Rolling Stock For Sale

Noting the subsequent comments, I think the issue may still be in the zeroes, not the leading digits.

 

Indeed, but it would favour Stuart if he could provide some idea of how he intends to fund this project to any extent.
Or is it a case of, 'someone donated £20 this week, so we'll buy some screws', meanwhile the roof of the vehicle is collapsing...

 

I presume the latter - on a good day.

More to the point, I think we’re seeing a demonstration of the difficulties of working with very large numbers. The scale difference between £100 and £1000 is large, but can be bridged. Yet people often think that the next step to, say, £100,000 is as easy - when it is whole orders of magnitude harder.

 

Go Fund me = Electronic begging. Do I give to street beggars - No.

 

What’s more we are talking about vehicles which have had a reasonable chance of being restored (being in roughly the right sort of place and ownership) but haven’t been. Fundamentally too few people care enough. Could a well structured communication plan reverse that situation? Perhaps, but it would require a lot of effort and talent. Starting any new preservation effort from scratch at present is near impossible. New initiative is possible, but needs to come out of existing organisations. The halcyon days of the 60s, 70s and 80s when there was enough enthusiasm and niaive optimism around to enable gangs of mates to successfully kick off such projects isn’t there anymore. Expectations of professionalism from the start are very high, and the availability of enthusiasm and money quite low.

 

I was about to suggest that the ghost of Alf Roberts walks abroad again...

 

Mention upthread of Alf raises a different point, also relevant here. The internet means that superficially credible appeals can be made, which in reality are little more than someone scribbling online with nothing behind them, and borrowing templated foundation documents to create the illusion of an organisation. That allows such dreamers (and they've always existed) to do real harm when they could previously have just been ignored.

The campaigns of previous decades (I remember Mark Allatt and friends walking through a railtour promoting Tornado when it seemed little more than a pipedream) critically relied on people who could mobilise others, and create a network of people who would make things happen. So the difficulty in communicating actually made for better schemes, as the people had to be credible and effective to get anywhere.

I think money is also important. Inflation means that the big sums are simply much larger, and that the stretch between what an ordinary person can achieve and the sums involved in railway preservation, are much harder to bridge - this is also an issue in, for example, keeping churches maintained. That's before you consider regulatory changes that require more professional ways of working than the past.

 

Frequently the tool of unpleasant political 'grifters' as well as those wanting special treatment in the US for their child because the NHS said "no".

 

No doubt preaching to the choir here ...

There are quite a few organisations providing grants.
But they don't just hand out money ---
They usually require the recipient to be Trust or other charitable body - which should either own the objects (or have the permission of the owners)
And to have various levels of match-funding as well as a suitable plan for the object(s) - such as an arrangement with professional restorers

 

The 150-250K figure strikes me as a "finger in the wind" number possibly gleaned from a perusal of other projects - but there aren't many of these that have actually been completed, and I'd wager that talking to the people responsible for running them would reveal that they are probably wishing that they had doubled their estimates. One I am familiar with is that of the LNERCA's ECJS 189. It is an atypical one for various reasons, not least the fact that the chassis and bogies had to be largely rebuilt, and the high level of interior decoration, but it would not surprise me if the final bill for it approached 0.5M. Of course, that's for a vehicle being done to an exacting, museum-worthy, standard but it does show that quality costs. Similarly the LNERCA has been raising 80K to finish Gresley TK 23896, but that is for a vehicle that is already well advanced with many of the items needed to complete it already in stock, and may well yet prove to be an underestimate, although perhaps not by too much. Making grossly inadequate estimates though is, in my opinion, paving the way towards much grief and possible failure later on.

There is, of course, the possibility of grants but, as previously noted, these usually come with definite strings attached - strings that may be impossible to deal with if the items for which the grant is sought are not based at a reputable centre, with ownership under a reputable organisation, and it's going to be even more difficult if that organisation has no existing track record. Therefore, setting up that organisation needs to be the first step, to provide donors with some reassurance that it is not a con.

 

I think the term "having a business plan" comes to mind, and while you're at it, why not do a SWOT analysis? As for costings, I would suggest you think about what the worst thing could happen x 2 for both carriages. The Lynton and Barnstaple has built several replica coaches, and while it was some time ago, I understand that a ballpark figure of around 1/4 million pounds per new coach has been suggested. One of these GCR coaches is about 4 times the size.

I also seriously think you are underestimating the amount of time it will take to get just one of them back in a state so it can be used.

Also, before you remove them from the GCR, have you had an open and honest chat with the guys who are selling them and really get to the bottom of why they are being sold? Could a deal be done where you buy the coaches, but you work on them where they are?

 

Colin, @StoneRoad is not involved in the project.
Your questions would be better addressed to Stuart Reeder aka @Stewie123 or @stuartreeder

 

And the advice given, which isn’t bad, requires someone who actually understands what the terms mean. Not in a dictionary sense, but actually in terms of what it means to pull that kind of work together, and really understand how it can work to drive a plan

 

I think the team doing the Maunsell Restaurant Car at the Bluebell had a fundraising target initially of £140k, but that was some while ago, so I suspect it will end up being more - that's with a substantially volunteer team. The Pullman Car 54 cost £750k, but that required essentially an entirely rebuilt interior as well as vast amounts done externally, and also had paid staff involved.

But in a way, the money is only part of the problem. Someone or some group with the wherewithal to raise £150k is well capable of pushing that to £200k if so required. The bigger issue is access to skilled people, in a workshop, with supplies of tools. There are big players in the field who have all those things and still take years on each project: if you haven't got that access, how will things work? Is there anyone now anywhere doing work on wooden-bodied carriages at anything other than glacial pace while working essentially outside and in isolation? Looking at the Restaurant Car, it has essentially been stripped down to a flat pack of panels, each of which has been refurbished, new pieces let in to replace rotten sections etc - and is now about getting to the point where it can start to be reassembled. (There has been metal, rather than wood, working on the under frame as well). It's impossible to imagine that happening, or at least happening at any kind of pace, without space in the workshop, and access to an array of suitable woodworking tools. And even in that glib sentence, there is a hidden infrastructure of competence management, training etc to ensure those doing the work are able to use the machinery ...

Tom

 

That, sadly, is a very good point !

 

Agreed, the GCR-RST is in distinctly poor odour with me at the moment, supporters of the Trust should have been made aware that the collection was going to be broken up, rather than finding out randomly via social media. I also don't appreciate that when I contacted the Trust to see what was happening I didn't receive a reply, if somebody is giving you money the least you can do is talk to them...

 

Absolutely. And harks back to my well-worn trope about carriages being Cinderella's pumpkins, which carry every fare paying passenger to "The ball".
If every punter could be transported, using a beautifully restored 19th or early 20th century carriage, then the memory is cemented, and how many of them would be encouraged to make a return visit, vs a slightly scruffy Mk 1? For the average Joe, engines don't mean anything. Wether steam or diesel, so long as they are well presented that is all that matters.
Concentrate on the "Traveling experience". That where your repeat visitors lie.
That, and catering, and, of course, the bloody toilets...

 

I think that's a bit chicken and egg- if you don't offer them, then folk can't get excited/interested.

Equally, if folk don't get excited, I can see the cost justification being difficult.

Most railways only have Mk1s, so the expectation is Mk1s, and as a result carriages tend to feel less special- also, I don't think that many railways necessarily do quite such a good job of promoting their different stock.

I have certainly been wowed by some of the more unusual carriages we have travelled in- Car no.79 on the NYMR certainly felt special, along with the selection I sampled at the KWVR gala a couple of years back- which did result in donations and additional discretional spend with the VCT.

Our kids particularly like the carriages at Middleton, which I believe are converted from freight stock?

Steam, with "special" carriages is certainly a win for us.

Chris

 

Hi Keith, sorry I didn't make it clear that it was aimed at Stuart Reeder and not StoneRoad