North Yorkshire Moors Railway General Discussion

So my caravan is up there all season so I can pay £80 for me the other half and 3 kids to travel all season now that is value for money in this day and age only thing now is do I renew my membership that we all have??

 

Seems pointless being a member going forward!

Unless in this cost of living crisis you can afford to pay more than the general public.

 

That raises some interesting questions about the value of membership. Personally, it draws a clean line between support of the organisation and provision of discounts, but I'd have preferred to see something acknowledging the value of support (even a £5 reduction).

 

It's certainly interesting to see the contrasting approaches of the NYMR and SVR to the challenges of 2023.

When the Moors announced the Arts Council grant last year the first line of the reasons was:

• Restoring visitor numbers to pre-COVID levels

I suppose that wouldn't have been possible if the timetable had been dramatically scaled back.

Jon

 

Members get 50% discount on fares.. The argument being made is that a member is now paying £40 membership + £20 ticket (total £60) to ride all year but to just buy a ticket and not be a member costs £40 to ride all year. Membership does give you four editions of Moors Line and a right to vote at AGM's but little else.

 

Duplicate post

 

According to the website member discount doesn't apply to the annual pass:
Members receive 50% discount on the All line Fare and Shorter Journey Fare, discount does not apply to the Unlimited Pass.

So it's essentially an extra £40 a year for discounted travel at special events, plus magazines & voting.

 

You made me recheck the wording, and my comments stand - https://www.nymr.co.uk/Listing/Category/book-tickets is clear that members do not get a discount on the pass, but only "ordinary" tickets:

My view remains that the deal is good enough for a regular traveller that it's a reasonable position provided that they are becoming a member to support the NYMR and not just get membership discounts.

The challenge for the NYMHRT will be to weigh up the gain in fares income hopefully achieved against the loss of net membership income and, potentially, future donations.

Picking up the comment from @21B on another thread about the value of membership organisations, this is a significant change in how a membership organisation engages with its members. It will be a case study for how such changes go down with members, especially if relations are already frayed.

In my own case, my 14 year membership of the NYMR was triggered by the possibility of discounts on one trip, led to repeat business and secondary spend, plus donations to the Bridges and Wheels Appeal, and was maintained over several years of not visiting the railway because life got in the way before being resigned for reasons that had nothing to do with the benefits received.

 

Maybe it is just me but whilst this appears to be the deal of the year at the moment the web page description does seems a bit convoluted and on my machine at least very difficult to read due the the font colour.
Having said that it is a cracking deal although I struggle to understand the potential economic benefit the railway perceives. But as I said on a different thread last week there is no one size fits all or even many, so who is to say they are wrong.
It appears to keep reusing it you have to book in advance again or just turn up. It does not say if you can then use it for short journeys (say just go up and down the hill from Grosmont to Goathland all day) or if you are restricted to a specific train out and back for just a full line trip, maybe there is an implied statement I am not seeing. Having said that not sure how you would stop someone getting off at say Levisham anyway.
There may be other lines with a season ticket or annual pass but I know only of Swanage and the WSR, where the prices are £99 and £120 or £300 for a family version (2+2) respectively.
With a day rover now at or approaching £30 on many lines this seems excellent value,although not as good as one of the ticketing options for the ESR Gala this weekend which appears to say free.

 

AIUI the £40 rover is worth £50 to the railway because they can claim gift aid on every ticket sold without the buyer having to fill in any forms. As the NYMR is a holiday line, where for most weeks a fresh set of customers arrives in the area, it should be a while before significant numbers of people start turning up to claim free tickets, although towards the end of the season the railway might be carrying more people on "freebies" than fare paying ones; early next year might be interesting, too.

 

If you're using a Mac, I recommend using the 'Reader' view, which turns a web page into nice readable black on white text. THere's probably Google Chrome plugins that achieve a similar effect.

Simon

 

I always thought the issue with gift aid was that it was fine if you did not "go anywhere" do Didcot or the BRC Quainton Road for example, but lines that went from an A to B were classed as transport. Have the rules changed or have the NYMR found a way around it. Also at the two mentioned above I also had to fill in a form last time I visited if I gift aided, although both were a while back.

 

I think maybe you are getting two separate issues muddled - AIUI a line needs to provide a "genuine" transport function if its tickets are not to be subject to VAT being charged on them. As the NYMR connects two towns it is clearly fulfils that role. Gift Aid is a charitable donation that is independent of VAT. I'm not sure why the NYMR had to wait for HMRC approval, presumably it was because of the plan to claim back gift aid for passengers purchasing a season rover ticket.

 

There are two tickets available:
£4o unlimited Annual Annual Pass, bookable in advance or on the day from the Booking Office subject to availability, or
£15 Shorter Journey (between upto two stations) ticket available from the Booking Office on the day ie not bookable in advance.
I understand that the daily ticket numbers will restricted to the overall capacity of the train service that day, hence why I would recommend booking in advance.

In addition, whilst intending passengers are asked to select the outbound service they will be boarding that day I also understand that this time selection is only indicative and that passengers are also free to travel on any return service that day; they can hop-on & hop-off any of the standard service trains running that day.

ps kids (under 16) travel free!

 

Looked in on Grosmont web cam earlier to see a diesel (class 31?) in platform 3 and people working on the points presumably for an Esk Valley route; either for route training or leaving to go home.

 

It was posted on the Grosmont MPD Facebook group that 31128 is taking 37264 to Leeds Midland Road VMF for tyre turning.

 

https://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/service/gb-nr:R25141/2023-03-10/detailed
Departed 2 hours late but arrived Leeds on time…

 

Does anyone know when the return trip is?

 

Thanks for the info.

 

I'm told that the Gift Aid take up on tickets pre-booked so far has been above 75%, which is very good and that effectively means £47.50/ticket on average. Not sure how many tickets have been sold, though.