Steam engines available for traffic in 2014

And I question the word AVERAGE too. We're talking overhauls and not restorations from a Barry wreck remember. It would be nice to compile some figures but I suspect some costs will be the subject of "commercial confidentiality."

 

I have made the point several times, that the overall 'movement' is the only reasonable way that an 'outsider' is able to get some sort of handle on the true financial situation. This represents cash flowing out of the movement. Of course every railway will have very different circumstances. To try and make individual assessments without privileged knowledge would be impossible, and I don't intend publicizing my own railways washing .

Reading General: I am obliged. The average figure of 400K for the overhaul of a locomotive, which in most circumstances is certainly more than 60 years old, appears to me to be realistic. I have the unfortunate privilege of having to observe at close quarters a wide variety of oxidizing bottom ends. I keep away from the Boilers. This is not to say that others may find the estimate a little on the high side.

It would be extremely good news for the loco's if I were wrong again !

 

Nobody is isolated. Failure or success of one part of the movement has ripples that benefit or harm others in it. Some economic forces apply to all; coal and steel prices, disposable income, legislation. If somebody takes liberties with safety and comes unstuck, it impacts on your next HMRI inspection even if you have been a good boy. Every railway in the country has the same constraints on sales - a 60 minute drive away is pretty much all you will get. Some catchment areas overlap with each other and are fishing in the same pond for customers as others. You can try to duck the laws of supply and demand but if there are more seats than bums to put on them, financial resilience will be elusive. I can see that many posters in here either aren't concerned with financial issues or are simply trusting that everything will be OK because it always has been. Perhaps you are right. But simply on a personal note, and I am only here to learn, I sense a financial crisis, and sense we are actually already in it. We are capital and labour intensive and there is a growing disconnect between sales, available capital, and costs. This is manifesting itself in a bow wave of debt and deferred maintenance across almost every railway. I make a point of reading heritage railway published accounts and do my best to understand them. Not one is generating cash reserves. Very few are covering their own real costs. Some are heading year on year towards being basket cases. One or two are already there. Do not assume that railway Directors are superhuman, they are not. Too few are financially literate. As any pilot will tell you, it is easier and safer to spot a storm ahead and steer round it than to try flying out of the eye of it. This forum was quick to attack a scheme elsewhere on this page to buy and restore an ex-Barry 28xx as improbable. I make no comment other than to ask if the chaps involved understand the real cost, today, of resurrecting something with no tender or fittings, and how much it is able to earn. Because if your business plan is to spend a million quid and your earning capacity is capped at £400 a day, and you have another round of big expenditure 10 years down the road, you are sailing into choppy waters. Better to understand than just hope for the best.

 

Thank you Saggin Dragon, and the two railways you mention are both subject to the 60 minute rule, but their catchment is tourists already staying within that circle. It isn't rocket science, it is a commercial reality for all tourist attractions.

Feel free to hold your breath as much as you like. Why don't you name for me just one heritage railway that does not have one (or more) of the following features; a TSR because of condition of track due to deferred maintenance/renewals, a locomotive for which there is work but OOU because the certificate has expired and there is no money to finish its overhaul, a share issue not fully subscribed, a shabby coach in traffic that should have been withdrawn at least a year ago, or a civil engineers report saying there are looming issues with the estate that exceed the budget. I do look forward to hearing which one it is. Perhaps it should call itself the Heaven Valley Railway, because if there is one, it is truly blessed. Or it is the L & H.

As for juggling the books to disguise oodles of cash while chinging the public purse for gift and grant as you suggest, that is fraud, which is still a crime in this country. Would you like to name just one railway that is doing that? Do you actually have a shred of evidence that anyone has sunk that low? If you have, the Police should be your next port of call, not this forum.

 

Some may like you, others loathe you but you write an awful lot of sense.

 

He makes lots of sweeping generalisations which he can't back up with any facts...

 

I think that Middleton would fit these requirements quite nicely. OK, it is only small, doesn't have significant earthworks or share issues but it does have about a years turnover in the bank and can fund new boilers and cylinder blocks as long as they don't come along like buses. New boiler ordered today.

In order to get some real figures you need to define what is being overhauled. 0-4-0ST's are as far removed from superheated pacifics as you can get and there is still a huge difference between the latter and a saturated ex BR 0-6-0T. Volunteer support does help sway the bottom line significantly but I wonder how that would stack up if volunteer labour was given an accounting cost? HLF use (or used to use) £50/day for cheap labour, £150 for skilled and £350 for professional as a costing basis. Adding those to your paper bottom line will probably level the playing field substantially. Having said that, volunteering to reduce costs allied to generous benefactors forms the backbone of the whole movement. Without it, the Talyllyn would have folded in 1951 and there would be no Nat Pres discussing any of it.

 

Depreciation is not the same as cash. The one truly verifiable figure on any balance sheet is cash in hand and at bank.

 

I am so sorry you feel this way. I do so hate upsetting lineside photographers. Here is a fact for you. Of your 2763 posts, 64 people have liked them. Just about 2-3% of your efforts have inspired your readers to bother clicking a button. The comparative positive response rate for GFG posts is about 20%. And I don't come in here to make friends or drum up traffic for a blog! or to be liked. I come here because I value the opinion and learning of other active preservationists and hope to learn something and am always grateful when serious informed and thoughtful players take the trouble to engage with my ignorance.

 

Oh diddums, no-one likes my posts. I'll go and cry in a corner. If we're going to talk about ourselves in third-person then Neil Scott doesn't really care, btw.

Why don't you provide some facts to back-up your arguments instead of expecting everyone else to prove them for you. I see literally nothing of any substance except a load of old "we're all doomed" twaddle from you.

 

Jesus H Christ!

 

I'm reminded of a passage in Cs Lewis' book 'That Hideous Strength' which is in part a satire on University administration.

And in many ways a preserved railway is more like a college than a mainstream business since its main aim is simply to be doing ths same thing for the next 25 years as it did for the last...

As for the other comment, carefully juggling the books so the correct figures appear in the most advantageous columns is competent accountancy. Fraud is when the figures aren't correct. Surely you're familar with the joke that has the punchline 'what would you like 2+2 to equal Mr President?'

 

Oh dear, a "my dad is bigger than your dad" post. Such a childish response rather destroys your argument.

 

There are those who argue that it should but at the end of the day it's free labour. How long that free labour lasts is another matter.

 

To set the record straight for the other posters who have been on here for several years and haven't achieved your seemingly enviable standard, 'like's a relatively new option. I'm sure that, if people could be bothered trawling back through some six years of posts, Neil and a lot of other people would have amassed far more of these accolades which you seem to be setting such value to.
You normally post good, thought-provoking comment. Such a shame that this time you pressed send without considering what you have put. Now let's get back to saving the heritage railway movement.

 

For someone who claims to be "ignorant," you make many bold assertions as if they were fact but you ask others for evidence when they counter your argument. It's a very strange gem that you are playing - Devil's Advocate or axe grinding?

 

L&H again? You do seem to have a fixation on it. I rode it on 1st August last year - pretty much within peak season I think you'd agree, and they operated the whole day's service using one Bagnall saddle tank. No wonder their overhaul costs are low. Try that on the SVR / Bluebell / Mid Hants etc.

 

I would suggest Devil's Advocate, trying to get everyone to think about the future.