Lynton and Barnstaple - Operations and Development

I've just read from the website News that the planning application for the carriage shelter has been approved, so some good news at least on that front !

 

L&BRT members should be receiving their Magazine 135 and Newsletter 85 in the post - mine arrived just now, so it must be time to sit down with a cuppa...

 

...is it a 1-cup or 2-cup Newsletter ??

 

Mine arrived this morning in deepest darkest East Sussex.

 

And here in Lincolnshire.

 

But not here in Bristol, or Bath it seems, nearer North Devon (or Cornwall where it may come from). We only get parcels from Royal Mail most days of the week. Snail mail has no incentive, such as money.

 

Looking at my envelope, I suspect the mailing was divided into batches (mine references DN/NG postcodes). How Royal Mail handles those is anyone's guess.

 

Well here in middle England there is actually a reasonable amount in both the newsletter and (tell it not in Gath), the magazine. Surely the time approaches when they can be combined?

in all seriousness, the magazine’s ratio of ‘happenings on the railway’ vs ‘tales of old North Devon’ is in danger of tilting to the former…

 

Hallelujah!

 

Don’t get too excited, but it’s better

enough to make me fill in a DD form again, after a couple of years of annual payments anyway

 

I prefer the Magazine and newsletter to be seperate.

 

Why?
If they’re being published at the same time, it makes sense to combine them to reduce costs.

 

As much to the point, if they're published at the same time, why are both required? There's very little in the newsletter that I wouldn't regard as typical magazine content elsewhere, and if the newsletter only comes out 3 times per year, why not combine the contents? Or, if an urgent update mechanism is required, why not have one paper based and one electronic - though I recognise that this will cause issues for some.

As an aside, and I only had time to skim read last night, I need to congratulate the editor on including a very good piece of social history in the magazine. That memoir, and the light it sheds on the role of the railway in the community, is a cut above the normal historical romanticism cum rivet counting fetishism of so much of what is written about the railways.

 

Fair enough - why?

off the top of my head it’s not done separately by the SVR, Chinnor, Didcot, South Devon, Great Central, Talyllyn, Northampton and Lamport… so what advantages do the L&B see that they don’t? That’s a quick grab of lines I’m familiar with up and down the scale of newness/length/development/size.

If there needs to be a separate newsletter I’d hope we’re clear on why that is. Anyway, given the newsletter talks about a cost-saving drive to consolidate mailings, I think the direction of travel is fairly clear…

 

At the risk of a fusillade, this member is interested in the history, and the recreation of the railway is welcome, especially as it is an attempt at a recreation unlike most other preserved railways, but a separate issue which I prefer to read about separately. Head ducking below the parapet. A minority view, I am sure, and why I also appreciated the farm social history in the latest Magazine, because the writer clearly spent many hours quizzing his family and recording it while they were still around as I tried to do with a tape recorder, albeit late in the day, with L & B staff such as Fred Kidwell, Dick Cording (driver of LEW on the last train) and others. I quizzed a farmer at Parracombe who remembered wagons being left mid-station for loading and unloading. The stories about the train stopping for flower picking are probably imagination, but these clearly were not. Mrs Balment, a farmer on the Bratton Horseshoe, only passed away in recent months - she had some fascinating recollections about how the train could be beaten across it walking (or running) on foot.

 

Can both not coexist happily within one magazine Michael?
First half - history, second half - current operations. Simples

With postage being so expensive it surely makes sense to try to limit the number of postings as much as possible.

 

Both have their place, and there is no right answer. Especially after ructions in recent years, accepting that different views can coexist is important.

So no fusillade!

 

no fusillade, just slight confusion about why all that can’t be covered within the pages of the same publication?

it sounds a bit like you would prefer the magazine to be the history, and the newsletter to be the current railway?

as we’re frequently reminded on here, the Trust has many hats/responsibilities and it seems a bit mad to have the ‘shop’ window of the magazine not cover what’s happening on the railway currently. Although I suppose they could make it clearer to new members with a statement like ‘three times a year we’ll send you a full colour magazine focused on the history of the line, and an un illustrated black and white A5 flyer on the current activities to which are committed most of our expenditure and which comprise most of the assets’

but I suspect that would feel as odd to new members as it has just felt to me writing it!

or, like Talyllyn News, Severn Valley Railway News, Main Line, The Watlington Flyer, the Great Western Echo, Bulliver and Premier Line we could do both in the same publication.

I love the history articles, I’m not trying to shunt them out of the publication, but going back to the ‘shop window’ the current way of doing things is a bit odd.
IMO.

 

What if they have different editors who don't get on and couldn't possibly work together?

 

Some good planning news for our new neighbours at Chelfham Mill:
https://www.northdevongazette.co.uk...anted-for-wellbeing-hub-at-chelfham-mill.html