More problems at the WSR

[Boris]

Couple of snippets on the WSR facebook page today with them having to rearrange and cancel services due to infrastructure damage caused by heavy rain/snow melt/Flooding.  A video on their page shows deep silt, track at a jaunty angle and some really nasty embankment movement, hope its easy enough to recover.

 

https://fb.watch/hxGmnA66LN/

[Gilbert]

Not looking good...

[Bucoops]

Oh my :(

 

They seem to be saying they are blaming the landowner "up stream" as it were? Would insurance cover something like this? Cleaning up the damage to the domestic properties, and cleaning up and repairing the bank and drainage is not going to be cheap at all.

[EdChap]

New Civil Engineer is now reporting the landslide, the article being illustrated with a nice photo of 5542 and train.

What surprised me was the following lines from the article:

This has led to the cancellation of a number of its Winterlights services, which takes passengers through the Somerset countryside illuminated by Christmas lights displays.
Local reports have slated the cancellations as a positive thing as the cash-strapped railway reportedly is running on a £1,000-a-day loss.

I make no comment as I do not know all the facts but this statement about the finances comes as a shock.
 

[roythebus1]

I suspect a lot of heritage railways run at £1k a day loss, they aren't cheap to run.

[rodent279]

Is this because heritage railways are more and more having to use paid staff, because the volunteer base is declining?

[Chris M]

I expect most heritage lines will be running on a financial tightrope this year. Costs have rocketed while, with household budgets squeezed, income for 2023 is likely to be lower than would have been planned for six months ago. I hope non of them run out of cash but I expect to see a number of pleas for donations or share issues this year.

[roythebus1]

16 hours ago, rodent279 said:

Is this because heritage railways are more and more having to use paid staff, because the volunteer base is declining?

I would suggest many are still recovering their finances due to covid. Many were on the brink before that but pulled through. Maintenance fell behind due to the lockdowns, cash flow stopped, but certain bills had to be pid just like any other business. There seems to be enough volunteers, but again due to lockdown their competency certificates and medicals may have expired.

[papagolfjuliet]

On 25/01/2023 at 07:14, rodent279 said:

Is this because heritage railways are more and more having to use paid staff, because the volunteer base is declining?

 

Not only that. The latest Moors Line reveals that whereas the NYMR previously paid around £100k per annum for its electricty, its bill for 2023 will be close to half a million quid.

[Michael Hodgson]

7 minutes ago, papagolfjuliet said:

 

Not only that. The latest Moors Line reveals that whereas the NYMR previously paid around £100k per annum for its electricty, its bill for 2023 will be close to half a million quid.

For that sort of money they should running their trains behind an EM1 or an AL6

[Blandford1969]

On 25/01/2023 at 07:14, rodent279 said:

Is this because heritage railways are more and more having to use paid staff, because the volunteer base is declining?

Or paid staff are trying to protect themselves and push volunteers out to justify their own existence. Just a different point of view

[Boris]

On 31/01/2023 at 14:12, papagolfjuliet said:

 

Not only that. The latest Moors Line reveals that whereas the NYMR previously paid around £100k per annum for its electricty, its bill for 2023 will be close to half a million quid.

Considering the rapidly expanding number of managers  I think the electricity bill is they least of their problems.

[rab]

 

2 hours ago, Boris said:

Considering the rapidly expanding number of managers  I think the electricity bill is they least of their problems.

 

More managers = more cups of coffee = more electricity !

[willjam39]

Two posts in a row above, one from Blandford and one from Boris, have pulled up the issue of paid staff seemingly taking more out of a railway than they are giving. As someone who isn't involved in running a railway day to day, what has changed in the last decade to bring in the need for more "staff"?

 

I am involved in a different heritage transport world which requires high regulation and specialist skills but still is hugely dependant on/ run by volunteers  

[Phil Parker]

3 minutes ago, willjam39 said:

what has changed in the last decade to bring in the need for more "staff"?

 

A lot of lines are now fully-fledged tourist attractions open 7 days a week in high season, something a lot easier if you have a core of paid staff so the doors can be opened. Also, restoring locos has changed. You can't reply on a couple of old blokes coming in at the weekend, there's a more professional attitude with properly skilled people doing a lot of the work. They are quicker and produce better results. Walk into any of the boiler workshops at SVR and others, and you see how skilled people are, and that generally means they are paid staff.

[rogerzilla]

Some of these lines also have apprenticeships, which are subsidised but probably not completely free.

[Jeremy Cumberland]

At the factory where I work, our gas and electricity bill is expected to more than treble in 2023 from 2022 prices, with numbers not much higher than the NYMR values mentioned above. Half a million quid is eyewatering, whatever business you are in.

 

However, I suspect that many businesses (of all types) are only just becoming aware of what is going to hit them. Where I work, it is only electricity that has gone up, the previous contract expiring in October 2022. Our gas price was negotiated well over a year ago and runs, I think, until some time in 2024. If prices remain high, we will get stung again

[Nick C]

I've heard recently from one railway that coal is now over £1500 for one loco day, and from another that their electricity bill alone is now over £1000 per day - and I imagine that both are expecting those numbers to go up a lot more this year...