North Yorkshire Moors Railway General Discussion

All my recent visits to the NYMR have been on the back of it being a Park and ride for Whitby, or a trip from Whitby to Goathland / Grosmont.
Otherwise its just too long a trip...

 

Gothland is just another name for Whitby, surely?

 

I wonder how much longer the NYMR will be able to run to Whitby for. If one was to do a SWOT analysis, the main threats are the limited line capacity and the potential desire to run an intenser service to Middlesboro for "normal" passengers pushing the NYMR out of the paths it currently uses, and the possibility/likelihood of main line standards being forced on the NYMR.. My own feeling is that the NYMR n needs to develop and broaden its appeal so that is more of an attraction in its own right so that it becomes an alternative attraction to a day in Whitby rather than a supplement to one, but I'm not sure that is a vision widely shared among the NYMR management and membership yet. Perhaps in the course of time that view will change.

 

Do NYMR services not now have a dedicated platform at Whitby? I'd not have thought Esk Valley services sufficiently frequent to cause pathing issues.

 

There is a separate platform for the NYMR at Whitby, but it is capacity on the rest of the line that is a problem - it's the reason why the NYMR can't operate services to Battersby on gala weekends any more, for example - the necessary paths are no longer there AIUI. If there is to be any further escalation of services on the EVL I think a passing loop between Whitby and Grosmont would be the absolute minimum requirement. The new potash mine wants a better commuter services and were supposedly prepared to pay for it, but the mine has had financial troubles and nothing has been heard of the loop of late.

 

I can understand heritage services to Battersby causing issues, less so the shorter run into Whitby. Re: additional loop. I'm going to go out on a limb and take a guess that, when compared with a purely heritage line, installing one on the big railway means at least trebling the price and adding a zero.

 

Added signalling may be required which will have a significant cost.
I believe currently no train can leave Whitby for the NYMR before the preceeding Northern service clears Battersby and going the other way a NYMR service must be secured in the platform at Whitby before the Northern service enters the Esk Valley section at Battersby.
I think there has been talk of addtional signalling to reduce the section lengths to possibly Glaisdale or even Grosmont, but I am not in operating or S+T and others will know better.

 

That does sound sub-optimal. I can't imagine the good burghers of Whitby would be too keen on losing a significant tourism 'plus'. It's not a familiar area to me, but it'll be interesting to see how things pan out.

 

Yes well so far it looks like there are 6 down and up trains to whitby the ups to Middlesborough to W, at 04:54 next at 06:54 10:19 14:04 18:00 and 20:42 and down 06:30 08:45 11:59 15:58 19:42 and 22:33 dep W. Little wonder there are only 2 steam services to Whitby on the N.Y.M.R. I thought before 2020 it was only 4 up and four down on the esk valley line during weekdays in 2019 and currently 5 up and down on the E.V.R. on w,ends, so yes the alternative could only be a loop at sleights or whitby pickering steam services just stay on the current timetable on the E.V.R. 2 up 2 down northern must have enhanced the timetable when I last visited my uncle at Glaisdale station in 2019 steam gala before he moved from Glaisdale sta to E, Yorks
Davo 56F

 

Not quite correct, Bryan. The Northern service only has to clear Glaisdale before NYMR trains can access the line to Whitby. The line is very basic with no signalling other than fixed distants and all is controlled from the 'box at Nunthorpe using none other than a magnetic whiteboard to record the position of each train. Even the token instruments are not under the control of the signalman, other than by giving permission over the phone for the token to be removed.

 

Might be a crazy idea, but has it ever been considered for the NYMR to get the infrastructure off Network Rail and take responsibility for the Grosmont-Whitby section? Like Transport for Wales have done for the Core (South Wales) Valley Lines. Could be on the long term lease maybe, and now would be the ideal time to get it sorted with the demise of NR before GBR comes in?

 

We're way off the GCR here! Knowing some of the reactions to the movement of the Valley Lines away from NR, and also DfT's view of transferring a trackbed to the GWSR rather than a public body, I find the likelihood of moving a branch forming part of the national network to a preserved railway unlikely - even assuming that the NYMR were willing to take on the risk of all those bridges.

 

Er.... the NYMR operate four trains to and from Whitby on a bronze T/T and five on Gold T/T, all of which are steam except the last one on Bronze to give time for the loco returning to Pickering to be serviced.

 

Beat me to it with mentioning the bridges; all nine of them and of metal construction, as well. That's one heck of a responsibiity. Then what would happen to the Northern service from Middlesborough? Would that terminate at Grosmont and what would the fair folk of Whitby think of that?

 

Can this conversation be moved to an appropriate NYMR thread ? It really has nothing to do with the GCR.

 

I very much enjoyed my first visit to the NYMR in years over the summer. The trip to Whitby from Grosmont was great and an excellent destination, with enough time to have a wander round.

I finally got round to editing my video from a two week holiday in the area - here are the results. I think I managed to see almost all the operational steam locos running, minus Lamberton No.29 (on hire to Didcot) and 'Repton', which was in the works.

It's about 30 minutes long - enjoy escaping from the dark nights into the warmth of summer for a while!

Hope you enjoy the video! Feedback and comments welcome

 

Speaking of driver competencies (from the Cholsey thread), the RAIB investigation into the class 20 that had a collision with a stationary train leans heavily on that none of the crew were signed off as competent on class 20s. https://www.gov.uk/government/publi...passenger-train-at-grosmont-21-september-2021

 

It seems to me like the driver made an assumption about the position of the train he was approaching, so that was his first mistake.
The report also states that 'The driver held the competencies required to drive the steam locomotive . . .' so to my way of thinking he ought to have been used to potential visibility issues when driving a locomotive with the cab at the trailing end of the vehicle.
The failure to then apply an appropriate amount of initial braking is where type familiarity would have presumably played a part. Otherwise the developing situation would have been prevented becoming an actual collision.
All very unfortunate and as is often the case, several issues mounted up to cause this collision.

 

Here's a feature on the BBC website.-

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-york-north-yorkshire-59772588