Meon Valley Railway Restoration

Enthusiasm is both an asset and a disadvantage. The art is to direct it so that you get more of the former and less of the latter. I'm not seeing much artistry yet.

Does anyone know how many members there are of the society?

 

People like the Meon Valley fantasist(s) never, ever think of the bigger picture. One day a few of them might finally wake up to the fact that the mix of pipe dreams and social media can be a highly counter-productive thing to the preservation world at large, but I'm not holding my breath.

I have a feeling that 'Steve the manager and lead planner' has stopped looking at this thread and is busily concentrating on the important business of sticking his fingers in his ears, keeping his eyes tightly shut and going "LalalalalalalalaIcanthearyou".

 

Why keep putting down the meon scheme they have a dream they i should think they know full well they will never reopen the whole line they are talking about opening a section which don"t involve any major engineering, some people on here seem to have an axe to grind, maybe only maybe they might at one time thought the same thing, and now someone has done it they don"t like it.
The members of the meon scheme might even be members or ex members of other societies who want a new adventure, what does it matter they have a dream let them get on with it, if it fails then you can all have a good laugh and say i told you so.

 

I am afraid this posting epitomises the "wouldn't it be nice" attitude" which is IMHO almost deplorable. Yes people will only volunteer where they want to. However if undergrowth clearance really is your bag then I am sure that 21B will welcome you warmly at the MHR which is hardly a million miles away. Elsewhere, the W&LLR has periodic undergrowth clearance weekends and the W.H.R. is seeking to establish a dedicated group for the purpose. Every railway needs this sort of work to be done.

Railway preservation really does need to grow up and this does not stop at avoiding daft new projects. Existing schemes need to ensure that new faces get a warm welcome.

PH

 

A dose of realism is a bitter medicine.

 

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is precisely why the toxic mix of dreamers and social media is so bad for railway preservation.

They have these wild pipe dreams, use the internet to broadcast them and the moment a few people aren't agreeing with their rose-tinted vision and aren't going "Yeah wow, what a fantastic idea. You are a genius and a visionary..." out come the toys from the pram, usually with a dose of invective hot on their heels.

If this Steve character has the attitude outlined by Ralph at such an embryonic stage of trying to fulfil his dream, what on earth would he be like in negotiations with a difficult landowner or jobsworth council official?

As I said, they never see the bigger picture...

 

I'll tell you what is deplorable, people condemning every extension, re opening or new build plan that comes along. Many of today's established schemes were written off by naysayers at their inception. The history of railway preservation is littered with failed projects of one sort or another and if the Meon scheme joins this list it will be nothing new. It's one thing to give a balanced appraisal of the problems involved - as did W14 - but it's another thing entirely to dismiss people simply because they're newcomers and criticise them for being "dreamers." For heaven's sake, it's the dreamers amongst us who got all of the successful schemes started in the first place. Large doses of reality follow soon after but it's important to keep the dream alive nonetheless.

 

Just about every scheme has had to bypass the dreamers at an early stage to get anything achieved. The trouble is with this proposal is apart from being far too near an existing scheme it is slap bang in Nimby territory and there will be zero tolerance of the "linear scrapyard" phase which far too many lines never really progress beyond. Actually I think the Nimbys are right here and this is part of the "growing up" which needs to be done generally.

As you say W14 has said it all.

PH

PH

 

In terms of the atmosphere for new projects only two things have really changed since Tom Rolt went to visit Sir Haydn Jones in the 1950s. 1. The number of existing schemes is much larger, and they are quite sophisticated leaving little room for "innocents" starting something new. 2. The speed of communication has developed out of all proportion. These changes mean that new ideas come under early and intense scrutiny. Only the very best ideas, with sufficient forceful and organised support can move ahead, and that hasn't changed really.

I think the thing that marks out at an early stage potentially successful ideas in today's world, is how they handle that speed of communication created by the internet. It is a potential benefit, but you have to "have your ducks in a row" first, because the questions come thick and fast. This feedback can work to your advantage if you already have a robust plan, but destroy you if you do not. Credibility is utterly essential, and very easy to loose on the internet. Some schemes (P2 loco company, Bridge the Gap, MCR to name three fairly recent ones) do the groundwork first, then share it with the world, and they manage their image. Other schemes try to do the groundwork in public. This is a difficult way to progress, and not as likely to be successful.

Dreaming is absolutely fine, but so is criticism, and actually dismissal of poorly executed ideas is also ok. Railway preservation has always been about survival of the fittest. Long may it continue to be so, as it has brought us the remarkable range and variety we enjoy. (BTW don't think I confuse "fitness" with "size", some of our biggest lines are a long way from being the fittest).

Perhaps sadly, some of the romance of preservation, and certainly the innocence and naivety has gone forever. Any scheme which consciously or otherwise seeks to recapture that pioneering spirit of the 50s, 60s, 70s and even early 80s, is very unlikely to achieve its aims in modern Britain. Perhaps better to go and try to rescue a shortline in the USA or a railway in South America.

 

I'd add a third thing, which is that, in preservation terms, the possibilities for preservation now are much reduced relative to the relative cornucopia of riches available to the pioneers in the 1960s and 1970s.

Apart from the route itself, what of the Meon Valley actually exists in meaningful form, at any price - not just the knockdown prices previously paid? What opportunities are there for getting rolling stock that is historically appropriate, or preserving any of the original infrastructure? OK, you could conceivably put a narrow gauge line along part of the trackbed, a-la Bure Valley Railway, and stock it with new-build locos and carriages, unstaffed halts and automatic signalling - but that isn't preservation of the Meon Valley Railway in any meaningful sense. I'm not sure what a scheme along those lines would offer that simple preservation of the trackbed as a long distance footpath or cycle track doesn't achieve (such as the Horsham - Shoreham line in Sussex). And the footpath option is potentially appealing to a local Council wanting to tick boxes about public health and participation in exercise activity at relatively low cost to the council, in a way that any kind of railway simply isn't.

Tom

 

Hard to disagree with that. The romance of many things has disappeared these days.

 

And the difference between a dream and a vision is?

 

Depends upon what you have been eating.

 

What James said, Spamcan.

Reopening a railway has never been easy, but those pioneers back in the day had one heck of a head start compared to some of the dreamers of today - like 40-50 years.

A dream and a Farcebook account do not a viable reopening proposal make. Unfortunately there are some who believe it does. And, equally unfortunatrly, others who - for heaven's sake - defend their right to make a spectacle of themselves in front of a public and officials who are all-too ready to tar every railway enthusiast with the same 'loony' brush, making life that much harder for the doers who do have their heads screwed on right.

Ask yourself this, Spamcan. If someone came up with a viable proposition for some sort of railway attraction in, for example, the Luton/Dunstable area, are the council officials who were bombarded with letters from that most famous of fantasists, the redoubtable A Roberts, Esq, going to welcome it with open arms... or are they going to go "Oh no, here comes another one"?

 

A dream is a desire without a plan ... A vision is a desire with a plan of how to realise it....

A dreamer is someone who can imagine without being able to realise the desire - they are unable to build a compelling picture and engage others to help deliver it ....

A visionary is someone who finds a way to realise the dream - they can at the very least plan a way to paint a compelling enough picture to get others interested in the dream....

 

In a totally different context I've found myself having to discern between those with a vision and those with what only could be described as a hallucination. The problem is that some of those with good and viable visions need others with a more pragmatic and practical nature to bring the vision to realisation. The other problem is that those with hallucinations can sound very convincing. In the end it can boil down to "suck it and see" - but that is dangerous when you're asking the public for donations. I feel that with regard to new railway projects it is right to be cautious, even somewhat obstructive. If the project really has legs and is viable it will be able to prove itself. If not it should be left to quietly die. I don't think it is right though to ridicule any individuals personally, or be rude to them - that just gets in the way of sensible discussion.

Steve B

 

Well said that man.

 

Nobody will be ridiculed if they do their homework first.

If - BEFORE they say anything in public or on the internet - they demonstrate their seriousness about their plan by taking the time - probably a couple of years, at least - to do an awful lot of background research, looking at every possible angle rationally, realistically, objectively and unemotionally; if they contact other parties who will have a vested interest (landowners, etc) and get them onside; if they realistically look at the numbers, competing attractions, the huge logistical challanges, the £milllions needed and where it is likely to come from, where they will get the rolling stock and all the rest of it... and, above all, understand that at the end of the that they might have to go "OK, this project would be lovely, but it's just not viable" ... then they will be taken seriously.

Then, once they are brave enough to go public, they can present a cohesive and rational argument in favour of their plan, which will win them a lot of friends. If they have the plain common sense to do that, nobody will be 'rude' to them.

Unfortunately there are too many who start spouting off on the internet, asking for money, 'garden implements' and so on without having done that realistic background research first. They then compound the error by making public announcements, which they subsequently have to retract, and make themselves look foolish by flouncing off of internet forums in a huff, rather than sticking around to argue their case in a sensible and objective manner.

The three most important requirements in anyone thinking of starting a new preservation project are 1. An appetite for years of extraordinarily hard work. 2. An ability to really get on with people (not just fellow enthusiasts), to be persuasive with those who don't share 'the vision' and get them on side in the face of huge odds. 3. A very, very, very thick skin and a complete lack of ego.

Railway preservation really needs the ones like that, those who are prepared to put several years-worth of hard background work into a project before they announce the project publicly.

What it doesn't need is those who spend a couple of weeks daydreaming, going "Aaah, wouldn't it be lovely if..." put the 'Everybody loves s steam railway' selective vision blinkers on, set up a Facebook page, start making grand announcements on internet forums about schemes that they haven't even begun to do proper background research on and then start sulking the moment anybody doesn't go "Whoopee, it's going to be brilliaaaant"

Society is littered with the failures of those who put the cart before the horse, who put mouth (or, in the modern world, keyboard) before brain. Those who succeed are those who keep schtum in public until they've done a lot of hard work behind the scenes.

Regrettably the Meon Valley 'scheme' isn't the first to fall into this easily-avoidable trap, and it won't be the last...