GHPG Appeal Page

Appeal 29/09/08 - GORDON HIGHLANDER SALES TENDER

As many of you will know by now there has been a sudden acceleration in the sales process for the locomotive (details are here http://www.wnxx.com/layout/navigation/forsale.htm

This has left us as a group with two major challenges:

1) Working out how much we can bid dependent purely on people's pledges;

2) Setting up the required legal and company bodies to actually arrange a purchase within a very short period of time.

Having spoken to Harry Needle I can give an assurance that we will be submitting a bid. The type of bid and the chances of success depend upon one thing only, money.

Clearly at this stage I cannot reveal in the public domain how much money has already been pledged. What I can say is that is unlikely to be enough for a complete loco bid to be successful unless more can be pledged this week.

I am investigating all possibilities for moving forward, and I can set out here an outline plan.

We will be launching the formal supporters group at the end of this week. Initially his will have an annual subscription of £15 which give a member the following:

· Access to the members only forum where any news about 16 will be revealed first;

· Three newsletters a year. I am glad to say that Rail express contributor David Russell, well known in Deltic circles and an ex-Deltic Deadline editor has volunteered to manage this alongside Adrian Williams who will help with design and production http://www.orchardpress.net

· When possible, a members day at the railway where 55016 is resident to include an exclusive train for members.

· The chance to work as a volunteer on the loco.

I hope to use funds generated from membership in the short term to provide a working fund base to cover legal company set up costs etc. This will also allow me to give the guarantee that any monies sent to purchase shares in the loco can be fully returned if we are not successful in the purchase of 55016.

The second phase is to allow the purchase of shares in the group. At the moment I am considering setting these at a cost of £150 each and they can be bought in lump sums or by regular standing order. A sliding scale of benefits is to be created from cab rides through to driver experience days and a name on a plaque in the cab for large donors. The exact voting mechanism for shareholders is yet to be decided, but the articles of the company will specifically exclude the loco been disposed of for scrap. Shares can also be "earned" via working as a volunteer for a set number of hours.

An inaugural meeting of the group will be held shortly, likely to be Sun 12 October in a location in the East Midlands, further details will follow.

All of the above is only worth pursuing at this stage if we get through the first round of the bidding process with HNRC, for which we have to make a submission no later than Thursday of this week.

To do that I have to know how much the group can bid and despite the lack of any notice, I have to know what figure I can offer at that point. We will only be bidding on 2 options :

1) for the complete loco minus bogies.

2) For the loco with enough components to allow running on one engine.

I do not believe that anything less than that is viable. We have to bear in mind there will be substantial transport costs to pay, a set of bogies fit for running on preserved railways to be purchased and the restoration cost of an engine which currently needs a full rebuild. Following a recent engineering assessment of the loco it is also considered necessary for a full re-skin of the bodyshell to be undertaken as soon as is practically possible. The cost of these necessary elements has to be taken into account when actually placing the bid. There is no point in being successful but then having no funds to restore the loco for the next ten years!

Therefore I will finish with my appeal. The time for words and opinions of how we have got to this position is over. If you are serious about saving this loco for preservation as a complete loco I urge you to contact me as soon as possible with a pledge that you would be willing to honour within the next six weeks. If you have pledged before on this site or elsewhere could you please confirm the availability of that pledge. Please use the email address info@gordonhighlander.co.uk .

As far as we are aware, and I have contacted all other current Deltic owners, there is no other UK based group trying to buy the loco; it really is the case that we are successful or the loco will be set aside for its components. It can't end that way, so please, get in touch.

Duncan Langtree
Creator of Gordon Highlander Preservation Group