North Yorkshire Moors Railway General Discussion

Another slight hobby-horse of mine, that applies to all heritage railways, is that even where there are volunteers coming forward they are less likely to be skilled in the way they used to be. There is no longer a youthful, or even middle-aged, generation of railwaymen with steam fitting experience. The NYMR used to get people from the chemical works on Teeside with useful experience in industrial steam plant, but even that source has shrunk drastically now. schools and even technical colleges do not seem to teach practical skills now, and even people from the motor industry tend to be parts installers now. Heritage railways do have apprentice training scheme but these benefit only the paid staff. What is needed is to provide decent instruction and training for volunteers as well, at times that suit them. That's potentially important method of bringing along helpful and useful volunteers to help the aid staff, rather than push them into roles they do not want and may not be suited to

 

Whitby is constrained by the infrastructure, with the long section between there and Glaisdale almost continually occupied between 9am and 6pm by NYMR and Northern services.

Totally agree about the grants. When @Lineisclear says the turnover is £8m per year, it sounds more like the expenditure is that figure. If the rumours are true of a £600,000 loss last year, despite £400,000 in gift aid, then they're really a million quid short! It's all well and good getting all these grants awarded, but eventually someone is going to say enough is enough. It seems as if a lot of the grants are being used to keep the railway standing still, rather than actual improvements (Pickering barn excepted).

With rumours that the class 25 is out for at least a year (though it's the Moors, it could be decades before it reappears), and the current steam ban, the only Whitby loco is 31128. One minor fault over the next few days and that's Whitby wiped off the timetable until either it's repaired or if rains. Sunday will be interesting - the two Whitby workings are meant to pass at Grosmont. Tricky if only one loco is available to work both sets of stock.

 

Welcome to the new "industrial " world. The days of large factories turning out thousands of skilled artisan staff have long gone. Health and Safety and Audit Trails rule. "Paraffin overhauls" are no longer permissible.

 

Volunteers working from home could be interesting.

 

Do you think you need to be in Grosmont covered in grease to be a volunteer working on the railway's website?

On the one hand @Lineisclear 's views around the professionalisation of heritage railways are frustrating, but no more so than the outdated perspective that roles necessary to run the railway are limited to shovelling coal, collecting tickets and hammering rivets. A multimillion pound business needs a diverse range of skills to operate that can come in many different forms. And don't all need to be from anywhere near Yorkshire.

Simon

 

Why? Depends on the role, plenty of useful volunteer roles you can do remotely.

Tom

 

Interesting views but KESR, Bluebell and others in the south seem to have a lot of stock preservation done by volunteers successfully.

 

There is a volunteer on a railway that I'm a member of who is a skilled painter. They regularly take smaller things (fire buckets, station lamps, running in boards etc) home so for cosmetic restoration - frees up space in the sheds and means they can work at their own pace.

 

"Always read what is written in the question". 60044 is talking about hands on , crawling about in the muck jobs.

 

First day since the new season and no roster, wonder if it is to keep the diesel running secret.

NYMR diesel site;

All NYMR services diesel-hauled after 1T12 on Wed 9th April.

 

In the past I used to bring a trailer full of Gresley carriage doors home from the NYMR to Salisbury to restore them in my spare room, I also made various Gresley fittings, such as several sets of wall lights, coat hooks and saloon door handles in my workshop. I also wrote several successful grant applications and arranged teak supplies for the LNERCA and other groups all around the country, along with getting transfers and upholstery moquette made etc., so I have a good idea of wfh! And that was all apart from more routine stuff like editing and printing the LNERCA newsletter! There wasn't much "crawling around in the muck" involved with any of this! (although I did my share of that as well, at Pickering and in all sorts of other locations, in search of spare parts!).

 

But plenty of hard engineering jobs that aren’t “crawling around in the muck”.

If you are producing a drawing in CAD that will be converted into a pattern that will in turn become a useful part of a locomotive:

1. Is that locomotive engineering?
2. Could it be done by a volunteer?
3. Could it be done remotely?
4. Is it a “hands on, crawling round in the muck” type job?

Tom

 

I (perhaps cynically) wondered that as well. Webcam currently shows 5428 sat in Grosmont on the diner at the moment - maybe for heating only?

 

There's a post on the NYMR FB page posted about 11am today saying all diesel till further notice.
Of course not much use when the first train is 1h40 beforehand.

 

Neither @Jamessquared nor my message was a response to @60044 – they were responses to @garth manor (though if you have Garth on 'ignore' you might not have seen that).

Simon

 

Was fortunate enough to visit the railway on Sunday and Monday to see Bahamas in action, looks like not a moment too soon.

Sunday at Thomason Foss.


The 1000 from Whitby on Monday.




1410 from Whitby under Larpool Viaduct.


Out on the Moors near Goathland summit.

 

I think you find that Garth Manor's posting was an attempt at humour. But of course there shouldn't be any humour on such an important site as this.

 

Always a possibility, but I confess that I failed to see the humour in his post.