6024 King Edward 1

The 6024 society was the 2nd railway organisation I ever joined. (When I got my second student grant cheque if I recall correctly!)

I fully supported the indemnity. It represented the 6024 society banding together and not throwing one of their own under the bus (train?) to fend for themselves. To me, that behaviour was one of the few high points of the whole saga. The written words were not the single responsibility of the individual - that's why you have reviews before publishing wider. The 6024 society recognised that, and took collective responsibility. At the end of the day, 6024 is a steam locomotive. Putting that asset at risk of needing a new home is - in my opinion - the correct course if the alternative is watching a volunteer go bankrupt due to a situation they contributed to, but were in no way fully in control of.

It's also worth remembering that the court case was lost on a very small point, with the presiding officer noting the correct legal outcome was not necessarily the desirable society outcome. (A photo in the same issue of the journal was taken by a person who was not a member of the 6024 society. A copy of the journal was sent to this person free of charge to show their work in print. This was deemed to have constituted the journal being published to non-society members.)

The aggrieved party had every right to go to court. I fully support them having this right. It's an essential part of our legal system.

But even now, my overriding feeling is that it should never have got to court in the first place. I am sure there were ways to resolve the situation that would have resulted in less spend on lawyers, less bad feeling all round, and a resolution that was closer to win-win.

The whole event was a sorry state of affairs. Obviously if my recollection of facts is incorrect, please inform me and I will update this post.

Ultimately, 6024 is no different to any other mainline loco, and as a support society I suspect it would have succumbed to the same economics as most others in the same situation. Might have ended up with LSL anyway!

Nowadays far worse things are written on internet forums (including this one at times). I'm not sure we have moved forwards as a society.

 

Yes - see this post:

https://national-preservation.com/threads/6023.32903/page-56#post-2066559

Tom