Lynton and Barnstaple - Operations and Development

I would be a little surprised if the railway could not be built for £1.75M per mile average at today’s prices provided that the money is spent wisely. Some sections will be much more expensive and others less so of course.

 

I’m unaware of the L&B being built to standard gauge clearances and thus can’t see where the additional width for a footpath would come from.

 

The land purchases have been deliberately wider than the original solum, @Steve, so in many - but not all - places it is quite feasible. In this, the early thinking is to link up with existing public rights of way up the Yeo Valley, maximising the value of the reinstatement for tourism and active travel.

 

Colin, did you forget what you wrote about 3.5 hours before you wrote the above?

Let me remind you:

With all due respect, I think you need to stay away from anything to do with the management/project planning/fundraising for the L&B.
Whatever achievements you've made for the L&B in the past are commendable, but you say things without thinking them through, and obviously you have your own plan of a narrow gauge NRM that is somehow to be built on scarce and expensive land on the L&B, and built/paid for out of thin air.
These comments subject the whole project to ridicule as a fantasy project, especially when you speak as "we" as if you hold office on the L&B or are representing the majority of members.

 

Being pedantic, like many of us, if we are not elected to office, we represent no one but ourselves

 

That is true, but Colin has previously made comments which made it seem like he was speaking on behalf of the railway

 

I think the apparent contradiction there results from loose use of the term "group". The suggestion is that there should be fewer organisations, but within one (or possibly more than one) of those organisations there should be a group responsible for fund raising.

 

I am very pleased to see the relatively quiet acquisition of more trackbed and the apparent calming of some of the previous rifts. My real concern is that whilst having long lengths of trackbed is great where do the potential visitors park for anywhere other than Woody Bay or Blackmoor Gate for any further development? Costs per mile etc need to factor in any supporting access and/or car parks - assuming that Planners and/or local residents would allow them in the first place.

 

My point entirely

 

All I can say to that is, no matter what the merits of each section in its own right, if I bring the family to the area on holiday, we will only be able to visit one of them.

How many other heritage railways have a separate engineering/construction company set up, which actually does anything? The nearest example I can think of was the Llangollen, and that went bust, nearly taking the railway down with it.
If you look at other major heritage railway expansion projects, they are either done slowly using limited internal resources (often including volunteers), who are well versed in things like track laying and fencing and can do so for minimal cost once the materials are to hand, or else they hire in expertise from industry (e.g. GCR 'gap' project or RVR extension).

Just be careful of spoiling the atmosphere of the original railway which your primary purpose is to reinstate. I've been to a few standard gauge railways on former double-track routes where one side of the formation is now a footpath, and every single one of them has felt like a massive compromise to me. A path through an adjacent field is one thing, but please keep them away from the trackbed! Also, surely one of the selling points of a reinstated L&B is to open up views of the area which you can't otherwise see?

 

The South Devon: https://www.southdevonrailway.co.uk/special-services/sdr-engineering/

 

...and similar with the WSR at Williton.

 

Quite possibly. It does d

I know what you mean, and yes, it looks dreadful. As I understand, any path would have to be separate from the railway formation, as there is simply no room to accommodate both.

 

Keith, let me clarify the proposed fundraising group would be subservient to the Trust, which could operate much like many national charities have a fundraising sub-group.

Since a Trustee would be part of the Funding Team. It would be down to them to set it up and ask others to help with the fundraising programme. There are many ways to go about raising funds, and to raise the sort of finance that would be required to rebuild the L&BR is, in my opinion, too much for just one person to be responsible for.

How the team develops would be down to those who were involved. I would suggest that such a team will require someone with Marketing skills, someone else with Digital Skills, and, of course, someone with Financial Management skills.

To answer the point of a Fantasy Railway, my view is very clear: first of all, it needs to be sustainable. Anything else would be a bonus. But it also needs to have a set of standards that work for the L&B. For me, the sort of desirable outcome I could live with would be something based on the Festiniog Railway model, where there would be genuine L&BR heritage stock which runs side by side with brand new Heritage-style rolling stock.

I don't agree with the idea of just a 1020's replica L&BR, since there is much more to the Railway, and it covers more than just one railway period. But if that is what you want, then I suggest you get your cheque books out and make a huge donation to make it happen.

 

Whereas of course brand new heritage style rolling stock that isn't L&B is much cheaper?...

Sent from my PGT-N19 using Tapatalk

 

Colin, the main point is that to be credible in making an appeal, you need to have a plan. "We want £N to do X thing." Preferably, the plan would be costed, realistic, implementable (and planning approved to show that it is actually implementable), but any sort of plan will basically do. At the moment, I'm not clear that the L&BRT has such a thing, beyond "let's go to Parracombe" building on the ashes of the lost planning permission to Blackmoor Gate and the failed planning application for Cricket Field Lane - "successes" that seem to have eluded Mr Miles's write up of his term as President, thankfully nearly at an end.

Until there is a plan, the fundraising point is pretty close to moot - at least as far as anyone other than existing L&B supporters go - and probably not most of them - would you donate your hard earned cash to the L&BRT at the moment? If you / others were to start a conversation without a plan, then your question basically becomes "Can we have £Rm* to play trains and build some stuff at some point in the future please?" which would earn you a pretty short, if clear, answer. Worse, you'd destroy any credibility you had with these funders as someone fundamentally unserious with fantasies who was wasting everyone's time. You don't want that, and the L&B family really doesn't need this.

Best to lay off it until someone brings forward a plan - I presume you've offered to help Giles, Rob and Co?

*Insert whatever fantasy figure you like, you're not going to get it.

 

Others have commented. I will just observe that some fundraisers have raised vast amounts, taking a leadership role and having an organisation behind them - Vivian Duffield's name comes to mind in the arts*.

I don't know the details of what is happening either at Woody Bay or in the Yeo Valley. I have concerns about the Trust, and can see the output from the Yeo Valley.

Reciting fundraising 101 and fantasy organisation structures doesn't help - it doesn't look at what is actually happening, nor does it engage with what is actually going on.

From a distance, I'm content to put trust in those whose activities are generating results, and let them get on with their work. For the same reason, although I've much less confidence in the state of the L&BRT, I'm content to allow those who appear to be slowly turning the oil tanker round the space to do so.

As for what we end up with, let's work out how we might get somewhere first. We can then discuss the finer points of this or that model, and what standards need to apply in the short and long terms. Whether that's a lynbarn set up or a full WHR operation remains to be seen.

* - before you ask, trust me, you do not want her in your project. She has a well earned reputation for being extremely tough, and not sitting well within a large project - look up her reputation at the Royal Opera House if you doubt me.

 

The problem that the Llangollen had, apart from mediocre governance, was that the engineering business was not a separate company, so its liabilities cratered the whole plc.

 

I think the difference there though, relative to the OP's question, is that South Devon Engineering is a substantial contract business doing work mostly for other organisations. In that light, keeping it at arm's length from the host railway makes sense, since a failure of the engineering business doesn't jeopardise the core railway. (See, for example, Llangollen).

Where I think @pmh_74 is right is that for railways where the workshop is there primarily to host the needs of the railway it is situated on, it is not usual to run it as a standalone business. Doing so would introduce all manner of unwanted tensions.

At the end of the day, the L&B is a £1m per year organisation. Even a 20 mile, fully-developed Lynton and Barnstaple (and that dream is decades way, if ever) would likely be a business smaller than £10m per year in today's terms. It doesn't need a corporate structure more befitting a FTSE 100 company.

Tom

 

None of what I have said can take place until the Trust can be seen to be credible again, and the only way I can see this happening is to have a workable plan, or at least an understanding of how we got here and how we are going to fix it.

I don't think it would hurt us to go back to the very beginning and look at exactly why we started this group, which was to rebuild the Lynton and Barnstaple Railway. Once we can all accept that, then I think it will become much easier to move forward.

I have been around the L&BR Group for a very long time, and I have seen this group undertake several projects, some successfully, while others have failed. It would be foolish if we were just to walk away from our history and we were not to learn from it.

I sincerely believe that the Woody Bay operation can become the springboard for the bigger picture, but we must be prepared for some major changes to take place. The recent poll carried out by the trust among its members has shown a number of possible directions of travel, and I honestly believe that some of them require further study.

Tobby, as for your comment about assisting Giles, Rob and Co, then yes, I am considering it. I still think, besides what has been said and happened. The Woody Bay operation is worth saving and being prepared for expansion.

Yes, I will look her up, but I have been looking at who lives or works in Devon, and there is a list of Charity Consultance which holds promise, I would doubt if any of them will come cheap. But the most useful list is, in face the membership list. I wonder if anyone has scoured it recently, all it takes is a phone call