Bumper year for NYMR

The NYMR have today put out a press release giving last years traffic figures - the previous record of 323,000 visitors (not passenger journeys!) set in 2007 has been annihilated, with 350,000 recorded in 2009. an increase of just over 8%, and an increase of around 11% on 2008's figures.

 

Lets hope this translates into additional revenue, they certainly need it with Bridge 30, 80135, match funding for "Train of Thought" etc. The SVR has also had a good year, but reports a reduced per capita "spend", so maybe if the same has happened with the NYMR, the benefit of those higher visitor numbers might not be as much as anticipated.

 

Full Press Release at:

http://www.nymr.co.uk/2010/02/2009-success-despite-tough-year-ahead/

With Passenger Numbers up 11% but Turnover (exclduing Charitable Income) up by 7%, this does suggest a reduction in the spend per person. Bear in mind that an issue for many railways is the size of Shops and Tea Rooms - this is certainly a major limiting factor on the NYMR. The longer journey to Whitby has, however, enabled improved on train Catering sales from more selling time. 2009 did seem to be a year when travel and catering did better than Shop Sales, although they were reasonably constant (allowing for factors like the effect of the closure between Grosmont and Goathland for Bridge 30).

Steven

 

Also released this week were the 2009 Passenger Figures for Durham Tees-Valley Airport - 288,000 - the NYMR now officially busier than the nearest airport!

Steven

 

How does this rate with other heritage lines - is there a league table?

 

Its about 90-100,000 more than the next in line - SVR, WSR, Swanage, I think.

 

From published figures, the "Top 5" are:

North Yorkshire Moors Railway 350,000
Severn Valley Railway 250,000 (Just under)
West Somerset Railway 226,737
Swanage Railway 223,689

I have seen no figures for Paignton & Dartmouth. They usually quote "Passener Jorneys" i.e. a return = 2 Passenger Journeys". I would expected their figure to be just under the Swanage and West Somerset. I think the Festiniog has probably published its fibures and the Welsh Highland but I can't recall what they were! Combined, they may well be close to the 200,000 mark but I can't think of anyone else likely to be in the "200,000 Club".

Steven

 

Do the NYMR figures include the "mainline" work they/you do? Or is it just the actual NYMR?

The PDSR counts passenger journeys as there is a lot of single journeys, there are a lot of coach/cruise parties that only use the line to do one direction. Also with the various combined tickets a lot of "normal" passengers only do the one trip, travelling by rail then moving onto boat and bus.

 

The NYMR figure includes the Grosmont to Whitby section. Most of the "mainline" tickets are through journeys - just over 40% of the tickets sold at Pickering are for Whitby - either the whole line or Whitby to Goathland. There will be some Whitby to Grosmonty and visa versa but the market from Whitby was always expected to be to Goathalnd as much of the Pickering market was before Whitby.

Around 1/3 of all ticket revenue is taken on Whitby tickets (i.e. journeys that involve travelling on the Network Rail section at some point), which equates to around 90,000 of the passengers.

Those who travel,through are only included once in the passenger figures and most who travel to or from Whitby will also travel on the NYMR, so they are both "NYMR" and "Whitby" passengers.

Hence, the total does include mainline but not as "extra" in most cases. However, whether people would travel without the Whitby option is another question and certainly the 2009 figure is 1/4 more than the last year before through running to Whitby (during which a connecting shuttle service ran between Whitby and Glaisdale calling at Grosmont).

Steven

 

I'd be much more impressed with net profit figures than all this business of who carries the most passengers/revenue.

Might be a very different league table then!

 

Indeed it might be a different league table, but as virtually all heritage railways (T & DSR excluded) are not out to make a profit and endeavour to plough back the excessoperational income over expenditure, it would not be a sound yardstick on which to base an opinion.

 

Maybe passengers per mile or track???

 

It used to be the norm for the big railway to report single passenger journeys (probably still is) and all the early heritage railways did this at one time. However, the leisure industry quotes visitor numbers and, like it or not, that is what we are in and what is mainly requested by everybody from the media to grant funding bodies. You also have to ask the question 'what is a passenger journey?' For example,if an NYMR passenger buys a rover ticket and travels (say) Pickering - Goathland - Grosmont - Goathland - Grosmont - Pickering in his day, taking a different train each time, (and he could do more) how many passenger journeys is this and how do you count them in the first place?

 

Steven,

Don't think I'll appoint you as my financial director if you think 90,000 is approximately 1/3 of 350,000 - I know it is prudent to be cautious but that's a bit extreme!

45581

As for the point about nett profit etc., it all depends how you define success, doesn't it? If most preserved railways were run as proper businesses they'd be closed. From the point of view of us volunteers who run them, the bigger and the more passengers they carry, the more successful they are. The outcome for us, as preservationuists, is more steam miles, more engines in steam (five to seven engines in steam per day is not uncommon for lines like the NYMR, Bluebell and SVR - and more on Gala days) more restored vintage rolling stock etc. Provided the railways concerned can pay their bills by whatever means, I think that passenger journeys are as good a measure of success as profit, they are largely proportional to cash coming in, though not necssarily to that going out .

We all know that most heritage railways will always struggle because they are inevitably undercapitalised for businesses running obsolete equipment and infrastructure in a modern world where labour costs are high.

 

I do see what you mean - when I worked the figures out (which I must admit is more simulatious by equations than in depth analysis of the actual passengers returns), I thought "Hey, wait a minute!". However, the longer journey and high ticket price to Whitby means that you do need fewer than 1/3 of all passengers to make up 1/3 of ticket revenue.

For adults, the fares from Pickering were £15 to Grosmont (or Goathland) and £20 to Whitby, yet the overall average yield per head for the whole of 2009 was about £8.75. The difference is, of course, due to children/family tickets, senior and party discounts and part line journeys and singles.

Approximately 95,000 Whitby passengers at an average yield of £10.75 and 255,000 others at an average of just over £8 gives the 350,000 passengers and just over £3 million ticket revenue. Tickets sold by Whitby are much more likely to not be full line, reducing the average, whereas by definition Pickering must sell full line journeys to reach Whitby at all!

Can't disagree one jot with the rest of what you say. The other problem with trying to measure "success" by "profit" is that you ain't comparing like with like - good old "apples and oranges". Most larger lines will make a loss on train operations and make it back in other areas. A major profit maker on the NYMR is the Pullman, but it wouldn't be without the service trains bearing the cost of the line actually existing in the first place!! Diner operations are pretty large scale on the Severn Valley but less so on other lines and no longer operate (I believe) at Paignton. Likewise, the legal form of the Company operating the line affects reported profit. Paignton don't report separately (in public) train and boat profits, whilst the NYMR "profit" (or loss) is after taking into account Charitable income which is in a separate "Supporters" Company in many other cases. The NYMR is perhaps slightly unusual in that the Charity owns all voting shares in the trading PLC and still owns the Railway itself - so all activities go through the Charity's Group Accounts. Add to that the Charity Accounting rules that usually include as income grants (and donations) used to buy new fixed assets and you end up with an "excess of income" or "surplus on Statement of Financial Activities" that is meaningless as a comparative against a non-charitable Company whether membership income is in the same accounts or not. (Put bluntly, the NYMR accounts often seem to show a better position due to the charitable income than is achieved by all the train and trading activities alone).

Steven

 

Since privatisation, the big railway has used ORCATS which divides the income from each ticket sold between all the Train Operating Companies which the passenger could have used to make that journey. Each TOC will count it as one passenger journey for a single ticket and two for a return ticket. For example when a interoperator single ticket from Coventry to Birmingham New Street is bought Virgin, Cross Country and London Midland will all count it as a journey despite the passenger probalbly only travelling on one train. Until the recent rationalisation of the franchises, a single ticket from Gatwick Airport to Shrewsbury (any reasonable route) ticket would count as 10 passeger journeys and a return would count as 20. That's one of the reasons that the ATOC passenger numbers are always higher than the ORR figures.

John.