West Somerset Railway General Discussion

WSR would not have agreed the repayment plan without possessing the means to fulfill it, to suggest otherwise is very wrong.

 

Am I detecting a slight tempering of "goodwill to all men" at this festive time!

 

The WSR has made significant losses in the last 2 years (and possibly much longer).
This would raise doubt in anyone’s mind about their ability to repay a large debt.
To suggest otherwise is very wrong.

 

To start with I rather doubt there is a pot of money on a shelf in the WSR Office labelled 53808. There may well be every intention of fulfilling the agreement but any payment made will come from revenue unless some other funding can be arranged. In this case what is agreed now may well be blown off course in the five year period due to unforeseen pressures on the WSR budget. Indeed if the WSR went "pop" there would be no money at all for this purpose. I wonder who signed up to the "use it and fix it"agreement in the first place as it puts a heavy liability onto the user at the end of the period which a daily hire charge would not. The current WSR management can't be blamed for this.

On the S & D Trust side they now, in theory, have an income stream but they would be unwise to commit to expenditure until the money is in the bank each month / year unless they hold sufficient funds to act as a buffer. 53808 has not had a full engineering assessment so the final cost estimate has yet to appear. Also the value of money decreases over time therefore on the history of many locomotive overhauls it is doubtful whether the full costs will be met by the WSR contribution.

 

It's repay a large debt over a long period.

I don't doubt the financial position, but in an organisation with long asset lives, even if they continue to make losses, the cash could be found by deferring some maintenance. That's not brilliant, but there is a difference between "find £210k" and "find £3500 per month for the next five years".

I'd also not overplay the uncertainty of whether the WSR would still be around to make the latter payments in a few years time. Yes, of course that is a risk, but there is hardly a business in the land - much less a heritage railway business - that could really give any level of certainty about where they will be in five years time. The WSR isn't unique in that respect.

From where the starting point of this whole saga was a few years ago, I remain of the opinion that this represents probably the most realistic and sensible deal available for both parties. There's little point raking over the coals of "who agreed to a use and repair deal"; nor would anyone imagine that £210k represents a cast iron guarantee of how much the next overhaul will cost. That was the deal done years ago; and staged payments to repay £210k is the deal that now exists.

Tom

 

OT I know, but I wonder if that is the same Roger Hardingham ( I have a horrible feeling it is) who used to run Kingfisher Railtours 15 or more years ago? He advertised attractive sounding railtours, then cancelled them and it took many weeks and dire threats to get a refund from him. I believe some were never refunded.

 

Five years is not a long period. This comes around surprisingly quickly. "Deferred maintenance" brought the WSR to it's knees a few years ago. Do you remember the "turning it into a cycle path" warning from a senior director? Despite the popular view of the S & D Trust being the injured party they have made some very financially naive decisions along the way. But, as you say, what is done is done. Let it be a case study for heritage railway management trainees on how not to manage these arrangements.

 

I sympathised with S&DRT when they were being unfairly booted out of Washford, and I still think it was unfair. However, they have moved on to the Mid Hants, and I have to move on, too! I also thought that the S&DRT were unlikely to get a penny out of the WSR towards overhauling 53808, and it was a pleasant surprise to learn that the WSR have reached this agreement. OK, it would have been nice if the WSR had given the S&DRT the £210K straight off, but we have to be realistic, and in these uncertain times nobody can guarantee business survival for five years. Let's all hope for prosperity and stability at Minehead over the coming years - I shall keep going to their galas, anyway, if that helps!

 

That is a rather strange view of how most companies operate. I would not dispute there is a genuine intent and a plan of how that may be achieved, which could include borrowing or asset sales, but like any business there is no guarantee what is good today is still good in a year let alone five.
You only have to look at how many companies are using the NI increases as the reason for closure.
Bottom line you don't know what you don't know.

 

You may appreciate today's announcement - the first guest for the Spring Gala will be 45596 Bahamas. Event dates are Friday 2nd May to Monday 5th May. First time ever that we've had a Jubilee hauling WSR services. Appearing courtesy of our great friends at the Bahamas Locomotive Society who bought their wonderful little 'Coal Tank' no.1054 along to the event last year.

Rather breaks the strange illusion of some users on here that we are only interested in being a Great Western line.

Happy new year all.

 

Several events that really happened created a strong impression to that effect.

 

What's that idiom? Ah, yes - "one swallow does not a summer make."

 

Wow... That's remarkably disingenuous considering the effort the ops team have put into this ...

 

That seems a peculiar application of the word disingenuous. I don’t know @The Green Howards so I don’t know whether they can be pretending to know less than they do about the attitude of the WSR to non-GW locomotives. Are you saying they are?

 

Indeed, but were there not several "swallows" a few years ago which implied that anything not GWR was unwelcome?

 

Aside from the 7F, they've happily had plenty of non-GW locos on the line for galas etc, indeed - they now have a Standard 4MT Tank of their own.

 

That's my point.

 

Unless all those who have informed me of the chairman’s allegedly widely expressed view about non-GWR locos as residents have been telling untruths, there are plenty of swallows and not a few eaten puddings. It will be interesting to see what happens as expensive overhauls fall due in the next few years.

 

IIRC, he owns nothing other than GWR locos.

I would guess that 98% of the customers just want something that emits smoke, steam and the right noises.

 

I have learned this evening of the death of Hein Burger, a real stalwart of the WSR. Many of us who trace our WSR provenance back to the 1970’s will have memories of Hein.

Sic transit gloria railway.