North Yorkshire Moors Railway General Discussion

Always been "Scarbs" for me!

I miss the direct EMR summer service from Nottingham.

 

With the many pages of management analysis read over the last few months, I was very interested to see how things are on the ground when I visited today on my way back South/East for a trip on the Autocar and Class 47, taking advantage of the full diesel timetable which suits my tastes (unlike 99% of other visitors).

Firstly the Autocar and trailer were a delight and I really enjoyed my trip, especially the trailer where the full width second class compartment was sampled. The NER stock looked very fitting at Goathland, Levisham and under the roof at Pickering in heritage surroundings. A very nice idea to run the vehicles and I hope its visit is as commercially successful as it clearly is with the public.

For me the Autocar has (temporarily) satisfied the thirst that the withdrawal of the Gresley set has created, and I hope the popularity of the pre-BR experience can stir some vigor along the road to bringing them back. They are without a doubt the greatest loss to the NYMR in recent years in my opinion. I'd like to bounce back from this comment to another positive which was getting a stand-out reception from LNERCA members at Pickering who had their shed and projects open for viewing today. I have never visited this shed before on previous visits and it was wonderful to see and discuss their work. The quality evident was something else and I was very impressed.

The rest of the railway and rolling stock was running well and also presented well, good pickings to be had out of the tearooms at Pickering and Goathland. The two 6-coach rakes of Mk1's were comfortable.

The front of house volunteer staff were clearly disappointed at the lack of steam and were making constant references to it (I only overheard four volunteers over the afternoon but of those, three made mention of it!) which I would caution as to the message being sent out. It is a difficult one but i think a balance can be struck of acknowledgement and not patronising visitors who are strongly unhappy with diesel substitution but also not putting off more neutral people who are on the fence and have potential for being won over if the diesel is being energetically pitched in a positive light. For example the run round procedure of the 47 at Pickering (and displaying an air of power by reverberating under the canopy!) attracted much interest.

I will finish with the general interactions with staff being very positive and the Yorkshire welcome was there in spades. I had several friendly exchanges with platform and on train staff and I am very pleased to say that I was not harassed when taking a responsible position in the vestibule to look (*not lean out to the waist!) out of the window at the carriage stable etc. Over zealous policing on the trains towards responsible adults is a MASSIVE turnoff to me so I was grateful to being left to myself to enjoy the journey.

Thank you to all at the NYMR for providing a good day out.

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I’m glad that you enjoyed your visit. After all this is what it’s all about. The Autocar and trailer are a real jewel and it’s great that their stay and use has been extended. It would be even better if it became permanent but then I would start to fear for their future given the railway’s track record of use then abandon.

 

Of course in addition to the £54 fare for Wareham to Farnborough you also pay roughly £61 in tax based on the average UK subsidy of 22.9p/km and if you hypothecated the costs to rural branchlines it would be much, much higher Scotrail all lines is 39.3p/km, I'd suggest that for a lot of the rural lines subsidy is well in excess of £1/ passenger km.

 

True by I pay the tax regardless of any travel or not.

 

Surely, the £22.9p/km is shared between all taxpayers? It doesn’t cost any single individual £61 but a share in that proportional to the amount of tax they pay as a proportion of all tax paid?

 

Not all government revenues are from tax. The Taxpayers Alliance, and other outfits, would have people believe otherwise. But it's simplistic nonsense.

 

This is obviously true but the point I'm trying to make is it's invalid to compare hugely subsided fares on the national network (Wareham to Farnborough) with fares on a heritage railway which has to meet all its costs.
If NYMR was a national rail TOC it would receive a £17.63 subsidy for a Pickering to Whitby return journey based on the average, £30.66 on a Scottish average including all the network rail subsidies. Once you start taking those sort of sums off the ticket costs it begins to look a whole lot different.

 

But the NYMR is of course not, and it is what comes out of peoples pocket as a fare that gets looked at I suspect, not the total cost of running a railway (or roads or buses etc etc.)

 

That encapsulates the problem for quite a number of heritage railways especially the longer ones. A combination of fare income, even at quite high per trip figures, and secondary spend is no longer enough to cover operating costs let alone generate a surplus for re-investment. It might be argued that lower fares would increase visitor numbers and total revenue except that current fares causing "out of pocket raised eyebrows" are already way too low. In effect the "pile it high sell it cheap " philosophy is already being adopted with fares screwed down to sub optimal levels.
They can cut costs up to a point but any further starts to undermine their ability to operate at anything like their traditional size and scale which in turn depresses income. That leaves dependence on new profitable activities and enhanced fundraising. However, expecting the latter to cover operating deficits rather than development/enhancement projects is a huge ask. It looks like future sustainability for many may depend on sale of new higher margin experiences rather than the traditional train ride.

 

Assuming that all the above is true (and that’s a massive assumption), what “development/enhancement projects” has the NYMR added in say the last 5 years? The carriage stable is the only thing I can think of, but that is neither passenger oriented nor income raising. I can’t think of anything else that could be regarded as increasing income.

Many would argue that the board has actually moved in the opposite direction with the employment of more staff and the removal of the teaks.

 

I was looking at it from the standpoint of an individual only, not your wider point which I missed. Though is it quite fair to say there is no subsidy? Gift Aid is a form of subsidy that’s worth roughly half of the England rail subsidy to the TOC?

 

Cost optimisation is obviously key and so is the focus on people. Finding new products and services is critical, but I don’t think many are showing much sign of doing that all that well. I think that the scale of some is unsustainable.

 

Having enjoyed the Autocar at Embsay and NYMR the prospect of visits to other heritage lines has more appeal to me, and maybe seeing the trailer in tandem with the future Class O new build as well.

 

I'm probably going out on a limb a bit here, but I think context matters enormously. The NER Autocar and trailer look wonderful and fit in well among the NER architecture of the NYMR, but I wouldn't drive to the nearest heritage railway to me to see them in LSWR settings. Even out in the countryside they fit in with the moorland backdrop but would look rather less in sympathy with the more sylvan surroundings of a GWR branch line. The opposite would have been true of the GWS's steam railmotor and its trailer. It's one of the reasons I'm not that keen on Mk1s - they do blend in better with all types of surroundings and lack much in the way of local individuality - but perhaps its just me that see's things that way, and perhaps I'm too discerning! I do, however, really look forward to seeing the G5 on the NYMR, and perhaps by then there will be some non-corridor LNER and H & BR stock to run with it!

 

Sort of means that most railways are off your list then.
Hall at the Bluebell (and Swanage for a week or so) Bahamas at loads of non Midland railways, Tangmere on Northern Rail tours, Tornado and SNG all over the country. List is endless and makes the Heritage model even less economic, but everyone to their own.

 

I do agree with this. As a minimum you either focus on a point of difference or you use events to bring in new money. The Teaks were a point of difference but look to be sidelined for the longer term as it stands. The language used in the recent 'Moors Line' suggests there won't be any changes anytime soon. I wouldn't be surprised if the NYMR try and break the contract to be honest as they are still paying for the hire of them (until 2030) without being able to use them!
Looking in the 'What's On?' page, bearing in mind where we are in the season, there isn't really a lot being shouted about. Footplate/Cab experiences, Diesel Gala (no mention of the Steam Gala yet?), Shed Tours. thats about it. If I compare with say the Worth Valley, there is Afternoon Tea's, Fish and Chip Specials, Diesel and Ale days, Ploughman's Lunches, the Railway Children Theatre special, The Beer and Music Festival etc. To note I know some of these would be covered on the NYMR by the diner, but you have to look at the diner specifically to find them, and they are a much more expensive/up market option using the pullmans.
I also think the NYMR miss a trick by not working with other businesses in the area. Between Pickering and Whitby (not to mention other businesses in the Yorkshire Moors area) there must be countless options that would be good for partnering up for specific events, but they aren't there. Those smaller events just don't exist. I suspect because they always ran everyday through the Summer there was a bit of 'we don't need to do that'. But now the chickens have come to roost so to speak and the NYMR looks like its a few years behind a lot of others in developing that wider strategy at the time they need it the most. I also worry that through some past decisions they have possibly alienated a lot of those businesses, but that's another story.

 

Some of this post echoes suggestions I have previously made, but what is most telling is that, as is pointed out, there have been no real initiatives to stimulate new/additional business. It seems to be almost symptomatic of a SMT that has thrown in the towel and is just waiting for someone to pull the plug. Perhaps a "prominent" person from the railway will appear on here to tell all of us critics that the reverse is actually the case, but will anyone believe him? I certainly will not, unless he provides some genuine evidence to that effect.

 

I suspect that longer lines need different attractions etc to some of the shorter ones e.g Worth Valley. Shorter railways ard more ideal for attracting non enthusiasts and families for a steam ride with added attractions, train ride not excessively long bur long enough to give the experience, whereas NYMR a bit too long for a lot of people especially if you have younger children to keep amused during the journey. I guess that is where the Autocar shuttles ans similar can work.



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I'm sure it varies from child to child, ours are quite content watching the world go by if there's things to see outside- we have had 4 trips to the NYMR in the last 2 years with a 3-4 year old and a 5-6 year old.

It sometimes feels like kids *have* to be occupied somehow, and parents are desperate to continuously feed them stimulus.

We usually have a colouring or sticker book in the day bag and a pack of cards for if they start getting a bit fed up- and a picnic.