SVR General Discussion

45110 was sold by the Company, though, so there were no membership to consult, just shareholders. If there's one thing I find odd, it's that some are now saying that the loco was too big for the SVR. They have a fleet of class 5-sized engines - Hall, 8F, 28XX, Stanier mogul etc, Bulleid, - all these all too big as well? Does that mean that none of the working examples have any prospect of being overhauled or that the working ones will be laid up once they need overhaul? Will the SVR become a class 4 and below railway?

 

Just on this bit - and at the risk of lighting the blue touchpaper - my own experience has been that of others upthread who have reported a range of responses to this sale from 'sad but right decision' through to 'couldn't care less' - I've literally met no one who has been too far over on the 'shouldn't have been allowed' side of things.

My own position is much closer to 'couldn't care less', with a dose of 'useful contribution to digging us out of the hole'.

Within that, I'm a member and shareholder, one of the first members of the Junior Club and a volunteer from 1989 to 2002 at Kidderminster station, Bewdley MPD, and Wribbenhall Junction. I still know and speak to an awful lot of people around the SVR bazaars - from my contemporaries getting started at the turn of the 90s through to having worked alongside some of the original first generation legends (many of whom are no longer with us of course).

I can count on the fingers of one hand the memories I have of that locomotive, and am fairly confident that outside the generation who rescued it, it simply did not have for many people I know the 'iconic' status with reference to the SVR that some are now claiming for it. Iconic status wrt to the end of BR steam, absolutely, but really for the children of the 80s and 90s I would expect far more nostalgia for Gordon, Hinton Manor, 2857, and the K4. I do remember genuine upset on many sides when Raveningham Hall left (the first time). For the late 70s and 80s Leander was probably the totemic locomotive.

So, if 45110 was so important to the SVR then all I can say is that the generation that saved it and the volunteer workforce of the SVR over at least 3 decades did a very poor job in communicating that fact to the people volunteering at the place. So perhaps the failings lie in nobody caring enough about it well before the current management sold it. It would be ridiculous to claim that nobody cares/d at all, but they are absolutely in the minority and perhaps questions need asking about why that is...

For me, and I stress only for me, I'm about as indifferent (other than being thankful to the cash injection) to the sale of 45110 as I would be to the immediate closure and demolition of Country Park Halt. I could write a list of things that I thought were objectively intrinsic to the SVR, and neither of those would be on it.

Just a personal take.

 

My view is that in preservation structures, too close a focus on legal form may obscure the relationships that actually matter. My previous comments, where I'm broadly supportive of those in charge making and following through a tough decision, should be read in that context.

This clarity of messaging is important - unpopular decisions (and I note @gwralatea's views) are much better accepted where they are clearly rooted in fact.

 

Let us place the sale of 45110 into context.

The Severn Valley Railway (SVR) is not currently financially secure. In 2023, the railway launched a £1.5 million Survival Fund appeal in order to stay afloat, which has only been partially successful. The railway has stated that it is facing a number of challenges, including rising costs of fuel, energy, and materials, reduced passenger numbers due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the cost-of-living crisis, and a reliance on volunteers, who are becoming increasingly difficult to recruit and retain.

While the SVR has taken a number of steps to address these challenges, including diversifying its revenue streams, reducing costs, and increasing its fundraising efforts, it remains to be seen whether the railway will be able to achieve financial viability in the long term. The Severn Valley Railway is not currently financially secure. The auditor's comments on the last set of accounts were stark. The railway is facing a number of significant challenges, and it is unclear whether it will be able to generate sufficient revenue to cover its costs in the long term.

In conclusion, the sale of 45110 was an essential act to help bridge the financial gap. It is self-indulgent for commentators to criticise the SVR for the sale and who seemingly ignore the precarious position of the company. The sale of 45110 may not be the last but I am sure that objective commentators would appreciate that the sale of assets such as these, are far more preferable to the liquidators.

 

The alternate scenario was presumably to keep 45110, try to plug the I assume impending cash flow issues in other ways (trade out of the situation, reliance on Survival Appeal, etc.) which I imagine the board of the SVR PLC figured would not raise sufficient cash. In that case, administrators would be appointed to assess whether there was any viability in aspects of the PLC, probably conclude not, and then likely sell 45110, charging what would probably a 6-figure fee to do so. I know which choice I would have made had it been mine!

 

And its a conceit to assume that people with a different view to the company don't understand that. I've contributed to the fund despite misgivings about the way the SVR got into this position in the first place. The cloak and dagger sale, literally under the cover of darkness has made me question what sort of SVR I want to support.

 

Your affection for 45110 is heart warming but I return to the fact that nobody regarded it important enough to organise a solid support group for it over an extended period. It had no visible prospects beyond out of sight storage in a shed intended to keep carriages dry.

If there is a lesson here it is to make no assumptions and give meaningfull support to locos owned by your favourite active owning groups.

 

That may be harder where a locomotive is owned by a railway, as a further dimension to already complicated dynamics.

 

One point that @MikeParkin65 has raised is one I had in mind after reports of the AGM when asset sales came onto the agenda, that is selling it to a group based on the SVR. The point's been discussed internally: were SVR(H) to identify long out of use locos, wagons or other rolling stock as surplus to operational requirements then selling them to people on the railway dilutes both finances and resources. The group fundraises on the railway (drawing from the same pot when the railway needs cash) and use their volunteer hours on that rather than what they were already doing. At the end of it you have an operational vehicle, but one with which the railway was able to operate without. It's a hard-nosed view, but there's a logic to it.

 

Meanwhile, October's branch lines is up and emails will be sent today https://www.svrlive.com/bloct23 - enjoy!

 

I don't see that that should be an absolute block to support groups. On the Bluebell there are very active groups engaged in both fundraising and overhaul around No. 27 (small), 84030 (medium) and 92240 (large), all of which are company-owned locomotives. Equally there are active groups for the locos owned by the Maunsell Society, Bulleid Society, Camelot Society etc. which are not company-owned locos.

It is worth noting that regardless of ownership, the presence of active groups distorts priorities in that those locos with active groups get worked on. Amongst large locos, the presence of the "Awake the Giant" group has bumped 92240 up the queue. Speaking entirely personally, I think 75027 would have been a more useful recipient of such support, but ultimately someone got off their backside to coalesce a group round 92240 and not 75027, so who am I to say they are wrong?

The TL,DR: there's a limited amount of money and motivation to go round: what is popular enough to motivate a group is more important than who owns it.

Tom

 

Quite - and of course the SVR has a recent worked example with Hagley Hall...

 

I was careful to suggest it is a complication, not a block. I also note the very sage post from @D1039 on the subject - a problem that I know exists around churches, where "friends of St Penniless" organisations can be very keen on decorative works, but less supportive of stuff that is actually essential to that church's activities.

 

Are you secretly on the same PCC as me?

 

The locos with the best prospects of further overhauls are those with active support groups

Indeed and that draws attention to an important fact. Our heritage railways must, as first priority, ensure that their infrastructure remains fit for use. Unuseable track = inability to run a service. The result is that the first call on finances will always be the infrastructure over and above expenditure on a particular locomotive or carriage however desireable.

Our hertiage steam fleets are becomming ever more expensive to keep active (the same is no doubt true of heritage diesel traction). The result of this is that more subsidy is needed to bridge the gap between what a locomotive may earn in steaming fees (for itself or a pool) and the cost of overhauls.. That subsidy can comprise of fund raising, share purchase, legacies, retail activity profit, grants, donations. Most of those are more likely to be obtained in sufficient quantity by focussed, active, charitably arranged groups who own their locomotives, are well organised, are clear where funds need to be spent, demonstrate progress and as a result attract significant support.

This points to railways not owning most of the locos based on their line but rather cultivating long term relationships with supportive groups. Those groups then provide the host railway with motive power paid for as used in a way which does not accumulate unfunded future debt and long periods out of use with little prospect of an overhaul.

 

A beef with the SVR is it's avowedly as much as possible this year using locos it doesn't have to pay a fee (7714, 43106, 75069) while at the same time saying that loco groups on those contracts will have to part-fund the future repairs. Use now, you pay later.

 

Although I agree with most of that, I'd pull you up slightly on the last sentence about avoiding "long periods out of use with little prospect of an overhaul."

The SVR has I believe about 30 steam locomotives based on the railway, as well as a number of diesels. How many does it need operational at any one time? If the answer is, say, 7 or 8 steam locos, then even if every loco had precisely the same opportunity for overhaul in a fixed rotation, it would mean on average locos spent about 30 years out of traffic between each ten year spell in traffic.

In other words, the fact that many locos have long spells out of traffic isn't just a consequence that some are unloved: it is a consequence of having a large fleet based on the railway. You could move to having say, 15 running at any one time which would dramatically decrease the time each spent out of use, but would essentially double your loco maintenance cost without increasing the revenue one jot. In other words - it is financially unsustainable to have an operational fleet much larger than you need.

Of course, in specific instances, well-backed locos will rise through the queue more quickly: that will be at the expense of others, as you suggest. But as a general point, if you have thirty locos, on average each is going to spend decades out of traffic between brief periods running. As enthusiasts, we need to get used to the fact that either our favourite locos will more often than not be stored out of service; or else we need to dig massively deeper than we do now.

And before anyone suggests that the answer for a railway like the SVR is therefore to pass on unneeded locos to railways that better need them - the question is where precisely? Allowing time for overhauls, the SVR probably has a steam fleet that is between 2 and 3 times bigger than it needs - but I think that number is broadly comparable across the whole industry: we have far more locos preserved than are strictly needed to operate the service intensity we currently do. So while there will always be tactical opportunities for odd locos to move around, I don't see the solution as some grand realignment. Rather, for a line like the SVR with a big loco fleet of out-of-traffic locos: make it a feature , i.e. recognise that they are still providing value while on display in a suitable museum facility.

(I accept that for tactical reasons, it probably made sense to sell 45110 given the financial situation of the railway. But selling the family silver isn't a recipe for long-term financial stability).

Tom

 

I don’t believe so. And I have heard variations on that story from a range of clergy in a range of places!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

That clearly is unsustainable in the medium to long term as said locos will just join an already long, unfunded overhaul queue whilst currently only 42968's overhaul is being (part) company funded. The next round of locos to come on stream (4150, 7802, 82045) all have owning groups who would not touch the previous "you provide, we use, dump, overhaul sometime"type of agreement with a barge pole.

 

Indeed. In one case I semi seriously suggested selling the church building and building a tin hut instead such was the focus on the building and its decoration