North Yorkshire Moors Railway General Discussion

Thermal cycling of the boilers would be another one, but the cost of a warming fire on Monday and Friday would be pretty negligible I would think. To what extent might the attractiveness of a “weekend” off (even though not at the weekend) been in making the decision?

 

Keeping three locos in steam is probably going to cost in the region of £800/day I would have thought but, arguably, this should still be done when shutting down for two days. I can see some logic in a 5 day week over a 7 day week as you could probably get away with just one person in such as catering, operating and booking offices whereas two people would be required to cover seven days. Still need cover for holidays and sickness, though.

 

You are taking a visit by a fairly specialist form of rolling stock and comparing it with my suggestion of demonstrating the NYMR's setting in a lost industrial landscape as being of equivalent interest? Why are places like Beamish stately homes or castles popular attractions? Could it be because they stimulate a wider cross section of interest from the general public?

 

Of course, but recognising that whatever best practice should be the Equality Act does not apply to volunteers which is the area is where some of the tensions have surfaced.

 

It’s a great question and one I don’t know a divinities answer to, but I would venture that it is that people like stories about people. I think Heritage Railways have to do a better job of telling people centric stories which are illustrated by the railway and the equipment. There’s plenty of such stories, but they tend to be buried a bit.

 

I was expecting exactly that response. Legally no. Morally yes. The concepts should apply anyway, and where there haven’t been followed there has been trouble. Heritage Railways are not a sufficiently safe space and regardless of whether this law or that law applies or doesn’t best practice will have to be applied for without it there is no future!

 

I take interest in lost industrial landscapes and welcome any decent attempt at interpretation - it would be great to see the Moors do more but I very much doubt it would transform fortunes of the railway. The Churnet Valley Railway runs through a very rich lost industrial landscape, but has transformed its fortunes through Polar Express & dining trains rather than the former

Jon

 

That’s why the HRA Member Code of Conduct recommends that its members implement protection against discrimination that corresponds to the duties that they have to their workers and employees. The question was about compliance with the law. The HRA expects its members to apply best practice in the absence of a legal duty.

 

But how much has it tried to push its past history, and how much variety is there there? Maybe the NYMR needs Polar Express-like services, and perhaps it could do more with its dining services, but my point is that sort of flair needs to be found and applied across the whole range of its services. We're constantly being told that the fare box is not enough to support it, so my argument is that it is necessary vto both encourage more people to travel on the services that already run, and make it more interesting and more attractive to do so. If others can think of realistic ideas for doing that I'd love to them! I don't have a monopoly on ideas, be I don't see too many others putting them forward, certainly not in comparison to those knocking them!

 

You certainly don’t have the monopoly on ideas, and I’m sure all ideas are welcome but why do you keep knocking @Linesider? And why are you so keen to rubbish all his replies?
Volunteering at the front end I see it perfectly sensible to have T&Cs. Likewise it see it a sensible plan to this year operate 5 days a week. This latter plan should mean a saving not just in coal and marginal wear and tear but also on (hopeful) season paid staff, two days for the pway to get on the track to rectify day to day track faults and ongoing tamping in relative safety, plus two days for engine and carriage maintenance. But reducing to 5 days to my mind makes operating the annual pass a difficult option to persist with given that trains last year were effectively operating at capacity on peak days exacerbated by the returnees. Yes the returnees do have secondary spend but most of this would be spent off the railway eg in Whitby’s numerous fish and chip shops or Pickering’s similarly numerous teashops.

I refer to peak days above but often the peak days depends purely on the weather forecast the day before. I’ve seen first hand these trains operating at capacity on such days, except for the 12.35 ex Whitby and 16.15 ex Pickering, depending on the vagaries of the weather; one day the trains seem to be comfortably full and the next day unpleasantly so (not just for the passengers but for the volunteer TTIs who then get all the grief). So yes the railway needs to attract more passengers but on the unpredictably quieter days, and that is the conundrum.

So let’s be positive and stop knocking @Lineisclear whenever he tries to explain things.

 

I think that we are all grateful that @Lineisclear comes on here with responses to comments made and the many concerns people have. However, if you think that people who disagree with him and the way that the railway is going will just sit back and accept it, you have another think coming. We all share a passion for the railway and want to see it survive and prosper, which seems to me to be unlikely with the current management. I may be stupid but the others commenting are not.

 

All valid points, but presented as if by Dr Pangloss. Over the last few years, NYMR has made significant shifts - compulsory reservations, Gift Aid, annual passes, operating days, approach to opening windows - and it has been hard to establish a clear sense of an underlying strategy behind it. @Lineisclear has been a key participant in the decisions, and has taken on a significant role in articulating reasons why, and deserves credit for sticking his head above the parapet.

More specifically, the issue in discussion (some of which is inherent in being on a public forum) focuses on point issues, and lacks some of the context. There are then important details - for example visitor numbers - that are asked about but not answered. That undermines confidence and, unfortunately, the presence or absence of the number could as easily be a matter of legitimate confidentiality or of a deliberate choice of what to share and not share, because it might be inconvenient. I prefer (and refer to comments a while back by @21B in support of this) to take the view that confidentiality is the driver.

All of this is in the context of reasonable suspicions that the railway has incurred losses of c.£3m over the last 3 years. If remotely accurate, this is gravely concerning, and raises fundamental questions about both the sustainability of the railway and of the decisions of the boards that have led in this period.

 

Has the logic of running more services on Sundays between April-June only this year yet been explained? Or how recently at the AGM the gift aid back from the annual pass was vital income and now isn't?

 

The reasons are very simple. I don't think anyone would deny that the NYMR has had a pretty abysmal last few years, and I don't seem to see much evidence of the SMT seriously coming to terms with that. It is easy to cancel events, saying they weren't profitable enough, but a glib response to that would be "why do we run any trains at all?", given the sizes of the annual deficits, and there should be more emphasis on adapting popular events so that they remain popular but manageable and profitable. It seems to me that abandoning the wartime weekend, which saw unprecedented numbers of visitors without trying to make it workable was the height of failure. I'm sure that you are in agreement with my view that we need to fill the trains that we already run and that's where I fail to see much sign of significant developments. Short term hires of visiting engines in the low season will probably help a little, will not make the big difference required (certainly not of the size needed) imho; there needs to be more going on associated with their visits to boost their attraction, and there needs flexibility in ticketing to meet the needs of would-be travellers, not rigid conditions. As for conditions, we've all had visits to N. Yorkshire in the middle of summer when hurricane force winds have been driving torrential rain horizontally (OK, perhaps I'm exaggerating a bit!) and I'd be the first to admit that this can be offputting, but its one of the reasons I think that the NYMR needs to become more of an all-round attraction with more for families to do under such conditions - even if it is just sitting in a cafe that can accommodate more than just a handful of people - and more variety of things for them to see and do when it isn't actually raining!

Lineisclear has become the spokesperson for the floundering management (which, to be fair, he is deeply responsible for creating) and is up there as the only person to question and criticise, so that's were my aim lies, in the hope that what I write may filter past him to other members of the SMT. I keep saying it, I do not want the NYMR to fail, quite the opposite, I want to see it thrive and prosper but I don't think that the current lucklustre approach which Lineisclear seems to personify is really going to bring that about.!

 

I have to be honest and say that I sometimes wonder whether coming on here is wise. There certainly many heritage railway leaders who believe that it just gives credibility to armchair critics. The suggestion is leave them to stew amongst themselves and when no one takes notice they’ll get bored. Personally I believe that opinions in the online community matter and , no Steve, I don’t accept that any of them are stupid. A large heritage railway racking up losses is hardly news. There are serious questions about the sustainability of a number. There is still an extraordinary amount of complacency that assumes heritage railways won’t be allowed to go bust and that even if they do it will be possible to rescue something and start again. Maybe it will take a corporate failure to force the heritage railways community to come to terms, with reality.
I have confidence in the leadership of the NYMR to rise to the huge challenges it faces. Others clearly don’t but what is clear is that tinkering about with the” same old” or reverting back to the way things used to be is not going to work in the world of today. Some years ago with respect to another railway I suggested “back the leadership, or buy a bike”. That comment recognised that many heritage lines , including the NYMR, would make excellent environmentally friendly cycle trails. If that future is going to be a avoided it needs everyone on side. Yes the management need to remember that they’re not just running a business and a charity but a community that depends on wide support especially volunteers. In return that community, including those who post on here, need to be less instinctively negative. I live in hope.

 

I'd like to thank you for your honesty and at times courage in addressing questions and criticisms here.

For myself, I am trying to understand the strategy behind the choices being made by NYMR and, hopefully constructively, put challenge back where those choices don't sit right.

I'm under no illusion about the possibility of large railways going under. Llangollen was a wake-up call, where I'm both delighted that it survived and concerned that people may believe that such near death experiences are always survivable.

However, the challenge of dealing with armchair critics is two fold. We can be gadflies, irritating and moving on. But I'm also reminded of my favourite fairy story - the Emperor's New Clothes. Just as I do professionally, I find the role of the little child vital - asking the difficult and dangerous questions, which can actually force a response back to first principles.

At NYMR, I'm not sure that I'm getting those answers. I get glimpses - notably in discussions over T&Cs or windows - but not the whole picture of how vision, strategy and tactics join together. My fear is that the vision is very limited (bluntly, survival of a railway through Newtondale), and that most of the decisions being made are tactical, but not anchored in a clear strategic direction that can be used to orient the choices. I get this sense from the Gift Aid discussion, where a technicality is being used, but the language being used (and Beamish sets the bar VERY high) isn't matched by what's happening at ground level. The pivot from one form of Gift Aid usage (the annual season) to another (premium with voucher) reinforces this, given the strength with which the annual options was promoted.

I'm involved elsewhere in something where one of the key critiques has been the limitations on communication. Tactical measures have been shared, often tactically, but the consistent sharing of vision and strategy haven't. I may be biased by relative familiarity, but NYMR's communication does not give me that sense of vision.

 

I'm sure that the Prime Minister of the day feels the same about PMQT, but if you are representing the SMT (and to be fair that they don't much of a job of it themselves!) it goes with the territory!

I agree with much of what you see about the need for major changes, rather than tinkering with the "same old, same old" but where we disagree is that I really don't believe that any of what is currently happening at the NYMR is showing any evidence of radical thinking or reshaping of the business model, and I'll keep questioning and pushing until I do.

 

Was the annual pass a mistake? If it was a serious mistake, will those who took the decision 'step back' or resign?

 

But stands aside when they don’t. Whatever the precise rights and wrongs of the two cases debated here at length I really don’t think the HRA ended up on the right side of public perception.

 

@Lineisclear

I just wanted to add to comments by others in thanking you for being prepared to explain your viewpoint. I appreciate that immensely and it has given me the opportunity to crystallise some thoughts that otherwise would not have. I think we are both concerned about the problems of getting heritage railways to a point of survival. We possibly differ on where to place the emphasis and how to communicate, but I recognise in you and many other regular posters some serious thought going into this problem we share. Keep going.