Swanage Railway General Discussion

And yet many aircraft are operated exactly like that where the airframe is owned by a leasing company or bank, and the engines are owned by someone different. Or where the wheels and brakes are owned by the manufacturer and the airline pays per braked landing.

 

Possibly they might if the alternative was that the ship had no engines snd rudder at all…

You can bemoan the fact that Railway preservation doesn’t fit your comfy model all you like - but we are where we are, which is sixty years into a history whereby, decades ago, a symbiotic relationship between loco owners who needed somewhere to run their locos; and railways that needed something to run on them. Done well, it is an arrangement in which both parties benefit.

Tom

 

First requirement is for them to be properly run.

 

Indeed, and in the past said organisation has sold off a loco ideal for line (that SR wanted to stay) in order to fund restoration of more Bulleids (which SR didn’t really want).

 

This came about because the early schemes involved existing railway companies with their own Acts of Parliament. Later on ''We have always done it this way'' began to creep in.

 

Q.E.D.

 

I'm not going to be the first to communicate on here SR chairman's latest musings in which he detail's Swanage's financial situation. But the hard decisions being made are for the good of all parties.

 

Agreed. But by yoking together ownership and control, you are setting up a straw man that misrepresents what multiple ownership actually means.

It is perfectly possible to run a successful business without owning many of the assets you rely on. As @Gladiator5076 observed, it’s the basic model in aviation and is widespread elsewhere.

The challenge for any business is balancing capacity, cost and risk. There are various strategies for this, and none are “right” or “wrong”.

Similarly, while its a truism to say that the best protection against going under is to run a business well, they can also fail despite being perfectly adequately run. Llangollen illustrates the upside of such diversification - just as the concentration of ownership at Havenstreet would, if the worst were to happen, magnify the consequences.

Finally, one last observation. You criticise preserved railways for adopting practices through necessity and then fossilising them as “we’ve always done it this way”. Whether or not fair or accurate, the model of owning everything is a very old one, time hallowed and superseded by other ways of doing business.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

The issue with loco ownership is often the lack of investment put in by the loco owners. Where the loco owner funds the restoration of locos to get them back into steam, then leases them to HRs, then the model is fine and similar to what is done in many other industries. The issue for me is where a loco has been bought as scrap, then the cost of getting it back to steam is paid for by others - typically volunteer fundraising or grants. In this case the owner ends up with far more control than their initial investment warrants, and an asset that has appreciated in value through the effort of others. SR clearly has a good working relationship with SLL, but I cant see MHR restoring a loco not owned by MHRPS any time soon.

 

This subject has gone on quite enough and I had hoped to avoid direct references to the IOWSR.

When Covid-19 appeared the IOWSR owed no money and had no rental or hire fees to pay. Thus the 2020 deficit was small and the reserves more than replenished by two good following years. I understand the Dartmouth 'line, a very different set-up, has also had a satisfactory year
​

 

You raised the implied comparison, and can't reasonably complain when it's followed up.

I did not intend to get into discussion of the IOWSR, but used it as an example of one extreme of the HR model where there is a very high degree of railway ownership of its stock, in contrast to where use of hired stock helped mitigate a disastrous situation elsewhere, to illustrate a point about trade-offs.

More generally, and reflecting on my own experiences elsewhere, the boundary between success and failure can be frighteningly narrow, and pride and complacency dangerously beguiling.

 

Surely the concept of the locos and stock being seperately owned, and leased by the railway, is historically accurate for the Isle of Wight anyway

 

Is there a quick link to such musings?

















can

 

Indeed so They all had periods in the doldrums What was I saying about mixed ownership?

 

From
https://preservedbritishsteamlocomotives.com/34058-sir-frederick-pile-sr-21c158-br-sc1c158-br-34058/
34058 was donated to the MHRPS so can see them working with SLL to fundraise and restore the loco long term,
Hopefully the part owner of Swanage loco will also donate his part ownership so the problems with finishing the overhaul can be sorted so it can run in the MHS and sometime visit the SR?.

 

On the unofficial FB group page there is a photo of new water tanks being fitted, don't think they are posted anywhere else "open", but progress is being made with help from SLL, before being sent to Norfolk for a boiler fit.

 

There's no arguing with that, but that does axiomatically preclude them from not owning all the rolling stock that they use. We'd have virtually no heritage railways if owning and restoring all their rolling stock was a pre-requisite.

 

v

Not everywhere inherits a Boston Lodge to develop but covered workshop and storage space is rarer than would be hoped. Some places have been around for decades.

 

Are we referring to 30053 or 34053? I think we may have a crossed line.

 

30053 is being referenced from what was posted by @DcB