will certainly make a couple of donations, the second when a savings plan matures next month. Any UK taxpayer please don’t forget to gift aid your donation.

 

Agreed. Had this incident happened at around the time of the shareholder debacle, I doubt anyone would have responded to the rallying cry. At that time, my attitude would have been "you made your bed, go and lie in it". Attitudes amongst the top brass have now improved considerably improved and I expect that the call for emergency donations will be positively received.

 

That "falling out" was understandable and many felt the same at the time. The culture is very different now and the One Railway initiative is to be applauded. Hopefully lapsed members will see and appreciate this and seriously consider rejoining.

 

I can feeeback the suggestion to have the CT link on the website, however as you can probanly imagine the paid teams are pretty busy so it might get missed.

What I would say is all you guys can make the difference by also passing the message on about it too. Word of mouth is unbelievably useful!

 

Not wanting to kick a man when he’s down and myself and my partner have already sent money to a certain Dudley postcode, I but had an interesting message from a friend of mine this morning who’s in P-way and their thoughts about warnings regarding trees and embankments not mixing and how they didn’t get listened too…

Possibly one for certain board members to think about maybe?

Not trying to use this as a stick to beat anyone with btw.

 

Not sure about that, I remember way back before the line was reopened, talking to another member who was a BR civil engineer. He said that when the line was built it was done on the cheap and should have had a high buttressed retaining wall at Sterns to stop the hillside falling into the river, clearly not an option now.

 

Yes, I have also heard that the line was built on the cheap and it has a long history of land movement. Significant landslides have affected the alignment between Bridgnorth and Ironbridge too. It's not helped by the geology of the area and rivers by their nature are constantly shifting too.
But we should also not forget the age of the alignment, it's structures and factor in climate change - unfortunately major failures such as this are to be expected.
This is the number one issue on the mainline system too.
The Resilience Fund is very aptly named and will be getting another donation from me after pay day tomorrow.
Whatever service the railway manages to pull together over the next couple of months will also be supported by myself and family.
Wishing all volunteers every best wish, I have the utmost confidence the railway will get through this and come back stronger - just as it has done before.

 

So would I be correct in thinking that the board members who supported the controversial actions of the last MD have now resigned?

 

I don’t think they supported her or she would still be there.

 

Louise Whitehouse, the SVR Company Secretary and author of the bizarre and offensive 2021 "shareholders are freeloaders" letter definitely resigned in 2023.

 

It took two years…

 

What’s your point? 2023 was when the regime changed… so it’s unsurprising that changes happened then. Never mind how long it took, it was ‘took’ and on we all go.

 

And on that note I think we all need to move on, the railway needs us to come together and support rather than raking over old divisions.