West Somerset Railway General Discussion

Not defeating, but bending. Volunteer organisations underestimate their scale, because they generally don't cost the labour that they get for free.

 

There's another word that hasn't been mentioned here - "leadership". That's something that goes way beyond just management, and is something that a discussion founded in concepts of professionalism misses. We should reflect on why some railwaymen in managerial roles are so widely revered (the likes of Gerard Fiennes, or Adrian Shooter, or Chris Green come to mind) while others (Phil Whittingham, the soon to be ex-MD of Avanti trains best known for his "unofficial strike" tweets, say) are not.

I do and have responded positively to a number of leaders in my personal and professional life, doing things that I would not have expected to have done. Mere managers, whether "strong", "competent" or whatever, have never had the same positive impact on me, and some "strong" management has repelled me due to the complete absence of leadership qualities that have been exhibited.

 

Just a point on one off events, from someone who's working up towards one in 6 weeks that is very important for our budget.

They are really good things to do for many reasons, and can generate net income that simply isn't available any other way. But they consume an awful lot of effort and, if not kept closely monitored, can distract from delivering the basics - especially if all the work falls on relatively few and there are too few people to go round. What concerns me here is not the gala, or the organisational points that @Robin Moira White makes, but what @johnofwessex says in post #42818 about what Sir Peter Parker famously described as "the crumbling edge of quality". It will take a lot of extra profit on galas* to mitigate the effect of customers lost by that loss of edge.

* - just to reiterate a point that's been made about the WSR and elsewhere, the profit from a gala should really be measured as the additional profit from the event days over and above what would normally have been earned on those days. Those figures are sometimes really quite depressing.

 

I'm wholly with you on this point. On the NYMR board some years ago we talked about "Management by Walking About" when the change in GM was imminent band certainly the new incumbent acted very positively on that, but whether it is still the case I don't know. Similarly the incoming Chairman of the Trust did much the same, but with the same longer outlook I suspect that after a time there develops a tendency to only walk to those where a positive reaction can be expected. It's called developing a bunker mentality! That's when one really sees leadership, when an ability to (to continue the metaphor) stick ones head above the parapet and continue to listen to and take on board a wide cross section of opinions really stands out.

 

I worked directly to two ‘big Railway’ Senior Managers, Chris Green and Alec Bath. (The latter, coincidentally, spent his formative years in the house in which I now live.) I worked with them closely enough to be in no doubt as to their management styles. They were, respectively, a leader and a bully.

Who’s name do you know?

 

I'd take issue with that. If you only go where you're not going to be challenged then much of the benefit of "walking about" is missed. Personally I found it very helpful and, even if we might sometimes disagree, I was always made welcome. Indeed one of the principal reasons for standing down was that, having moved 200 miles away, it was proving impossible to continue being there to listen as often as I would like.

 

Err, I don't think you are disagreeing with me at all! I tried to say that abandoning the universal approach to mbwa in favour of only speaking to a favoured few was definitely the start of a very steep slippery slope.

 

The disagreement was with some of those that I met! The one thing that was consistent was a desire to see the railway succeed even if agreement on the best way to do that was sometimes absent. The most important feature for me was listening to other's opinions.

 

I'm sure that everyone wants the railway to succeed, or why would they be there? But what they want they railway to succeed as is a key point. Some just like railways and would probably work as a volunteer on one of the mainline TOCs if only they could, whilst for others it is the heritage aspect that motivates them. I freely confess to being in the latter category, and I happen to think that heritage railways should try as hard as they can to reflect the surroundings that they existed in for for almost 150 years before they closed to "proper" traffic That would go a long way to give them individual character. At the moment too many lines within the UK are essentially clones of whatever survived into Barry scrapyard and Mk 1 carriages. I think we are seeing signs of a realisation that we have to do better, but we're seeing more and more management being appointed who have no real interest in the heritage side unless it has a commercial value, where what we really need are managers who can see the commercial of heritage. There's a subtle but important difference there!

 

Evidently, they are very short of money so loss of face is preferable to further financial losses

 

That seems entirely consistent with the info from a few years ago that the WSR needed £500k pa to make good a backlog of infrastructure maintenance, together with the lack of evidence of any such funding having appeared.

 

I would love to see more defined local identity on some lines - e.g. an authentic midland rake on the KWVR and defo more pre-BR liveries on locos . But there aren’t enough pre-BR coaches around to do it I don’t think. Plus, for me, I like to see a variety of engines - I love that the NYMR has LNER, LMS, NER, BR, SR and Industrial locos. Sure an S15 isn’t authentic to the line but it’s the only place you can see one north of Hampshire I think!

 

Nymr has it about right .Diesel and Steam the wsr use more steam than Diesel . It would be nice to see a variety. How ever due to the axle weight on line heavier locos are unable to run ,the class 47 is on nymr for 2 years although that could be longer, visiting steam locos aren’t able to go any further than bishops lyn Due to the axle weight .

 

Some sweeping generalisations here that are not necessarily truisms. Although there are few lines that can get away from Mk 1s entirely there are others, such as the NYMR that could do better than they currently do, especially on "high days and holidays", and I know from my own experience that there are very few carriage restorers, for example, who can actually remember anything other than Mk 1 passenger stock in service - so interest can and does outlive nostalgia, and that is certainly true of the visitors - how many visitors can remember Warwick Castle or Stonehenge in their pomp, let these are two major attractions!

I do agree that heritage railways have to become "more than just a train ride" and this brings with it other opportunities for, for want of a better word, "sideshows". A greater degree of theatricality as in "Polar Express" will undoubtedly place its part, but it would be good if something less American and more British in theme could be evolved! What we should also be looking at are alternative attractions such as Longleat, where visitors go for both the house and safari park, or Beaulieu with house and motor museum. It has to be remembered that we are in the entertainment business and our visitors interest has to be both provoked and retained throughout the course of their time with us.

 

If there were the interest in recreating lost stock, there's nothing to stop it happening. The IMR already have a couple of bogie vehicles readily (and refreshingly honestly) described as 'reconstructions' ... and a look at many posts from Mona's Isle over the past few years (including in the teeth of those lockdowns) suggests those might well not be the last .... I certainly hope not!

The Mighty Blodge has recreated both 4w and bogie stock for their own line, plus (at least) the WHHR and WLLR (not counting newly designed product, from components to complete carriages, for among others, La'al Ratty, the TR and assorted undergubbins for the IMR and L&BR).

... and all the foregoing leaves such (superb) restorations as seen on the IWSR, Bluebell and the Knotty Trust (to name but three) classified thus, even where much original timber was only fit to serve as patterns for new timbers.

A purely personal view here ..... BIG kudos here to both the IWSR and Knotty Trust for completely different and highly innovative solutions to provide new mainframes to replaced long rotted timber components. In one case, laminated wood section, in t'other a modern 'inside out' version of the old 'sandwich frames' employed in 19th century loco design.

 

Whilst I completely understand where you are coming from and to some extend agree with the analysis I think that this statement if it were to be the only comment on the matter (and I am sure that your thinking is broader than this sound bite) it would not address either some of the issues or some of the opportunities faced by heritage railways.

You say the business model is broken. I think it is damaged and in need of improvement. Not broken. The problem with calling it broken is that it leaves the perception that there is neither room nor hope for volunteer participation. This is a dangerous perception to leave lying around, and I have seen that it causes damage and disillusionment.

I think - and I suspect you may agree with this - that the future entails making heritage railways truly and demonstrably relevant to the types of things that the general public believe are inherently a good thing for society. Examples would be, education, ecology and the environment and preserving history. Also training, mental well being and youth development. (To name seven I can think of off the top of my head). If heritage railways can show how they deliver against goals aligned to these things, then they will be positioned to enjoy a wider range of public and grant money.

It is my opinion though, that delivering acknowledged public "good" is not only going to be impossible financially without a continued volunteer input (and a significant one at that), but also that without a significant volunteer input the delivery will be of lower quality and some goals would simply not be met.

Priority one of every heritage railway board and management, must be to make the volunteers "love" the place. This means, not that it is always easy and without challenge, but that the scale nature of the challenge is more than balanced out by the feeling of achievement and "espirit de cors". Giving time for free has to be worth it in the sense of feeling something good comes of it after all the downsides.

Priority two, is to spread that "love" outside of the railway. There is a lot of focus (rightly) on that by managers. BUT in my opinion it must be second priority because without priority one being achieved, priority 2 is so much harder or impossible.

The trick of managing a Heritage Railway in the third decade of this century is achieve priority 1 whilst also starting to achieve priority 2, and to do so without running out of cash.

 

I would suggest not just love the place but love the whole history of the heritage and love telling the public about it