Teifi Valley Railway

Someone must be reading these posts: the Facebook page now shows the hideous landtrain taken away and the remains of the diesel returned, and apparently Sgt Murphy's tanks are at last safely inside the carriage shed! Congratulations.

 

"under attack for no clear reason". Among others: arrogance. On taking over they dismissed all previous achievements as being worthless and wrong - only they were right and knew how to run a railway. There are certain procedures to be observed in taking over management of financial affairs and passing documents from one accountant to another - not followed. Inevitable and unnecessary mistakes followed. Treatment of the apparent creditors was wildly variable. It soon became clear that "previous management" meant everyone who had ever been part of management since 2006, when the general manager was dismissed. There was no distinction between those who had resisted and those who had supported the conman who wrecked the place. Information, advice and offers of help from several of the "previous management" have been rudely rejected as "interference". The new management want all the glory ....
When governments change, the civil servants provide continuity of basic administrative systems, even though policies are completely different. No such luck at this organisation.

 

Such arrogance and ignorance deserves to result in failure, and doubtlessly such will be their fate.

 

Alleged arrogance and ignorance. I can think of a few other scenarios but it isn't for me to speculate, I merely reported what I saw on the ground.

 

Looking at the website they are making progress and rapidly. Maybe a fresh start was what it needed, new ways of doing things, new thinking. New, naive enthusiasm, coming across as arrogance? Their business plan was approved by the bank. They must be doing something right now even if mistakes were made early on.

New ways will always upset remaining old guard who will leave, or if they are being deliberately obstructive, be asked to leave. It happens in companies and in the public sector It is obvious that if you need a lorry you wait until you have a back load. I assume the road train thingy was off hire and not costing anything so why was it a problem?

May be if civil servants changed along with governments we may actually get some real changes to how the country is run.

Cut them some slack. Would you rather it have closed and gone and be proved right?

 

The "road train thingy" was brought in by the conman who took over the railway. He persuaded Rundles that he would buy it. He paid the first instalment and then no more, adding over £20,000 to his long list of angry creditors. The crucial thing was that he used the name of the Railway in all these transactions, not caring about how much damage he did because he knew he could abandon the place any time. The diesel loco "Sammy" he sent away to Rundles in 2013 to have dragon wings added. Students at Loughborough apparently designed them. It was then discovered that the loco needed a new driveshaft and Patrick Keefe was contacted. But once the question of payments arose, everything ground to a halt. So by October 2014 when the conman disappeared, it was hoped that a simple swap could be arranged. But Rundles had to be persuaded not to charge for transport. Hence the delay.

You are unfamiliar with the sequence of events at the TVR. A successful tourist Railway was badly affected by the recession, diminishing number of volunteers and lack of safety critical personnel. The chairman persuaded members to hand over management to a local businessman who began investing in the improvement of visitor facilities. The treasurer however discovered that he was running down his local business and was on the brink of closing it. He then began to make difficulties about paying bills and it was discovered that he had kept secret a track inspection report by TIR which had found dangerous defects. The treasurer took legal advice and a solicitor's letter was sent. The chairman then organised a vote of censure on the treasurer and she was dismissed. The conman lifted the first stretch of track to give him access to a spruce plantation downline and began extracting timber, selling off railway property for scrap and eventually clear felling ancient trackside oak trees. Having made as much money as possible, he left and set up a new business in his old shop. The "old management" then departed and the new management took over. But there was no recognition of the difference between those who had supported the conman and those who had tried to remove him. So it's not a simple case of old resenting the new.

 

The trouble is we only hear your side of the story......the people on the ground told me they are trying to keep a dignified silence. I would suggest you might do the same and give them a chance to get the place up and running. What exactly are you hoping to achieve?

 

Well, yes, if they lack safety critical personnel. There's been way too many accidents (including fatalities) on heritage railways over the last several years (1 or 2 are way too many!) and the last thing we want is any more.

 

"dignified silence"! see page 13 of this thread from Nikki Cox, the new treasurer, who resolutely refused any help or advice at all.
My concern was to put the record straight and tell the truth about what happened. You can find a detailed record on the Facebook page for Simeon Rowe, called "Teifi Valley Disaster". After over 30 years work building up the Railway from nothing, it is not pleasant to be thrown out and told you and all your colleagues were useless and mistaken, and only the new manager is right, despite his being sacked for incompetence years ago.

Now a certain stability has been achieved. But I am still being approached by the conman's creditors, who cannot understand why assets that he brought to the railway are still there and in use, when they should have been sold to honour the debts, and Mrs Cox congratulates herself on her "success".

 

I think you need to take time out to see how you are coming over here. I don't know where the truth lies , but isn't the important thing that the Line is picked up from the mess and kept going? You aren't going to achieve that by sniping at the precious few volunteers available, rather the opposite.

 

The line wont keep going without issues being resolved. Personally I feel that there should be some sort of full disclosure of a) what happened, and B) how has that been rectified.

From what I can gather by reading this thread, the secrecy between management, and the public (including those involved in the line below management level) is what has allowed the situation to occur. What has happened here is very serious, if it happened within goverment there would be outcry for a full inquiry.

I fully support getting the railway up and running again, but if you rebuild it on a shoddy foundation it will fail again.

 

I don't see how that can be, the current management is there less than a year. What went on was before their time, they didn't allow the situation to occur, and they are trying to rescue the line.

 

You said it yourself...

If they are asking for help, maybe being a bit more transparent with what actually happened might give reason to help.

For instance...
1) how on earth did someone manage to take control of the railway.
2) how did it get so far as to having track ripped up.
3) why did the society agree to having track removed.
4) how has the individual concerned managed to walk away seemingly unscathed.

There are many, many, more questions to be asked and answered before the railway can be saved.

 

But none of that is to do with the current management. Why should it matter now? What makes you think the questions can actually be answered?

 

BIB - they don't want help - have a look at post 249 on page 13 and the following responses in posts 250 - 258

Probably best to leave it at that, let them get on with it and see what happens over the next year or so. If it fails then they can only blame themselves for cutting off the potential support of others (and Nat-Pres), if it succeeds then more power to their elbows...


Keith

 

It's my opinion that this outfit isn't mainstream preservation so enthusiast assistance and NP wont make a lot of different. It's about the local community doing something for the locality

 

Guitar: answers to these questions can be found on Facebook, Simeon Rowe, Teifi Valley Railway Disaster page, in which several of the "old management" contribute as much detail as possible. The facts are out in public and several NP members have recognised it as the dreadful warning that it is. It seems that Reading General has missed the point. I'll make it as simple as possible: "baddies" take over, throw out experienced management - "goodies" come in, throw out baddies , throw out experienced management all over again. Railway goes straight from one dictatorship to another.
I think I have done all I can to bring the facts out into the open.

 

I'm not on any side, but you must see that I have no way of knowing if indeed you were the goodies and I can't see what you are hoping to achieve.

 

Well for a start its hard to trust what is written on a facebook page. I don't just want an answer to the question, but I want the correct answer. I haven't read the facebook post yet, but I will do. And whilst the facts may be out in public, there is also an awful lot of conjecture, opinion, & (probably) lies mixed in with the facts.
A clear statement on a dedicated page on the website would be much more trustworthy than facebook, and much more professional to be brutally honest.
And as far as dictatorships go, a benevolent dictatorship is ALWAYS better than running things by comittee.

I am a steam railway enthusiast, I want to see you succeed, I am prepared to give the benefit of the doubt because of that. But so far all I can see are a few facebook pages, not reliable facts.
Facebook is for teenagers, if you want the railway taken seriously put a professional face on it.
Get rid of the old website and link it to the new website. If you type "Teifi Valley Railway" into google, the top link is to the old site. People may confuse it for the current website as the link to the new site is small (especially on a mobile / tablet). The old site makes the railway look bad.
Update the new website more often than the facebook page (not the other way around).
And that's just things I've noticed from a cursory search based on this thread. And before I had read this thread I had never heard of the Teifi Valley Railway, which makes me doubt the capability of the advertising team.

A bad product marketed well will always do better than a good product marketed poorly. I am not in a position to judge the quality of your product as I haven't been (yet). But I can tell you now that the online marketing would be charitably rated as poor.

I am not trying to pick on you, or the railway. I am trying to help in the limited capacity that I can from the wrong side of the country.