Lynton and Barnstaple - Operations and Development

your guessing, assuming and running with opinion.

The FACTS are we need to wait till around the 12th August to know if they are running on time ot not .

 

Eh?
From what I can see, you and Lynbarn are of the same opinion, and there is no disagreement.

 

If the railway lies to the west of Salisbury and south of the Bristol channel, it doesn't matter if everyone agrees. They will still slug it out
To the bitter end

 

What's your problem? You are saying two weeks, and all I am saying it may take longer before we get a decision. I would rather it take longer to come to the right decision than come out with one which might need to change in light of what else is going on

 

The “right” decision? We’re talking about the results of the poll! Or do you mean the trustees will only declare a result they approve of?

 

Here's a FACT. One trustee told me face to face the desire is to give Parracombe 'one last crack of the whip' so it will be interesting to see not only what the chosen option is with the members but also whether that option is followed should it be different to option D.
The only concern I have with this trustees comment is that in the previous sentence he told me there are 3000+ members when only a few days previous it was clearly stated at the AGM that the figure was 2165 so one has to be concerned about his attention span or whether he had actually fallen asleep during the meeting, the latter would be the preferred choice as it was a rather long and drawn out affair

 

I agree - some commentators IMHO are failing to distinguish between (A) the results of the poll in terms of how many votes have been cast for each Option and (B) how the Board interprets the results and what it them offers to the members as the possible 'way ahead'.

I see the former as a 'simple count' - no need at this stage to read all the detailed comments and analyse the detail etc. The 'heavy work' to which @lynbarn refers can be done in slower time. Admittedly the situation may well be complicated by those who may have written along the lines of "I will vote for X but only if that includes/excludes Y" , but I doubt that would influence the final result.

 

I disagree. There’s possibly a count on appeal/not appeal, but the other options aren’t clearly a popularity contest and will need interpretation.

I would hope for a reasoned decision, in whichever direction, rather than “we won, get over it”.

 

In the options they actually failed to give reasonable points on option H, Concentrate only on the Woody Bay site with the 'trustees view' that they do not support this option. This option should have covered a broader range to include OSI, Rowley Farm and Chelfham as well so that the membership were fully informed, WB is the centre of operations yet the station building needs serious attention to the roof for a start and because of its age that work would undoubtably involve stripping the roof off, the same can be said of OSI and it has been mentioned on more than one occasion that the roof there is in even worse condition than WB, there is planning at Rowley for a barn conversion, £1000's spent on a new driveway to secure the planning yet no action on starting the conversion, the same can be said of Chelfham, an undisclosed sum spent hurrying to demolish the old woodland lodge and get new footings in to secure the planning then having to go back and spend more money rectifying the mistakes, add what has been spent on starting these projects with urgent maintenance costs needed on the railways two main buildings, the two building projects that have planning and the fencing for the Bridwick Farm track bed and at a good estimate there wouldn't be much change out of £500k. Common sense dictates that all of these outstanding projects should be finished first before more money is spent on applying for more planning permission

 

All fair enough but the document does point out that this option probably does not met the Trust’s objectives.

 

I wou

l would think that essential maintenance of trust property is covered by its objectives,if the others aren't then why were they started in the first place, also @Lineisclear has pointed out that building an extension is not necessary what the trust should be committed to

 

There's a whole list which in hindsight, could have been done differently, or better, or not done at all. There's also a whole list of instances where the powers that be seem to have bitten off rather more than they could chew.
To move forward though, recriminations will have to wait whilst everyone takes stock of the current reality, and plot a feasible course forward.
I think some heads should roll, myself. I don't think the same people who created the mess are likely to be the ones capable of fixing it, but things can go two ways. Cohesion, healing and positive steps, or factionism, disintegration and infighting. What do we want from the next ten years?

 

I would like to see cohesion, healing and positive steps as the way forward, as this project deserves it. Should a new direction start to happen (and I think it already is), then those who got us into this mess will either resign or be replaced at the next few AGMs by votes cast for other possible new Trustees.

As Railwast said, it would not hurt to have a count of each option, as this would give everyone a feel of what the membership is looking for from this. Also, given that the trustees have other things to do and that it would be reasonable for them to consider each option and the support it gets from the membership at a Trustee meeting (and I don't know for sure just how many Trustee meetings they have each year, but I suspect it is not every month). I would feel much happier if a full review were to take place, and more importantly, the start of working out genuine estimates of the cost of each option. I would welcome this before they give a full response to this document, which could even mean waiting as long as the next AGM for a full response. As they say, Rome was not built in a day, however hard you try to make it happen.

 

That raises an interesting question about how the trust's objectives are to be interpreted, and what the membership might (or might not) be willing to countenance as a realisation of those objectives. Were that to be the definition, then other consequences would follow such as you suggest.

I'd also wonder whether, had the papers suggested that focusing on Woody Bay would meet the objectives, whether such a comment would have been dismissed as being deliberately provocative, and designed to achieve a specific result.

 

This puts me in mind of the Bluebell in 2013, just after the East Grinstead link-up. There were those, eagerly clapping their hands and proclaiming "Right! Ardingly next!".
Fortunately for all, the railway looked at its worn-out infrastructure, and decided that it's priorities clearly lay elsewhere.
So a systematic relaying programme, plus the "Jewel in the Crown" project at Horsted Keynes became the focus, instead.
And I think that everyone except the most diehard expansionists would say that the correct decision was made.
To bring it back to a purely personal dimension, my own house roof leaks. Until I have had it fixed, I'm certainly not thinking about building any extensions.

 

I was measuring at Snapper in the pouring rain when i wrote my original response but i should have added that concentrating on WB as an option clearly does meet the trusts objectives quite simply because that is all that they have focused on for the last 18+ years although i can clearly see your point

 

I would draw a distinction between focusing on Woody Bay because that is what is there and must be maintained, and choosing to focus on maintaining just what is there. While actions may speak louder than words, I suspect a decision to abandon hopes of extending would raise the roof at Lynton Town Hall - and not in a good way.

 

To an extent yes. There are broadly three factions on the railway (and quite likely on most railways) - what I'd term "builders", "restorers" and "operators" (*) and, after a period when the "builders" had been in the ascendant, the focus shifted back to the "operators" (and now to an increasing degree the restorers). That doesn't mean the builders have gone away, but for the last 10 years or so the focus has been on ensuring that we can run and maintain what we have rather than making the scope bigger.

There is room for all three factions on a mature railway, and indeed it is probably healthy to have all three with a degree of creative tension between them; but the job of management is to balance the needs of each group and to know where the priorities lay. I think in the current economic climate, any expansionary schemes (i.e. giving the "builders" their head over the operators) has to be weighed up very carefully that it doesn't drive unsustainable cost pressures not matched by revenue growth.

(*) My loose definition is that the "builders" want to keep expanding the scope of what the railway has - whether that is more track, more stations or acquiring more stock, perhaps of different eras. The "restorers" want to bring what exists up to an agreed standard, but for many of them, the act of restoration is an end in itself, not a means to an end. The "operators" want to run a railway, and to an extent both construction and restoration (for example of derelict rolling stock into operational condition) is a means to that end, not the end in itself.

Tom

 

I would also add an administration team. Most railways end up with at least one or two people doing all the fundraising and other such things as making sure the backroom boys keep things ticking over on a legal basis. There is a lot of work that not many people see that needs to be done behind the closed office doors

 

But the admin team is not a faction, and fundraising will generally be led by the faction in the ascendancy at that time.