John Rowland wrote:
"umpston" wrote in message
oups.com...

By the way, I wish EOR well but I think they'd
need to make peace with ORPS before I
would consider supporting either organisation.

EOR run the railway. ORPS are just a bunch of people who wish they
ran the
railway and have for several years done everything they can to
inconvenience
the people who are running the railway. They're conceptually no
different to
graffiti artists who try to rebrand railways with their own tags. I
can't
imagine someone saying he wouldn't join London Underground unless
they made
concilliatory overtures towards graffiti artists. I don't know steps
you
think EOR can take, apart from waiting for ORPS to wither.

I hope at least to come for a ride soon.

So do it, and join EOR if you feel so inclined. Forget about ORPS -
whatever
meaningful mission they might once have had, they now represent
nothing
constructive.

Like you I'm not connected with either organisation but I do perceive
an element of sour grapes from ORPS because they were outbid by Pilot
Developments in 1996. To an extent they were proved right since Pilot
achieved very little in their first few years - until they finally
realised that a heritage railway depends on volunteer support. As ORPS
predicted, none of Pilot's initial promises of heritage, dining and
commuter services have come to fruition - only their property
redevelopment plans appear to have made significant progress.

Nevertheless I think ORPS should get over this and engage
constructively with the EOR volunteers who have at last managed to open
the line. They will no longer need to deal with Pilot (or whatever
they call themselves now) assuming the sale of the line to Essex County
Council goes ahead. Both bodies say they will seek the lease to run
the line, but I doubt ECC will be much impressed with the abilities of
either side if they cannot draw a line under this feud. And ECC cannot
necessarily be guaranteed always to be a benevolent landlord - like all
councils it may be subject to the political whims and bureacracy of the
day. A united bid could surely drive a better bargain for the railway.

The EOR volunteers also need to open up to ORPS involvement - ORPS seem
to be associated with other groups such as Cravens Heritage Trains and
the Holden F5 Trust who have proved capable of getting unique projects
off the ground and (in the Cravens case) working closely with LUL. EOR
are crying out for more volunteers and they need expertise of this sort
- or help from anyone who cares about this railway.

People may be reluctant to join the EOR volunteers if there is a risk
they'd be evicted if ORPS won the bid. And ORPS previously experienced
just such an eviction in 1996, after doing a lot of work restoring
North Weald signalbox.

With Pilot out of the picture it ought to be obvious that ORPS and the
EOR volunteers basically want the same thing.