West Somerset Railway General Discussion

Next time I am rostered on our unfitted goods train, I shall makes sure I look miserable so no-one can accuse me of enjoying the hobby in contravention of charitable objectives ...

Tom

 

But maintaining the skills and just having the experience of operating an unfitted train is surely an important heritage objective and that means wagons!

 

Yes. but we're not allowed to enjoy it! Education is a serious business, it shouldn't be be enjoyable as well ...

Tom

 

I'm sure those temptations exist - and what I find sad about @Lineisclear's posts is that they combine some bracing common sense (those objectives do matter, and so does good management) with an effect that I can only liken (with apologies to those who aren't fans of Tolkien) to that of Grima to Theoden, though without the malign intent.

In all my activities, I find that focusing on what we are trying to achieve delivers a great deal more than focusing on what we can't do.

 

I thought unfitted freights were many things and enjoyable wasnt one of them

 

Various of my esteemed colleagues in wagon restoration have already chipped in, but I will add my take on things.

At the NVR (which is an accredited museum), the wagon group is one of the few areas of the railway proactively trying to push education and demonstration of how the railways worked. Freight was (sadly not so much now) a significant element of the the history of the railways, and it is important that isn't lost. Yes, we are predominantly using BR stock - but you have to work with what you have got - in our case a large number of BR vans which cane via British Sugar. [Edit to say I'm leaving that typo in because it amuses me, although British Sugar has always been made from beet not cane!]

We are self funded - we get no money from the railway. We have a shop which raises some funds, but the majority of our income comes from running freight events - freight driving days and photo charters (don't believe those people who say you can't make money running freight trains - it's hard work, especially with the ever increasing overheads if you want steam on the front, but it can be done). We've just run a freight weekend with freight driving experiences alongside the service trains and the weekend was sold out.

Finally, not all volunteers are able to be involved on more complicated items. My son has a significant developmental delay (side effect of complex genetic epilepsy known as Dravet's Syndrome - look it up, it's a bundle of laughs). He is a strapping 6'+ 22 year old who loves being involved in railways. I would love to be footplate crew (and in a previous life was a paid steam driver and trainer at a commercial miniature railway), but I can work alongside my son for a full day every couple of weeks knowing that he is building life skills - both in working on the wagons and interacting with a great bunch of guys in the wagon group. Some people have a passion for wagons & freight and want to tell that story. I actually find your comment quite demeaning - there are many very valid reasons why people want to restore wagons, and while technically it might be straightforward (I often describe it as DIY on wheels), the challenges of making it happen are at least as difficult as any other aspect of railway preservation.

 

Come and try it - we find the participants on our freight driving days love the excitement of riding unfitted freight when not on the footplate....

 

I take your points, of course, but you are speaking to your own specific circumstances whist I was commenting on what I see as a more general scenario. I don't believe, either, that restoring a wagon (of any variety!) is actually technically more challenging than restoring a passenger carriage, where so many more skills are needed - electrician, upholsterer, cabinet maker (in some cases), even gilder (in the case of ECJS 189's ceiling!). Even lining and letting is far more complicated, usually.

 

I would suggest that pretty much the only person in the heritage movement who has this view is you. If the governance of our railways is bad then the Charities Commission would have taken some interest before now. They've had well over 50 years to do so and, even if they only have limited staff, that's a long time to continue accepting mismanagement without action. Taking your approach is going to send the movement into oblivion.

 

There are a lot of valid points in this post. As Tom has said, if you have a locomotive, you need to be using it to get the maximum out of it during its boiler 'ticket'. It's of little use having a small loco available for the shoulder season if the rest of the time its sits doing nothing because there is no work for it and doesn't do the necessary mileage. As regards using large locos on small trains, that's generally a good thing, economically. If you look at the performance bulletin for the BR Standard Cl.4 you will see that it is at its most efficient (8%) running at 23 mph and using a tractive effort of about 50% of its theoretical T.E. A smaller loco would not be running at anywhere near that 8%.

 

@Lineisclear suggested that there is a tension between the interests of volunteers and a railway's charitable purposes. He did not suggest that a result is charities failing to abide by their purposes. Insofar as the tension exists (and see post #44665 for why it may be minor) it is just one of many issues for the charity's trustees to manage.

 

What a lively discussion, with many good points well made. I am part of the GCR "Windcutter" team and, over the past 30 years, we have had many people help keep these 16T mineral wagons running - for the benefit of several different groups.
They were brought by donations to Steam railway magazine by their readers in 1992/3, so that is one group. They run on the GCR and are seen by hundreds of thousands of our visitors, that's another group. They are now owned by the David Clarke Railway Trust (DCRT) who are a charity with an educational remit - another group. Running on the GCR involves the many operations volunteers and paid staff in their diverse roles - another group. Finally the actual group of us doing the physical work and raising the funds......and enjoying getting our hands dirty - so that we can see "A lengthy train" of humble mineral wagons rattling along our Main Line - which was the main reason for Railways coming into existence and why they still are operating.

 

Agreed, but the weight he puts on it is the concern of many. It is a legitimate concern - all activities should be looked at for "how do they advance the charitable objectives" - but the specific focus on activities that volunteers want to do, and the repeated hurdle erection for activities that are heritage oriented ring major alarm bells for me.

The proof of the pudding is in the eating. In all of the examples where @Lineisclear has opined on here, the advice has been focused towards reasons not to do things that members and volunteers believe important. The question "how does this support the objectives" is entirely valid; the tone of the questions has instead been one of "prove that we should do these". My Tolkienesque comparison was deliberate - the effect of that type of questioning is a persistent degradation of will that undermines morale and support.

 

From a slight outsider surely it is best to combine people playing with steam trains to other aspects of a charity such as educational aspects. From what I see the successful railways have people who enjoy running g a railway but also are keen to talk about it. Surely if you're proud of something you want to show it off and tell people about the history. So shouldn't be rocket science to combine needs of volunteers and charitable aims.

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If you cast your mind back to the days when it was the WSRA running around like tin pot dictators, we tried that. The Charities Commission were as responsive as the proverbial Easter Island statue, but without the warmth.

 

OK, I'm going to clarify two things and then shut up.

Firstly, that's exactly what I said - restoring wagons is the easy bit - the challenging bit is getting railways to use them, and convincing people it can be done in a way that actually makes money. We make stuff happen, not always with any useful support from the management (and that's a common thread amongst wagon groups).

Secondly, your original post implied wagon volunteers were taking an easy route because they lacked commitment - and that's what I was calling demeaning. I have very specific reasons for being involved in the NVR Wagon Group which are unique to me, but many of the guys I work with have a passion for that specific area, and we have many man-decades of effort invested in our wagons - we are just as committed as any other area on our railway, possibly more so! And it's not just time, some of us have our own cash invested in freight rolling stock too to make sure it stays around. Once it's gone, it's gone.

 

The approach is one of unnecessary hair splitting. He’s not wrong, but completely overlooks the fact that all his points can be overcome by reasonably competent trustees. The issue (and I have experienced it first hand from trustees that were advised by him) is that trustees don’t always know that they are incompetent or listen to advice on how to present and implement their chosen strategy.

 

I wonder why that was? At a guess, probably because, unlike you, they didn’t think there was a problem and that you had an ulterior motive. The C C will only get involved with the really bad cases, usually involving misappropriation of funds. My late father in Law was a Charities Commissioner and I’ve had more than one conversation on the subject.

 

We had access to more than a few experts at the time and let's just say that unless the charity was in a metropolitan area and there was a risk of serious harm to the population at large, that charity was not on their priority list.

For all of their issues, the 4+1 were not involved in kitchen chemistry if you get my drift.