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West Somerset Railway General Discussion

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

  1. Sidmouth

    Sidmouth Resident of Nat Pres Staff Member Moderator

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    yes however its future from memory is still tied to the original agreement in terms of duration if not in the spirit of how the overhaul is funded
     
  2. Maunsell907

    Maunsell907 Member

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    Please may I suggest you read my post again.

    Note: as of 31/3/2021 as per accounts IMHO (quote) “it was parlous “

    Followed by (quote) “we have to HOPE ….the apparently good trading position in June, July, August ( and
    hopefully September ), the encouraging bookings for Christmas events and DONATIONS/GRANTS
    prove sufficient for the Plc to enter April 2022 as a ‘going concern’.” (quote end )

    Please excuse the capital letters but…

    Michael Rowe

    ps “parlours” changed to “parlous” thank you 35B. (Apple beats my scrutiny ! )
     
    Last edited: Sep 20, 2021
  3. 35B

    35B Nat Pres stalwart

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    Just checking, was "parlours" a typo for what should have been "parlous"? It may seem petty, but such typos in official documents (which should be proof read to beyond an inch of their life) trigger possibly unfair questions about everything else within them.

    More generally, and having not seen the accounts, I must admit the quoted phrase somewhat concerns me. For a company to hope that it ends the financial year as a going concern rather casts doubt on whether it is currently a going concern. Certainly, I would think very carefully indeed about whether I would be willing to extend credit to a company that made a statement like that in it's accounts - whether as a prospective commercial supplier, or for purchasing event tickets in advance.
     
  4. oldmrheath

    oldmrheath Well-Known Member

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    I'm not sure about "parlours" , someone might suggest that's where figures could get massaged......


    Jon
     
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  5. Robin Moira White

    Robin Moira White Resident of Nat Pres

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    It was in answer to a question about the type of car. It is indeed the IoW in the background, so another railway was rather closer. Amazingly that is a mobile phone photo not retoutched or photoshopped in any way.

    But Iris does get around...

    BCEE26B0-0A57-4FF4-A515-4B5AE9ACDCF8.jpeg
     
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  6. Bayard

    Bayard Well-Known Member

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    Forgive me if I seem a bit naive, but isn't June, July and August when heritage railways make the majority of their money? What I find surprising about the Plc's announcements on the summer performance of the railway is not that it is bringing in money - I don't think anyone outside the railway and few within ever doubted that it would - but that it was forecast to make a loss.
     
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  7. Pete Thornhill

    Pete Thornhill Resident of Nat Pres Staff Member Administrator Moderator Friend

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    The remarkable thing about the forecast loss was that it was quite significant amounts. I can understand basing a financial forecast on a worst case scenario, the figures seem to be way off and I’m still not quite sure how you can go from a big six figure loss to a four figure profit as happened in June.
     
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  8. Springs Branch

    Springs Branch New Member

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    Not necessarily, before the Coronavirus era, one of the largest (3rd in standard gauge?) in the UK by turnover was the East Lancs, who make I understand most of its money in May, October & December. Looking at some earlier posts, if I was in a holiday area, and had made as little as the WSR allegedly made in June & July- particularly bearing in mind their starting position I really would fear for the future - bearing in mind as the results this year were well in advance of their budget.
     
  9. Jamessquared

    Jamessquared Nat Pres stalwart

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    My hunch is that, without seeing the actual budgets (which of course we have no right to see), you can infer precisely nothing from the figures. If you budgeted to do £100k of work in the period and then deferred it, you could turn a £50k predicted loss into a £50k profit for the period, but those numbers in isolation would tell you precisely nothing; (and such a swing to what looks like a healthy profit could in fact be hiding an important job not done).

    The variance between the projected and actual figures for each month can only really have two explanations to me (or some amalgam of both). Either they were very pessimistic about income projections when setting a budget, i.e. ticket sales are far better than a very low projection. Or else they budgeted some large items of expenditure which didn't materialise. But unless you could actually see the budgets, and the actuals, you can't reliably infer anything from just the profit figure.

    Tom
     
  10. Pete Thornhill

    Pete Thornhill Resident of Nat Pres Staff Member Administrator Moderator Friend

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    I did wonder about if something has been deferred, the timing of the appeal being interesting, it includes aspirations to invest more in the track, maybe the appeal includes previously budgeted work - we don’t know.

    I agree with what you are saying 100%, in isolation the figures don’t mean a lot, which leads to further questions. If you think about it two likely scenarios are something like you suggested or some major underestimation of the figures, it’s the later I have trouble believing.

    Maybe a third option is that it’s deliberately done to increase the impressiveness of a turn around but I’d certainly hope not.
     
  11. jma1009

    jma1009 Well-Known Member

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    Nice try, Michael, but your spin cycle doesn't work on my machine.

    Cheers,
    Julian
     
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  12. Bayard

    Bayard Well-Known Member

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    It's not as if the board doesn't have "previous" in this respect.
     
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  13. Snifter

    Snifter Well-Known Member

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    I think we are all hoping for a happy ending.

    The question of why the Dear Leader blocked a meeting between the non subservient charity and the Finance Director remains unanswered. Perhaps an acolyte can provide a plausible explanation ?
     
  14. 35B

    35B Nat Pres stalwart

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    My view would be that your first scenario is most likely; I’d be expecting the sorts of major expenditure previously discussed on here to be capital items that would not feature as one off items in the accounts but be spread over months or (more likely) years.

    Unfortunately, the scale of the gap between projection and out turn also leaves me deeply sceptical about the commercial understanding of the plc of how the business might operate, and especially of their ability to run that business in a way that will deliver the maximum potential profit.


    Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
     
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  15. nick813

    nick813 Well-Known Member Loco Owner

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    Came across this on FB :
    'The WSRHT congratulates all those the WSR PLC have announced will fill the Mechanical Engineering posts at Minehead. Ryan (Pope) who has been confirmed as the new Head of Mechanical Engineering and Richard (Hiscox) has been confirmed as the new Deputy Head of Mechanical Engineering.
    Ryan has worked on the West Somerset Railway since 2012, working his way up to Engineering Foreman at the Williton engineering works.
    Richard first started work on the railway as a Tracker in 2005, working his way up to his most recent post of Mechanical Foreman at our Minehead workshop.
    Both Ryan and Richard will be supported by Andy Palk in his new role as Running Foreman, along with Andrew Hurley as Carriage and Wagons engineer and Merv Hebditch as Locomotive Running Superintendent.'

    Can not find it on any other web site.
     
  16. mdewell

    mdewell Well-Known Member Friend

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    I hope they won't mind me reposting this here, but nice to see some people on WSR are obviously getting on with the job. . .

    From: railc@groups.io <railc@groups.io> On Behalf Of ************ via groups.io
    Sent: 20 September 2021 15:59
    To: railc@groups.io
    Subject: [railc] GWR Autotrailer 169 progress

    Good afternoon all,

    Over the last couple of weeks, we have begun to make further visible progress on assembling the next section of Autotrailer 169 based at Williton on the WSR and hope to make more over the next few weeks. We have also started a new Blog showing our work. We hope to be able to show off the work we have completed during the Covid lock down, along with our earlier achievements, at the WSR Autumn Gala that happens on 1/2/3 October and would welcome anyone who might be visiting or in the area over that weekend to pop into Williton yard and see us. If you can't visit in person you might like to have a look at G.W.R. Autotrailer 169 News and Restoration Blog (https://gwrautotrailer169.blogspot.com/), which will give you a flavour of what we get up to.

    Best wishes to all. John, Francis and Tony.
     
  17. Premier.Prairie

    Premier.Prairie New Member

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    Not at all. We are indeed 'getting on with the job in hand' (as are all the other volunteers) after many months couped up indoors. We are hoping to make some further progress later this week so please have a look at our 'Blog' and check back for further updates. If you do venture to the WSR over the forthcoming Autumn Gala weekend (1,2, & 3 October) please drop into Williton where we will be pleased to show you all our recent progress.

    John
     
    Last edited: Sep 21, 2021
  18. Snifter

    Snifter Well-Known Member

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    Nick,

    I tried sending you a PM but the system will not allow it. Please drop me a line with a way of contacting you.
     
  19. Pete Thornhill

    Pete Thornhill Resident of Nat Pres Staff Member Administrator Moderator Friend

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    That’s strange. I just had a quick look and cannot see any reason our end why you cannot send a PM. I’ll send you a PM for more details.
     
  20. FrankC

    FrankC Member

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    There has been considerable discussion on here about Seaward Way crossing. I would point readers to the article on today’s edition of The Platform, the WSR newsletter. This has been widely circulated to staff, volunteers, shareholders and others. It is also available on wsr.org.uk and contains a number of other news items.
     
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