North Yorkshire Moors Railway General Discussion

The SVR also carries out revenue-generating contract work that must sustain at least part of its engineering staff; the NYMR does not.

 

SVR also has two pubs open all year round /outside operating hours which often employ part time staff .

 

Why would someone come forward and volunteer for a role knowing others doing the same role are being paid ?
And going back to your previous comments you insisted that paid staff couldn’t be replaced by volunteers,as that would mean their position wasn’t redundant.

 

The railway of today already appears to be a shadow of what it was in 2023 never mind previous decades …

 

That 's already the case e.g. for signalmen but it hasn't stopped volunteers continuing to come forward.

If employees leave of their own volition, retire or via other forms of "natural wastage" then replacing them with volunteers is easier but you're right, dismissing an employee claiming they are redundant and then replacing them with volunteers is asking for big financial trouble.

 

Not to everyone it seems.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles...2upvJ91NKthTnU_6Vw_aem_pxeHrHvk-yVerhGoiadYRw

 

Ah, but the NYMR couldn't possibly do that - they'd probably want a paid member of staff as a tech expert on every train to sort out problems, and on top of that it would mean investment in choosing the right tech (and probably doing it without advice!) and having to invest in it! It's impossible I tell you!

Can't say it was a solution I had in mind but if it works, then any port in a storm........

 

There's an obvious follow up though, which is that if the railway therefore isn't financially viable, how many years have you got left? And at what point do you have to slay some sacred cows about every single line item in your budget?

My personal view is that if you are really of the opinion that the railway isn't operationally viable without all the current staff (point 2), you really aren't thinking hard enough. For example, I'm staggered you seem to suggest paid staff for catering trollies. On most railways those are volunteer positions and if on a particular day you can't fill the roster - well, not the end of the world. The name of the game is you make money with low overheads. Whereas the NYMR position seems to have gone down a rabbit hole of "We offer a 15% voucher as part of the Gift Aid deal ==> On train buffet is an important place where that 15% can be redeemed ==> We must have on train buffet ==> We can't guarantee full coverage with volunteers ==> We must have paid staff to guarantee full coverage of all trains". That feels like the Gift Aid tail wagging the paid staff dog, but in the process eroding the benefit conferred by the Gift Aid. Perhaps in the set of accounts covering the 2025 season, you might be kind enough to detail how much the railway collected in Gift Aid - but also what the specific additional costs of doing so were, including paid staff to operate a catering trolley?

The savage truth is - if the railway is losing money year after year, you have to look hard at both sides of the income / expenditure equation, nothing should be off limits on the cost side. The question is then whether you wish to do that in a way in which you maintain control or in a way when your hand is forced by a cashflow squeeze. A good place to start is probably at the very least to look really closely at any new recruitment. Even if you have a new work requirement, the default position is "can we find a volunteer to do this?" You'd be surprised just what skills are out there if you just ask the question. Whereas your default position comes across very strongly as a working assumption that a volunteer can't be found, rather than a working assumption that one can be found. That's a recipe for gradually inflating costs, almost by stealth.

Tom

 

I agree and if the lack of a trolley means the 15% voucher does not get used then that is not a loss to the railway is it.
Having convinced someone to gift aid something surely the job is done as long as there is the opportunity to redeem it somewhere. Although I guess the issue may be if 90% only travel Pickering to Whitby and back where are those locations?
But on last years "deal" you had to make the effort to return to get something, so little difference in my view.
Of course without knowing the prices maybe the NYMR is making a fortune on teas and coffees.

 

If a customer is travelling to Whitby, the only chances of redeeming the voucher is at Pickering, before departure, or on the train - the NYMR has (afaik) no catering facility at Whitby and the tea rooms at Pickering will be closed by the time they return (and there might not be at catering trolley on those afternoon departures either) so imho the 15% voucher may well be seen as not much of a thankyou and more of an empty one.

 

....your default position comes across very strongly as a working assumption that a volunteer can't be found, rather than a working assumption that one can be found. That's a recipe for gradually inflating costs, almost by stealth.
Tom[/QUOTE]

Which is exactly what appears to have happened over the last few years.

 

If you're employing staff to operate the trolley, it's going to be costing the company pretty much £200 a day in staff costs (wages, national insurance, pension, etc). That's at least 100 cups of coffee that need to be sold on the train before any sort of profit starts to be made.

 

Footplate roles ,guard ,signalmen are critical roles that should be filled by volunteers and by exception filled by paid staff ( as a secondary role ,such as a mpd fitter acting as fireman occasionally).
Buffet staff are luxury roles to be filled by volunteers or remain vacant (apart from possibly the busiest trains in each direction ).

 

The SVR runs an engineering business which would account for some of the staff.

Did anyone actually bother to ask for trolley volunteers or has management just assumed that there won’t be any volunteers?

 

The Booking Offices were purely volunteer staffed, but following COVID and the loss of some volunteer, it then meant that some Booking Offices became closed all day, in particular Grosmont (also Levisham as that particular volunteer of this Parish decided to move to Worcestershire - no names mentioned), Thus today to ensure all Booking Offices are now manned (except Levisham which is now permanently closed) with a mixture of volunteer and paid staff. I am such a volunteer and have no problem working alongside paid staff and vice versa; the only difference between us is that I get first dibs of the days I want to volunteer (2 days a week in the booking office) and any gaps in the roster are then filled with paid seasonal staff.

 

Unfortunately the floor of the Goathland tea room was being repaired at the time and thus out of bound.

 

The answer is “yes”. The buffet car is manned by a mixture of paid and volunteer staff. Eg Monday 9.15 ex Grosmont (then 10.00 ex Whitby, 12.00 ex Pickering, 14.10 ex Whitby and finally 16.00 ex Pickering) is usually manned by a single paid member of staff, and a volunteer joining to and from Pickering (as is their choice).

 

Some trains would therefore operate with no buffet at all. This does still occasionally occur even with paid staff, but not as much otherwise. Personally, I think it essential to have a buffet car open on a 2 hour journey, ideally with volunteer or otherwise paid staff.

 

As does occur on the majority / nearly all of operating days. As long as the paid staff’s costs are covered then I do think operating a buffet service on a 2 hour journey as an essential part of the overall experience.

 

The customer will have 7 days to redeem the voucher, and at Pickering can always ensure the full voucher is redeemed by adding the odd sandwich etc.

PS the 12.30 and 14.10 ex Whitby departures normally have a buffet car operating

pps The NYMR now prefers to operate using a buffet car / micro buffet rather than a catering trolley.