North Yorkshire Moors Railway General Discussion

Not really, GWR engines on the NYMR do not move me, but SECR ones at the Bluebell or LSWR ones at Swanage, or GWR and LMS ones at the SVR or GWSR are far more interesting SR Pacifics at the ELR, on the other hand, leave me cold. On the other hand, Bahamas would never have run on the NYMR, but Jubilees (and Royal Scots, Brits and maybe even 9Fs, I'm sure, ran to nearby Scarborough at times on summer specials so are not too far wide of the mark. It always seems odd to me, though, that photographers will flock to get a photo of a locomotive hauling steam era stock in territory that was (and looks, in the background) completely alien to them! I admit, though, that I'm probably a bit unusual in terms of thinking that context counts.

One has to be pragmatic in the end. There isn't the quantity and variety of stock (particularly ex-LNER) to be able to avoid compromises, however dreadful they may be!

 

I think you are, and therefore that influences the role of context in making practical decisions about fleets. I would go for a softer articulation, which is that context appropriate vehicles are particularly appropriate, hence in my mind why the unavailability of the Teak set is so disappointing.

 

You are probably right that they need different events to the shorter lines, but my point was that I don't see the NYMR doing very many events at all. The ones that I do see to pop up are the licensed ones (eg Paddington) that i doubt bring much money into the actual railway after the fees have been paid. They've experimented with a few things over the years but spend so much money on it without thinking it through (IMO). If they started with smaller ones, using local businesses (sorry i know i keep revisiting this) then the costs wouldn't be as high. When you look at previous ones like the 40's weekend which they seemed to try and run by themselves or the 'lights spectacular', the costs are so high you have to sell a lot of tickets just to break even. Start smaller, share the costs, work with the community you are in.

 

Quite a few other railways supplement their income with commercial stuff - for example, the East Somerset Railway has its associated CTMS business, the South Devon Railway has South Devon Engineering, the Severn Valley has regular visits by RailAdventure for rolling stock maintenance, Peak Rail has rolling stock stored on site for Locomotive Services, etc. I seem to recall the NYMR being used by Northern some years back for driver handling training using a pair of 153s, but we don't seem to see any of this commercial railway work at the NYMR nowadays, unless I've missed it?

 

Not really that accessible on a regular basis is it, having to go via Middlesborough and a reversal at Battersby and a lot of single line? Maybe OK for storage but is the NYMR awash with spare siding space?
Not like a quick trip to the SVR is it.

 

You are absolutely right, and not all the examples I gave would be suitable for the NYMR. However, I do believe it need to look at other commercial income streams rather than trying to squeeze more out of the visitor. It shouldn't be a case of "other railways can do these things, but we can't do any of them, or anything else, because of where we are located".

 

It shouldn't be the case and the NYMR has done other commercial work in the past but it never seemed to make any money at it - I hate to mention the term "commercial incompetence" but it seems endemic to the NYMR in virtually every department.

 

The NYMR did get used by Northern for skid training. A water washable solution was put on the track but the trouble was so many trains had difficulty on the 1 in 49 following this it was quietly abandoned.

 

I might be remembering wrong but I think comments on that appear in one of the TV programs the railway did from the mid to late OO's. The late Roger Barker having trouble with Repton on the diner....

 

The lack of siding space, or indeed land generally, has been a challenge from the outset. It's exacerbated by use of such siding space as is available for free storage of third party owned stock that's unlikely in many cases ever to turn a wheel in service. Another post accuses the boards of commercial incompetence. Perhaps they should adopt a more commercial approach ensuring that a scarce resource is used to its full revenue generating potential by charging current or alternative users a realistic storage charge?

 

It’s attitudes like this that go a long way to explaining why the railway is in such a mess. If it didn’t alienate its supporters it might do a lot better. I’m hearing tales that it is not honouring its agreements with the LNERCA over the teaks. I don’t know whether it’s true but I wouldn’t be surprised if it was.

 

Simply pointing out the obvious ...that if the boards are required to adopt a commercially competent approach that could have implications for traditional free of charge storage of third parties' stock.
The agreement with LNERCA provides for review and possible variation of its terms from time to time. The hire fees due to date are being paid. A joint review should be held shortly.

 

That's one bit of good news,

 

The Llangollen's efforts to supplement their income by engineering services did not work out well.

 

A few points to answer here, here, spread across different posts. Siding space: I assume that this comment about free storage was directed at LNERCA vehicles in particular. They are, of course not the only ones but they are all part of a long term plan, and from having restored 7 to traffic the number stored has risen because of the NYMR's failure to maintain their side of the running agreement. AFAIK the LNERCA is working hard to maintain its side of that agreement and also to make further vehicles available, and has also moved several more unrestored or partly restored carriages to an offsite storage site. There doesn't seem to be much goodwill being shown by the NYMR side as I believe they now owe several payments due under the agreement - presumably if so, they are witholding them to try to force the LNERCA to accept a revised and far less beneficial arrangement. (I'm not disclosing privileged information here, just what I've heard on the grapevine from a usually reliable source). Clearly, though, someone on one side or the other is not being wholly truthful! At the same time, contrast this with the NYMR who have done nothing whatsoever with the LMS Steam Heating van, despite the dangers posed by its asbestos content, and although the class 101 DMU purchased by member's subscriptions has been left to rot. I wonder how many MK 1s are also parked and unlikely to return to use -b and that's before one starts to tot up the collections of DEMIC wagons! But, in the end, it these are all mostly irrelevant and spurious because they occupy sidings that are of no real other purpose, but their existence also costs nothing, and the materials used in them are valueless too.

All of this may be "commercially competent" but it shows no regard for Trust charitable objectives, imho. Ignoring the views and wishes of members also seems to me to tantamount to commercial suicide. Repairs to Bridge 42 at Grosmont will require at least £250,000 and it is hard to not suppose that an appeal will go out, but why should members support a hard-nosed commercial operation - let it stand on its own two feet would be my opinion, since it no longer values it heritage.

Commercial operations: My impression at the time was that the Northern Rail DMU low adhesion driver training was carried out at times when the NYMR was closed, and so it should not have affected timetabled services. Presumably if there was found to be a problem to would not have been difficult to rig up a railcleaning train to use following the end of training, to remove the slippery compound use to reduce the adhesion, had it been a real issue. Just too much trouble, perhaps?

Commercial work is admittedly not a panacea -as the Llangollen Rly found discovered, as pointed out) but there is plenty of scope for a well run and properly priced organisation. The NYMR (if it survives this winter, something many of us are seriously beginning to doubt, based on stories circulating that it is looking to sell not one but two of its fleet!) is approaching a crossroads. It now has two vacant catering premises, plus the pig farm site at New Bridge that it really should be looking to make use of. My suggestion, though I know it will not be popular, would be to develop the two catering locations as just that, with perhaps the upper floors only as office space if it is really needed - but then I would reduce the office space needed by drastically reducing the numbers of staff needing an office. You would have a hard time convincing me that there isn't scope for that after I just received an email message from the "Head of Engagement" (and the title suggests there may be more than one of them!) thanking me for a donation - which to the best of my knowledge I never made!

 

But heritage railways are founded on symbiotic relationships between different groups - whether that is between volunteers and company, or company and rolling stock owners. There is a consistent tone in your posts that you are very quick to point out the costs in such relationships, while never recognising the benefits. In everything you write, it comes across as if you feel the NYMR company is consistently the victim of such relationships, abused by freeloaders who just want the railway so they can indulge their hobby / operate their stock. Perhaps you'll be imposing tariffs next?

If I had a group on my railway that owned a trainful of carriages and had a support group stood up around them to help with maintenance and funding, I'd be bending over backwards to make them feel welcome. And at the same time, I'd recognise the benefit they could bring - not just in variety, and adding interest that could be parlayed into marketing to those interested in such things, but more directly in the fact that every coach they provide is one fewer the company needs to provide!

Tom

 

Lots of black and British Railways liveried locos on the NYMR… perhaps they’re holding out for the LNERCA to do the decent thing and paint the teaks maroon…?



Simon

 

I think you are an exception here. If a line in the south hired the NER autocar, I suspect it would be equally great an attraction because it's unique and it has that vintage look to it. Yes the Bulleid Pacifics don't really belong at ELR but on the other hand it gives Spam Can fans a chance to see one in the north.

Re: your last post, we know 76079 is up for sale. Logically which other fleet member would they sell? The obvious choice, Repton, is apparently protected by some covenant or other. 80135 and Dame Vera are under restoration, and for various reasons I can't see either being sold. Which other locos are actually owned by the NYMR now, not by private individuals or third-party trusts? 5428 and 80136 surely both too integral to services - unless 136 is sold once 135 returns?

 

There’s a l

There’s a lot to unpack there Tom not least The assumption that every coach that could be provided is one that the railway can use. As well rehearsed on here the scope for use of the teak set is constrained in a way that many other heritage railways would not experience. That’s the reason LNERCA agreed that the service set should be limited to seven in service with one spare.
My post was in response to the suggestion that the NYMR might provide storage as a way of generating additional income. With limited capacity it’s reasonable judgement as to whether continued free storage of stock for which there is little prospect of restoration and use is a better use of scarce siding space than charging commercial organisations.
I seem to recall that much the same approach was advocated recently at the Bluebell. Perhaps attitudes have changed but the idea that storage space is a valuable commodity is hardly novel.

 

I don't think on the Bluebell we have ever reached a point of charging - or even suggesting such - owners of 3rd-party stock on the railway for the siding space they might use.

We did undergo a modest thinning out of some stock recently where the view was that we could not reasonably make a case that the vehicles would ever get restored. Two locos were sold, a couple of sleepers scrapped and a couple of other coaches sold on (but sadly scrapped, unbeknownst at the time they were sold). We have also sold a few Mark 1s in the last couple of years as operational vehicles for use on other railways as part of a gradual thinning of teh Mark 1 fleet.

In general, we are proud to use vintage (non Mark 1) carriages as much as possible, and the latest such vehicle is due to enter traffic later this month - the 1930 Maunsell Restriction 0 brake 3rd. Most carriages on the railway are owned by the railway, though there are a handful that aren't, but which we are happy to host - most notably (in an LNER-context ) the GNR Directors' saloon which sees regular use both in public traffic and for charter traffic.

We have also invested a sum upwards of £4m over the last twenty years in providing covered accommodation of both our service and non-service carriages, such that pretty much everything except the Mark 1s can live under cover. The cost-benefit analysis of the building for to-be-restored stock is interesting: we have a building at Horsted Keynes (OP4) which, based on a 50 year lifecycle, is costing perhaps £10k per year in depreciation in order to store unserviceable carriages that probably have a notional value of about £1 each, and which will costs tens or hundreds of thousands each to restore. So in pure financial terms there is no business case to spend £500k on storing such vehicles, but it is done because without it, they may not be available at all in 10 or 20 years time. But at a more visceral level, it was done because the members want to see the railway restore and operate vintage carriages. That means investing in skills, workshops and storage beyond the minimum necessary just to operate a service - not because it is the financially most efficient thing to do, but because it is what is needed to fulfil the agreed objectives of the society that owns the railway.

Tom