North Yorkshire Moors Railway General Discussion

An example of the volunteer role profiles available at the NYMR, including “on board catering steward

https://www.nymr.co.uk/volunteer-role-profiles

 

As the otherwise nameless volunteer Levisham signalman I used to relish the combination of roles particularly the interaction with the public. Some of the volunteer signalmen on the NYMR today are there after being invited in to have a chat about working the box and getting hooked. The problem was that for understandable safety reasons the rules were changed to say signalmen must not sell tickets in the last 10 minutes before approaching trains arrived....but when do most people tend to buy a ticket! The level of sales ( with the exception of a few notable days) didn't justify a paid booking clerk and there was insufficient activity to interest volunteers. Gradually the requirement that Levisham signalmen must also be qualified to run that Booking Office faded away. It's a bit like going lamping. If it was suggested today that volunteers could be lone working, sometimes in the dark, out of contact climbing up and down icy ladders with one hand holding a signal lamp the ORR would probably have a fit of the vapours. We have to adapt to the world of today but that of the past was fun!

 

It looks like I'm not the only person who is sick of the over use of those two words which seem to appear in every bit of publicity put out, then. To these can be added "thrilled"
"We are excited to announce our main 2025 season opening will be on 31st March."
"Our dedicated team has worked tirelessly to bring together an exciting calendar of events"
"We’re thrilled to welcome No. 45596 Bahamas to the NYMR for the first time."
"We are delighted to be welcoming back one of Britain’s icons from the golden age of steam."
"The North Yorkshire Moors Railway (NYMR) is excited to announce it is exploring partnership opportunities"
The list of examples is pretty long. It's about time the publicity team found some different adjectives to use or perhaps just omitted them altogether.

 

Glad you have found something else to have a pop at the NYMR!

 

Diesels are increasingly being used between Grosmont and Whitby and on other services. There might be a problem with this in 2025, though, as the Cl.25 is currently OOU, leaving 31128 as the sole Whitby diesel.

 

And in other news.

I see the SNG event is nearly sold out, with just the odd single seat available on three days of operation, with the other five days already fully sold out.

 

As the person who started this particular criticism, may I comment? It's a bugbear of mine, I admit, the overuse of certain adjectives! Another is "stunning" which appears across the board in various contexts makes my teeth gnash, although the NYMR is less guilty of this particular one. But quotes of the type listed by Steve go towards typify the overall picture I have listed before of lazy management. They have to be written by someone and approved by someone, with neither party seemingly having the wit to think about writing something a little trite.

 

Using a diesel to Whitby doesn't practically allow one less steam loco to be used. The T/T requires one loco to start its day at Grosmont and two from Pickering. The Grosmont loco starts its day by going to Whitby and back which could be a diesel. However, when it gets back to Grosmont, if it is to go back to Whitby, another loco is needed to take the train forward to Pickering. If that is a second diesel then a steam loco can be eliminated but, otherwise three steam locos are required. The steam loco arriving from Pickering has to go for service so can't take the Whitby train on to Pickering. There's also the problem of swapping locos to do this. The train from Whitby has to enter the platform 3, the diesel loco detach and run round to the north end of the station before the train to Whitby can be allowed into platform 2. The two locos can then be swapped but the relieved steam loco is then trapped at the north end until the Whitby bound train has departed, clearing platform 2 which then allows the steam loco to run round and attach to the Pickering bound train. All this requires a good 20 minutes to do, more if the steam loco needs to take water, which leaves passengers sat in the train just waiting to continue their journey.

 

That is good news. At about £9K/train (possibly more) that's £162K of much needed income before costs.

 

Tom, you are not alone in these thoughts. There are plenty of others with the same views. However, these are unfortunately far different from those who are charged with running the railway. I would go further and say that paid staff should be multi-tasking so, if a trolley dolly is required and there is no volunteer available then someone 'out of the office' would be seconded to the job. I say out of the office but it could be someone employed as a guard, signalman or indeed anyone who is suitable.
As I've said before, when I gave up footplate rostering as a volunteer, the default position was to give it to paid staff. There was no asking for a replacement for me amongst the membership. This was not unique and I can cite others instances.
You don't fancy a change of career, do you?

 

This really shouldn’t need saying. It’s just common sense. I’m astounded that the railway believes otherwise.

 

I too am glad that 60007's visit looks to be a successful venture, but it needed to be, and let's hope that 45596's visit will be too - but what is there new to follow these up for the rest of the year? Nothing, as far as I can see - I can't see Stargazing nights at Snape swelling the coffers much!

 

I have just received a copy of a post that I think is from another forum or group. I can't vouch for whether it is correct or not, perhaps Lineisclear could tell us whether it is correct and, if it is, justify these posts and pay rises at at time when funds are desperately tight!

MPD manager to Head of Mechanical Engineering - new post never advertised £8k pay rise

Catering manager to Head of Commercial - existing vacant post once held by Laura - never advertised £8k pay rise

Maintenance operative - new role never advertised given to the husband of the new Head of People £12k

Operating Manager bumped up to SMT or as it is now known Core Leadership Team £4k pay rise

Tea room supervisor made up to catering manager £4k pay rise to replace the catering manager who is now Head of Commercial

Even funnier - trolley steward made up to Trolley Supervisor with £2k pay rise to still do the same job - running the tea trolley so it costs even more to man

 

Why do you think it funny? Yes there is a buffet car supervisor who is in charge of all the other buffet car stewards, who works all hours God sends, is responsible for sorting out the rotas of these stewards (volunteer and paid), for ensuring the necessary stock is available etc etc. £2,000 extra is a pittance in the real world.
I could go on about the other posts, but overall there is a cost saving, with some posts now combined and with greater responsibility, and with greater ability to undertake work in house eg maintenance operative looking after in-house tamper (previously not working) rather than hiring in.

Overall, I see this post as mischief making purely for the sake of it, and being anti NYMR.

 

I didn't say that ("it is funny") at all it was in italics because was from the quoted post, although I'd hope that anyone with a grain of intelligence would not take "funny" to mean "humourous" in this instance! I thought I'd made it obvious, but clearly not. How many more times do I have to repeat - I'm not anti-NYMR! Quite the reverse, I am desperately keen for it to turn around its fortunes! I've put it in bold to try to emphasise it to people like you who refuse to remove their rose tinted spectacles! Now, there's no indication there that there are actually an savings involved - superficially, unless as you say (and we only have your word for that, and without official confirmation your view is as much hearsay as the post I showed)) there are savings being made by combining posts, there's an extra 38K of extra salary enumerated there. What I, and a seemingly rapidly increasing number of long term and well known and respected volunteers, is feeling increasing alarm at the way the NYMR is spiralling towards financial disaster. When you can show that is not the case I'll be more than happy to hear it, but one swallow, in terms of the 60007 visit, is not enough evidence of a turnaround.

 

I admire your determination to defend NYMR leadership, but there are times when it’s really better to stay silent.

At no point can it be a defence to say that, running a special event on a financially challenged railway, catering sales were impossible because the cafe floor was up.

At face value, that’s an admission of basic mismanagement. If I look harder and question whether opening for one week would have been uneconomic (and therefore not justify disrupting the work programme), it starts to raise some very uncomfortable questions about the viability of the operation.

That brings us round to the question of cost control and, with it, organisational culture that seem at the heart of this boiling frog soup of costs at NYMR.

 

Quite a bad bit of planning - Goathland station is shut for 5 months of the year and the one time in the period when it would be good to have the tea room open, the building is unusable.

 

Given how tight money is, why was the floor up at all? Unsafe? Unhygienic?

 

I think that was the only time I travelled on the NYMR - on a family holiday c. 1983? It was diesel hauled though, by D832 IIRC.

 

The NYMR has always used diesels, almost as long as I've known it - D5032 was probably the first main line diesel to be run on regularly on a heritage railway, and Hymek D7029 (I think) wasn't far behind, being used on the first departure of the day from Pickering in the early '80s. So it does have long term form there, and I don't think anyone really minds, or objects to, some diesel haulage. It's just a shame that they really don't look after them very well - - think D5032 and D5061, although D5032 is now well advanced in a very protracted overhaul. One day it might even get finished (rather like 34101!)