North Yorkshire Moors Railway General Discussion

Re card payments, TTIs accept both card and cash, with the card machine using using either 3G or WiFi (within the stations) to communicate. However, between stations I would guess that 95 percent of the route has no 3G connectivity at all (a function of the remote nature of the route), so if a chip & pin card is used for payment the machine then takes a few seconds to determine there is no connectivity (longer if there was a few moments ago eg just leaving a WiFi station zone), then offering the TTI the option of deferred payment, which the TTI responds with a “yes”. All this takes precious time, which would otherwise be pretty instantaneous. PS smart phone payments are normally instantaneous wherever the train is!

ps setting the right fare to maximise income is all about the elasticity of supply and demand (my old expertise as a chartered engineer/ professional transport planner, when estimating future guided bus, big railway or station passenger numbers and revenue; depending on fare, frequency and other factors), and finding the sweet spot is no mean feat. And the trick today is to capture all the potential revenue under the curve; a premium fare for those that can afford it and less so at the other end of the scale. A good lesson this week has been Pizza Hut, they never aimed their product at the premium market, going instead for the cheap and chearful product, aimed at the “lower income” segment of society. But that market has been effectively squeezed by the current (still!) cost of living crisis, leaving Pizza Hut with no market at all (the premium end customers who can “afford” wouldn’t normally eat at Pizza Hut whilst the typical Pizza Hut customer can no longer afford). Ps sorry if I’ve offended any Pizza Hut customers!

 

It would be interesting to see how the fares (adjusted for inflation) from five, ten, fifteen and so on years ago compare with today's fares. Pizza hut is an interesting analogy, in many towns pizza hut was the first pizza restaurant in town, so established the market and never adapted so as you say they got carved out from above and below. Can this be likened to the NYMR in some ways? I think so. Sunday trading has definitely contributed to the decline of weekend business. There wasn't any competition from Wensleydale and Embsay didn't connect to Bolton Abbey, so undoubtedly both those railways will have contributed to a fall in business. Mainline steam used to be the BR Scarborough spa express and offered a not dissimilar product. My observations were that seemed to do well when the NYMR was short of steam power and not so well patronised when the NYMR had plenty of steam. Even rail tours years ago were a different beast to today, so they will have taken a chunk out of the top of the market with the high end dining options. I am intrigued how you see an NYMR premium product?

As to the card terminals and signal blackspots, I think this is a problem that will go away in a relatively short time frame. Either trains could be equipped with WiFi connection to the internet using a satellite service as I believe ScotRail are trialling or as is being rolled out, satellite direct to mobile, with one network in the USA offering universal coverage from space to standard 4G handsets. How much did it cost to install a fibre optic cable over the 18 miles? Already technology has rendered this unnecessary each signal box could have simply have a satellite receiver fitted to have fast enough internet to run the block and phones for less cost than the BT leased line was back in the staff and ticket days. Stuff moves from science fiction to fact very rapidly these days.

Sawdust.

 

I agree. All I was quibbling about was reference to a "sweet" spot. An optimum price point that maximises the income from fares is hardly "sweet" if lots of income still needs to be found from other sources.

 

Then in that case, fewer staff should be employed. Because it's unlikely that level of other sources is going to be sustainable in the long term.

Sawdust.

 

As with some many things, the situation on the NYMR is not that simple, and a large part of that comes down to the welcome and encouragement given to volunteers. Unlike many other railways, there seems to be little volunteer help in the catering side these days. The Levisham tea hut was a notable exception but the cadre that ran it were part of the Levisham station group that got ruthlessly eliminated by the railway management, and AFAIK have (like the rest of the then LSG) gone for good. Otherwise it's mostly completely paid staff. But other areas are weak too - Grosmont shed, the carriage group etc. I suggest have far lower volunteer numbers than most heritage railways, perhaps because there are no paid staff in at the weekends tho organise them, provide them with tools etc. If you want to be a volunteer it really has to be on weekdays, to suit the convenience of the paid staff. It's the wrong way round!

 

I see that Goathland webcam has been removed.

View Live Webcams | North Yorkshire Moors Railway - NYMR

I assume this is in anticipation of the pay per view that was mentioned at the AGM for the webcams, with 8 being introduced, of which 1 will remain free.

 

Why would you pay to view a heritage railway webcam? Maybe I am missing something here, but I can't think of a single reason to do so.

 

Railcam have made quite a business out of it with multiple cameras across the UK mainline and preserved network.

RailCam - Bringing The Lineside To Your Armchair

Charging £37.50 per year.

 

Another desperate idea to bring in money, I expect.

Noel

 

https://www.nymr.co.uk/news/cream-teas-behind-flying-scotsman-static

Sorry, we cannot find the page you are looking for

Assume that idea has been cancelled.

Was collect a hot drink and a scone from Grosmont tea room and then sit in coaches being heated by 4472.

4472 was dead in the station today for footplate access, hauled away by 37688 earlier.

 

The situation of fewer volunteers in those areas is not unique to the NYMR. It is the same on the MHR where here also the lack of volunteers at weekends might be attributable to there no longer being a tolerance or availability of volunteer team leads / no paid staff at weekends. I am not sure that there is much alternative. The employees are there because they’re needed. There is just about enough to do the work that has to be done. Limited capacity to supervise large numbers of volunteers, who may not ease the workload. Now, I do think that this is a self fulfilling prophecy and that at some point you have cry enough and try to reverse the loss of volunteers and address the skill shortage they have, but for the staff on the ground now, that’s not easily achieved when they are already overwhelmed.

 

"Guide to the line, £1.80.please" Charlie's phrase ringing out through the train, I can hear him in my head. Godbless him.

Sent from my M2003J15SC using Tapatalk

 

If they are using 3G Im not surprised they have problems. I think all 3G transmitters but for a handfull of Three transmitters have been switched off in the UK by mid 2025.

 

Then the answer is surely to recognise that all volunteers are not equal and some, surely, ought to be sufficiently skilled and trusted enough to be able to act as volunteer team leaders? At the NYMR, NELPG, the LMERCA and the station groups, for example manage themselves that way, so why cannot more people be encouraged to similarly act as team leaders? Once there is a record of what jobs they are allowed to tackle, and permission to access the tools necessary then away they could go, just spending time at the end to replace the tools where they obtained them from - with the team leader signing off that they have done so. See Bill Read's FB blog for an example of the sort of jobs he tackles with being a trained fitter (he's a retired fighter pilot!). I happen to know Bill and I'm absolutely sure he could lead a group of others if he was asked to. It's no use saying volunteer numbers are falling off if you don't provide encouragement to them.

 

I agree. Not my call though, and all I was pointing out was that the Moors experience is not unique, and also that the bandwidth of the employees is already stretched, which sometimes explains their inability (genuine inability) to affect change. That change might be entirely useful to them in the long run, but the transition might actually break them. The change will have to happen, and it may be that it can only happen by reducing the commitments for a time to allow staff time to manage changes. That will not sit easily with the commercial imperatives.

 

I was very surprised to see that they need 3G.

 

3G, 4G, 5G I’ve no idea (it’s all black box to me). The point is there is zero mobile nor WiFi signal outside the stations on the NYMR (as also evidenced by my iPhone which is on 5G), which currently makes our card payment terminal (and indeed probably any card terminal) clunky. At least our card terminals do automatically switch between a mobile signal (of whatever shade or colour) or WiFi and failing that allowed deferred payment.

yes we have fibre optic between signal boxes and stations, but that doesn’t get WiFi nor mobile to the train. I suspect that one day we will all be able to use satellite but that day has not yet arrived for the vast majority of us.