North Yorkshire Moors Railway General Discussion

Or at an assumed £25/head effective rate (each adult having 1 kid), about 157k passengers. I suspect the real answer may well be lower.

 

That surprises me, as I'd thought there was more accommodation there. However, I do think that Whitby is a significantly better place to pootle around for a couple of hours than anywhere else served by NYMR.

 

How much do you advertise in Whitby?

 

Whitby seems heavily promoted as a coach tour destination. Not sure how many Whitby stayers are coach parties but they of course have their entertainment as part of the holiday.
There would not be too many like me I suspect that looked into using a 5 day coach tour as cheap transport to a few days at the NYMR.

 

The point is that if the railway opted for the optimal financial model there wouldn't be a part empty return working. Modelling some years ago indicated that just two trains a day to Whitby would produce the best financial result. Essentially each train would stay there for some hours so passenger numbers in the return direction would equate to those of the outward journey. Of course such a sparse timetable would never motivate or retain volunteers so it would have to be deliverable with multi -skilled employees. Modelling also suggested that might well be possible. Before anyone panics that's never been contemplated, nor should it ever be , but it highlights the inherent conflict between the trustees' duty to focus on the charity's financial viability and the desire to nurture and encourage the volunteer heart and soul of the railway.

 

Out of curiosity, did that modelling focus on margins or absolute return? And were they based on direct operating returns, or did they consider the overall profitability of the organisation?

Setting aside the issues you rightly draw attention to about volunteer heart and soul, I'm very conscious that with a mixture of fixed and variable costs, plus major investments/renewals, the trade off between relative and absolute returns can be a challenge.

 

I think that there is a demand from people to go to Goathland and Pickering from Whitby. There's always a good queue of people waiting for the arrival of the first train from Grosmont which forms the 10.00 departure. However, the killer then becomes the fact that there is no spare path available for the first train from Pickering (arr at 11.10) to depart until 12.35. That train doesn't get to Goathland until 13.50 due to having to wait 30 minutes at Grosmont for a path so, if someone is wanting to spend part of a day there, these times don't sensibly allow lunch to be included. Not only that but this train doesn't get into Pickering until 14.50 and the last train back to Whitby from there is at 15.10 on the one that people have just arrived on twenty minutes earlier, so no time to do anything other than visit the toilets. It just doesn't work, I'm afraid.

 

I’d love to see the set of assumptions that got to that conclusion. What you describe is very plausible (it would be directly analogous to the Durango and Silverton model), but where it surely falls over is that for a volunteer operation the idle time between arriving in Whitby and retuning can be used at a very very low marginal cost. In effect only the cost of coal and lubricants. So what that analysis shows IMHO is that the focus needs to be on filling seats out of Whitby and Grosmont as far back up the line as you can get before you need to return to Whitby to start the homeward leg of the “main revenue “ service. I think we still come back to a degree of imagination being required

 

Ignoring for a moment the operational challenge of finding volunteer crews prepared to do a long day that would involve hours of sitting around doing nothing, the bigger risk of such a timetable is that it concentrates the fixed costs of the railway over too few passengers - so each one has to bear a bigger burden in their ticket price.

Surely the challenge is to base the core round delivering how ever many morning to Whitby / afternoon returns you feel you need, but then using the time and available locos / trains to develop a new traffic in between. That traffic needs to cover its marginal cost but no more, anything in addition is then a direct bonus against the railway's fixed costs.

There's lots of talk on other railways about family-friendly events, character days etc - none of which I suspect are very easy to deliver to the core traffic that is primarily using the railway to get to somewhere else. But if there was suitable space at, say, Goathland, then you feel feel that a service that delivered the tidal Pickering - Whitby traffic when required, but filled in the middle with more family-focused, lower cost, counter-tidal traffic might allow you to have your cake and eat it: your core service still delivers to Whitby, but the return workings that might otherwise be very quiet service an entirely different market that may well not want to do the whole trip, but would be quite up for a short return journey and some family entertainment in between.

Prior to covid, most lines attempted to run something akin to a "service" much as if they had never shut: regular trains, throughout the day, most trains traversing the whole line etc. Perhaps the trick, particularly on the long lines, is to think of more adventurous diagrams that satisfy different markets. You have your core "day trip to Whitby" market sorted - so what can you do in the middle when you have a loco, carriages and crew that will otherwise be idle?

Tom

 

What would happen if the “fill in” services only went to Goathland? How much does that change the picture?

 

The problem with that is the fact that the set is required to go through to Pickering to bring those passengers from Whitby who came out on the first train back at 15.10. During 2020 (covid) it actually ran as an ECS. I've spent many an hour trying to come up with a better T/T without any success. It aint simple

 

I’m sure it isn’t. Would those passengers like longer in Whitby?

 

That assumes running round at Goathland is operationally possible. It can’t be done in the station because of the proximity of the 1 in 49 bank , trap points etc. It used to be done via the siding to the south of the station with ground frame points released give access to the main running line. I’d need to check but I believe the only spans replaced for bridges 24 and 25 were on the main running line. One or both of those on the siding may not be in a condition where some locos could cross them safely. Consequently the option may have a sizeable capital cost before it’s workable.

 

Must admit I read this thread with increasing dismay. But it’s complicated dismay. Like at least one other I do admire @Lineisclear for continuing to engage, even though I mostly think the positions advanced are ‘credible but not imaginative, and not the only solution’ as one of my old dons used to put it.

At the same time, I used to live in Dartmouth, and if the DSR had a supporters association (fan club?), I’d be in it. They fly the flag for what you can do as a professional outfit with a nod to heritage. I don’t advocate doing that elsewhere, especially not on the three railways I am a member of) but I genuinely admire that set up.

so I’m not coming at it from an ‘all must be volunteers’ standpoint. I grew up with and love the SVR, but otherwise I admire the DSR, and am a member of the TRPS, which is basically as close as preservation has got to an anarcho-syndicalist commune.

but where I worry is the loss of the NYMR to being the latter end of the spectrum

 

U

 

I do not necessarily think he knows better. I am open to arguments from any and all sides. I was acknowledging his willingness to continue the debate.

 

i suggest that’s the key word. Imagination is essential. Heritage Railways must , to use an overworked term “think out of the box” . That does’t mean variations on traditional railway activities but completely new ways of generating a surplus. Initiatives such as the SVR’s hiring out of its railway to commercial operators is a good example but others may have only a tenuous connection to traditional railway activities.

 

Others have stated that there is some Whitby originating traffic. How price sensitive is it? Might discounted fares bring in more total revenue from otherwise largely empty trains?

 

If I had a spare £10m to offer (and I don't!), I'd be interested to see what could be done with adding line capacity in Newtondale and between Grosmont & Whitby. Whether that's doubling or "just" intermediate loop(s), breaking the current impasse caused by a very long single line section between Levisham and Goathland, plus the Northern timetable on the Whitby leg could unlock a lot of latent capacity and, I suspect, demand.

In the absence of such a fairy godmother, whose silver lining might come with clouds, I do not envy those trying to make sense of all of this. That does then lead me into @Jamessquared's territory of wishing to find more, smaller, initiatives that would drive demand on more marginal services.

@Steve mentions the issues with the 12:35 off Whitby. If the timetable constraints can't be eased to allow time at Pickering, what of doing a package for time at Goathland? Whether that's a walk up the rail trail from Grosmont (take advantage of the 1/2 hour head start), or simply pottering, there's the kernel of a package itinerary there which could offer a proposition - even if it can't effectively serve Pickering.

 

The DSR is a very impressive operation, but I don't think it is a model that could apply to any other heritage railway.

Firstly, it is situated in an absolute tourist hotspot, more than almost any other line.

Secondly, and more importantly, it is a far larger organisation than just a railway - which if nothing else means the core business costs can be spread widely. Given the combination of train, cruise boats, ferries and buses, you can start in any of Paignton, Kingswear, Totnes or Dartmouth and they can work out whole or part-day itineraries. That's a very different challenge - but also opportunity for balancing traffic - than most heritage railways that typically have one, or at most two, main starting points.

We travelled on the DSR last summer, taking in the train trip, cross-Dart ferry and a river cruise and then return via ferry and train. For two adults and two children it was £104, which is as near as makes no difference to what a 2+2 family would pay on the NYMR to go to Whitby. (£101 I believe). But with children, the variety on offer is far better, which each stage of the journey being its own little adventure.

Tom