West Somerset Railway General Discussion

It turns out he was quite young; approximately, not quite 40, from what I can gather. That will be hard on the daughters, sadly.

Noel

 

Simply tragic, no other words for it. No one deserves this, at such a young age, to leave so much behind. RIP.

 

43, according to records at Companies House.

 

As someone the same age as JJP and with a teenage daughter, something like this really hits home. An utter tragedy, I really hope people appreciate the huge contribution he made to the WSR and I hope somehow, that his young family are able, in time, to find peace and closure. At the moment their entire world will have fallen apart, let's hope they are having the support they need and the West Somerset family is able to pull together too.

 

I was lucky enough to work alongside jjp in his early days of owning 4936 and then also when the collection ‘grew’ somewhat. Jonny had the spirit of the early preservationists and wanted to save everything. His heart sometimes ruled his head and things didn’t always work out but he gave it a go anyway. The world needs larger than life characters and Jonny was certainly one of them.

 

When you work it out though, only takes another 125 visitors a week , 25 per running day, buying an advance adult day rover at prices.

The railway has had a few kids go free or kids go for £1 over the summer, maybe that is something that needs to happen every day?

Seems like a lot of locals feel priced out going off facebook comments. Maybe they should offer £20 day rovers for those with a TA postcode, and heavily reduced fares for part single/return trips for those who live around the railway.

Some people online have suggested using a return visit within 12 months for a lower fare.

 

How many of the moaners would travel if the prices did fall? And how often?

More practically, that 25 visitors per running day is the best part of half a carriage, on a railway that has a strong tidal demand - so really only on a couple of trains. That's more of an ask If you offer those discounts, you also need to consider what happens to the income from those groups who do pay full whack.

I'd be looking to incentivise travel on lesser used trains (there used to be a discount for part journeys on the last 2 trains from Bishops Lydeard, for example), and considering how I could make more return from the seats I do sell before focusing on discounts - value and price are two different things

 

I think you also need to ask what the locals regard as "acceptable"
I know during the Wareham trial many locals we chatted to seemed to think the return fare should have been in the £5 to £10 range because they were "locals"

 

I’d be interested to understand the logic in removing the previously-operated local residents discount scheme. I hope there was some research into likely effects rather than a ‘fit of pique’ as has been the basis for so many WSR decisions taken over the past decade.

Many heritage railways run similar schemes which bring in useful revenue and engender much goodwill.

Robin

 

Perhaps the concept of restructuring the organisation where there is an overarching charity can be revisited. Gift Aid would add 25% to the takings which could be used in part to reduce fares by say, 10%. It also makes a great marketing line in that the railway can say "We have listened to our customers" etc. etc.

The concept was voted down a while back but times change and the balance sheet doesn't lie. Financially, it may be the last chance.

 

I’m happy to be corrected, but I don’t recall there having been a vote.

Robin

 

The issue I suggest with proposals to obtain charitable status is over accountability, ie those running the railway MAY be more accountable to the membership than in the past.

 

‘Back of envelope’ accounts here again.

In the last year for which we have figures, WSR revenue was ca. £3.8M.

If we assume that 75% of that is gift-aidable travel, 75% of those passengers qualify (UK tax payers) and the Railway is successful in getting 75% of them to sign the gift aid form, providing a 25% uplift, that would be a

£400,000

contribution to both the P&L bottom line and year end cash.

Robin

 

It was some time ago however IIRC there was a vote of sorts on whether the idea should be discussed. The recent numbers will unfortunately, do much of the heavy lifting.

 

That's what I get for believing something I read in the press! Restoring Thornbury Castle, no busman’s holiday seemed to indicate that he was about 40 (it called him 32 years old in 2018).

Noel

 

Very sad news about Jonathan Jones-Pratt. I met him once on a railtour, the only time I ever met him, but that short encounter left an indelible impression. He was so passionate and enthusiastic about railway heritage and had already achieved so much in pursuit of that passion. Plus he was just a really likeable chap. I would challenge anyone to spend 10 minutes in his company and come away disliking him. And the real kicker is he was around the same age as me as well, it's truly tragic for him to be gone so young.

 

I know that feeling Nathan, this news has quite affected me today as I could see a lot of myself in him, despite having never met the guy. Life can really be cut short so suddenly and really none of us are immune.

 

Although I support the principle of moving to some kind of charitable model, I think there are some somewhat heroic assumptions in that £400k figure.

The biggest one is to reckon on 75% of the income being inherently charitable. That takes some analysis, but things like catering, shop sales, professional services (restorations on behalf of 3rd parties, filming etc) would all typically be outside that. So the big question is of the £3.8m gross revenue, how much is potentially charitable? I suspect it may be considerably less.

On the uptake figure, the NYMR made a great song-and-dance about how much Gift Aid they collected in their first year of operation, and the figure was £400k, but that was in the context of a railway with gross income about twice as much as the WSR - that might suggest a ballpark figure of around half what you gave might be more realistic?

I seem to recall at the same time a figure being given that about 70% of passengers elected to pay the Gift Aid, but it was not completely transparent to me whether that meant 70% of all passengers, or 70% of eligible passengers, which are different starting points. What is perhaps more notable is that the NYMR had two years with one model of Gift Aid fares (standard cost, unlimited return within 12 months); then moved to a different model (10% uplift on the standard price for Gift Aiding passengers). It is not clear to me from a skim-read of the accounts how much Gift Aid they received last year, but the fact that the number is no longer being widely heralded rather suggests to me it is less, not more than £400k. I'd be delighted to be proven wrong.

There are some other non-Gift Aid advantages from charitable status possible, notably changes to business rates and reduced software licensing costs available to charities. Those might amount to high tens of thousands and would probably justify a business case for transition on their own over a couple of years of payback.

So the bottom line is that while I am broadly supportive of a charitable model of ownership for heritage railways (and particularly where that can give a close alignment of member interests and public interest), I suspect Gift Aid in particular is not the silver bullet some might hope for a railway's finances.

Tom

 

And presumably gift aid, which the Governments website says they pay out £1.88 billon per year, is subject to the whims of the guy or gal inhabiting No 11 Downing Street. Perhaps around the cost of a medium sized hospital so the politics could be "interesting" as well.
Although compared to the nearly £3 trillion national debt small beer it would seem.