If you register, you can do a lot more. And become an active part of our growing community. You'll have access to hidden forums, and enjoy the ability of replying and starting conversations.

West Somerset Railway General Discussion

Discussion in 'Heritage Railways & Centres in the UK' started by gwr4090, Nov 15, 2007.

  1. RailWest

    RailWest Part of the furniture

    Joined:
    Dec 7, 2011
    Messages:
    3,803
    Likes Received:
    7,439
    Gender:
    Male
    Location:
    West Country
    One thing in the Plc's statement which intrigues me....

    The grant apparently is for £865,000 and will cover such things as 'infrastructure renewal' and other costs such as staff etc - all good news. But the Plc then says "The NLHF grant will also enable the Plc to either fund or undertake a number of small schemes put forward by the WSR’s Stations and Friends Groups, Station Masters and WSR family organisations, including the West Somerset Railway Association, West Somerset Steam Railway Trust and the Diesel and Electric Preservation Group." So apparently, after doing all the necessary infrastructure renewal etc, there will still be money left over for 'other schemes', whereas I would have thought - given the 'doom & gloom' of recent WSR financial forecasts about the longer-term future - that the grant might have been barely enough to last us around until 2022.
     
  2. andykeithharris

    andykeithharris New Member

    Joined:
    May 8, 2012
    Messages:
    95
    Likes Received:
    104
    Gender:
    Male
    Occupation:
    Government Service
    Location:
    Berkshire
    Heritage Railway Volunteer:
    Yes I am an active volunteer
    Whatever the rights and wrongs of the internecine struggles within the railway, this is good news and will give the railway a fighting chance to survive. However in order to increase the chances of this, everyone now needs to stop the squabbling, bury the vast number of hatchets that have been waved around and pull together.
     
  3. Jamessquared

    Jamessquared Nat Pres stalwart

    Joined:
    Mar 8, 2008
    Messages:
    26,102
    Likes Received:
    57,421
    Location:
    LBSC 215
    Heritage Railway Volunteer:
    Yes I am an active volunteer
    I wonder if you are overthinking it ... If it includes "infrastructure renewal" that could include one specific piece of work; it is not the same as saying it will "entirely renew the infrastructure". My understanding is that the submissions had to be against a planned, budgeted set of deliverables, not simply "let's pluck a number out of thin air". So I'd guess there is some specific line item in the WSR's submission to achieve a particular infrastructure objective, which is most likely related to the need to be able to run trains again. I've got no inside knowledge, but sounds more at the "how much do we need to complete the outstanding track work between Minehead and Dunster so we can run trains next year" end of the spectrum, rather than "how much would it cost to relay 20 miles of p/way" end ...

    Tom
     
    Hampshire Unit and MellishR like this.
  4. Bayard

    Bayard Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Apr 26, 2015
    Messages:
    1,826
    Likes Received:
    3,871
    Gender:
    Male
    Heritage Railway Volunteer:
    No I do not currently volunteer
    The best way for that to happen is to sort out the railway's structure in a way that doesn't perpetuate the fiefdoms of the past and to do it before the railway reopens.
     
  5. Snifter

    Snifter Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Aug 26, 2014
    Messages:
    1,628
    Likes Received:
    4,210
    Gender:
    Male
    Heritage Railway Volunteer:
    No I do not currently volunteer
    Congratulations to the Joint Fundraising Group. Hopefully it's not too late to put the cash to good use and generate revenues such as Halloween services from BL to Watchet
     
    Dennis John Brooks likes this.
  6. Sidmouth

    Sidmouth Resident of Nat Pres Staff Member Moderator

    Joined:
    Sep 12, 2005
    Messages:
    9,635
    Likes Received:
    8,303
    Gender:
    Male
    Location:
    Alderan !
    Heritage Railway Volunteer:
    Yes I am an active volunteer
    today's announcement of significant support for the heritage sector is to be welcomed and gives many lines the comfort that they can look forward now into 2021 .I'm pleased for the employees and volunteers on the railway that the award hopefully marks a step forward for them and it is interesting to see the acknowledged fruits of collaboration as opposed to individualism .

    It will be interesting to see who does any press interviews and hopefully the pleasure will be given to those who invested the most into bringing the application to fruition rather than any good times person

    what the award doesn't do is resolve the discussed structural issues which still revolve around Power and holding the freehold , the forced departure of railway family members and the lack and restrictions on railway operation . If anything the award may distract from these matters rather than bring them to the head which is realistically needed
     
    ghost, Paul42, jnc and 4 others like this.
  7. RailWest

    RailWest Part of the furniture

    Joined:
    Dec 7, 2011
    Messages:
    3,803
    Likes Received:
    7,439
    Gender:
    Male
    Location:
    West Country
    I think that you are probably right, but in that case the statement seems even more puzzling. If the grant amount was targeted to a specific task/cost, then I wonder why there is 'money left over' unless perhaps the grant was rounded-up to the nearest £1000, in which case the 'spare cash' may be little more than a few hundred pounds. But every little helps.....:)
     
  8. 60044

    60044 Member

    Joined:
    Feb 24, 2016
    Messages:
    406
    Likes Received:
    785
    Gender:
    Male
    Location:
    Salisbury
    Heritage Railway Volunteer:
    Yes I am an active volunteer
    I thought I had read that the HLF Covid support programme was restricted to organisations that had previously received awards - so how did the WSR Plc qualify?
     
  9. flying scotsman123

    flying scotsman123 Resident of Nat Pres

    Joined:
    Sep 9, 2013
    Messages:
    10,440
    Likes Received:
    17,940
    Gender:
    Male
    Location:
    Cheltenham
    Heritage Railway Volunteer:
    Yes I am an active volunteer
    This isn't HLF funding I don't think, it's direct from the government through the DCMS. The WSSRT got a HLF fund a little while ago as they had been a previous recipient.
     
  10. LC2

    LC2 Member

    Joined:
    Jun 10, 2012
    Messages:
    845
    Likes Received:
    999
    Occupation:
    IT
    Location:
    70B
    Heritage Railway Volunteer:
    Yes I am an active volunteer
  11. D1039

    D1039 Guest

    Copy rows (not heading)
    Paste to Word
    Replace "0 " (zero and space) with "zero and paragraph character" [gives you a list, name and amount on each line]
    Replace all "£" with "tab character and £" [gives you a list with the name, then tab, then amount]
    Convert text to table, two columns separated at tab [gives names in one column and amounts in the other]
    Copy table to Excel
    Sort and analyse

    Worked for me!

    Patrick
     
  12. D1039

    D1039 Guest

    Paid by DCMS. Administered at arm's length by Arts Council and NHLF (formerly HLF)

    Patrick
     
    flying scotsman123 likes this.
  13. Jamessquared

    Jamessquared Nat Pres stalwart

    Joined:
    Mar 8, 2008
    Messages:
    26,102
    Likes Received:
    57,421
    Location:
    LBSC 215
    Heritage Railway Volunteer:
    Yes I am an active volunteer
    This was a separate scheme: I believe the HLF assisted with selection, but it isn't an HLF scheme.

    Courtesy of @D1039 of this parish on another thread, the list of railway attractions who benefited is as listed below - I make the total amount about £8.9m to railway attractions. The caveats to that are that (1) There is to be a separate announcement about awards of over £1m, and so there may be other awardees and (2) I believe this is an England-only list, with separate announcements in Wales and presumably Scotland.

    My understanding is that the grant is time-limited and needs to be spent by March next year - so the recipients need to be organised to make sure that the work they have bid for is ready to go.

    Severn Valley Railway (Holdings) Public Limited Company £906,000
    Hollycombe working steam museum ltd £895,000
    West Somerset Railway Plc. £865,000
    Bluebell Railway PLC £727,200
    Mid Hants Railway Ltd / Mid Hants Railway Preservation Society Ltd (MHRPS) £600,000
    Romney, Hythe and Dymchurch Railway £470,000
    Modern Electric Tramways Ltd (Seaton Tramway) £435,100
    North Norfolk Railway plc £360,000
    South Devon Railway Trust £332,300
    Gloucestershire Warwickshire Steam Railway plc £318,000
    The Kent and East Sussex Railway Company Limited £301,500
    Bodmin & Wenford PLC £260,000
    Tanfield Railway Company Limited £245,500
    Keighley & Worth Valley Railway Preservation Society £231,600
    Swanage Railway Company £223,200
    Ribble Steam Railway Ltd £207,200
    Vintage Trains Charitable Trust £194,800
    The Mid Norfolk Railway Preservation Trust £190,500
    Wealden Railway Company Limited £153,900
    The A1 Steam Locomotive Trust £153,000
    Epping Ongar Railway Holdings Limited £98,000
    Wensleydale Railway Plc £90,000
    WyvernRail plc £85,000
    South Tynedale Railway Preservation Society £84,300
    Middleton Railway Trust £79,900
    LYNTON AND BARNSTAPLE RAILWAY COMMUNITY INTEREST COMPANY £79,300
    Helston Railway Preservation Company Ltd £76,100
    The Whitwell & Reepham Railway Preservation Society Ltd £49,000
    Northampton Steam Railway Limited £46,000
    Plym Valley Railway Company Limited £27,900
    Sittingbourne and Kemsley Light Railway Limited £26,500
    Dinmore Manor Locomotive Ltd £26,100
    Great Northern & East Lincolnshire Railway Ltd T/A Lincolnshire Wolds Railway £25,000
    Aln Valley Railway Trust £21,300
    Cambrian Heritage Railways Limited £20,000
    Colne Valley Railway Preservation Ltd. £20,000

    Tom
     
  14. D1039

    D1039 Guest

    The SVR asked for £1m and got £906k. There was a process (scaling?) but I don't know what it is.

    Patrick
     
  15. D1039

    D1039 Guest

  16. jma1009

    jma1009 Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Mar 16, 2013
    Messages:
    1,381
    Likes Received:
    1,637
    Gender:
    Male
    Location:
    ynysddu south wales
    I suppose it would be naive of me to assume that this new injection of cash into the WSR would provide a reason to rescind the Notice to Quit over Washford for the SDRT and the impending overhaul costs of SDRT loco '88' and therefore see the WSR plc board honouring it's legal obligations?

    And I trust not one penny of this grant will be spent on evicting the SDRT from Washford.
     
    Derek Riley, Fish Plate, ross and 5 others like this.
  17. Roland Bushell

    Roland Bushell New Member

    Joined:
    Aug 25, 2019
    Messages:
    22
    Likes Received:
    30
    Location:
    Minehead
    Heritage Railway Volunteer:
    No I do not currently volunteer
    While there was no detail last night on BBC West, it was mentioned in passing at the very end of the 10.30pm news update. Suspect more to come from the BBC here.
     
  18. martin1656

    martin1656 Nat Pres stalwart Friend

    Joined:
    Dec 8, 2014
    Messages:
    17,609
    Likes Received:
    11,222
    Gender:
    Male
    Location:
    St Leonards
    Heritage Railway Volunteer:
    No I do not currently volunteer
    Unfortunately i am under the impression that the trust as already decided to relocate, sad as that may be, I think that in time that's the right decision for them, Such would be the mistrust, and dare I say hostility they must feel, , a fresh start where they feel welcomed has to be a positive move, this is the legacy that will follow the members of the currant PLC board long after they cease to be members of the railway . they chose to evict the trust, they must take the responsibility for any actions that may follow.
     
  19. baldbof

    baldbof Well-Known Member Friend

    Joined:
    Jun 13, 2015
    Messages:
    1,828
    Likes Received:
    2,968
    Gender:
    Male
    Occupation:
    Retired, ex-RAF
    Heritage Railway Volunteer:
    No I do not currently volunteer
    TseTT, jnc and D1039 like this.
  20. Jamessquared

    Jamessquared Nat Pres stalwart

    Joined:
    Mar 8, 2008
    Messages:
    26,102
    Likes Received:
    57,421
    Location:
    LBSC 215
    Heritage Railway Volunteer:
    Yes I am an active volunteer
    It does say that the Canal and Rivers Trust is one of twelve organisations that between them will receive £34m

    Tom
     

Share This Page