North Yorkshire Moors Railway General Discussion

The trouble with volunteers Steve is that they need to be managed. When you have weak and insecure managers in post the perception is that paid staff are easier to manage than volunteers. If you do not have the relevant skills to manage volunteers then the easy option is to get rid of them, as happened at Levisham and also to the vibrant diesel group at the NRM. Unfortunately the problem is not unique to the NYMR.

Peter

 

I don't know about foretelling the Langdale Moor fire, but I think it could have been predicted. The drought-like weather has persisted almost everywhere all summer and could have been predicted to be likely come back into force at any time, so I'd argue it was a big gamble. Will it have paid off? EPOS will not tell us that by itself. It would be necessary to look at the preceding weeks and the same data in previous years to get a better idea. Someone with more of a financial background than me has calculated it would need to attract an 250 passengers per train to cover the cost of hiring and moving it - that's an extra 4 TSO's worth of people each time it ran! Well, if they were right, it's a tall order and I suspect it was not achieved. Maybe that's an overestimate, but even 125 extra per train would be a lot imho, and definitely very noticeable - and it would be rather worrying if there were that many seats free on a peak season train.

























extra 250 visitors per train to cover its costs

 

Tom, That’s an astute observation. Once a role has become a paid one there’s a huge bias in favour of that continuing even where employees leave through natural wastage. If they are redundant it’s potentially even more difficult to replace them with volunteers since, if their job still has to be done,it can be argued that they were not redundant and were wrongfully dismissed. The point is that the typical call for paid staff to be culled and replaced by volunteers is often unrealistic .

 

torgormaig's last post is astute too, but you didn't draw any attention to that one perhaps because weak management seems to be more prevalent than average on the NYMR?

 

That ignores the option of restructuring as grounds for redundancy, having introduced the red herring of redundancy as a way to defend the ratchet.

The creative answer would be to look at the roles that are fulfilled and to actively identify how they can be covered by volunteers, reinforced by hard restrictions on paid recruitment.

I also notice that we’re having this conversation in the context of NYMR, not the other railway on which @Lineisclear volunteers. That railway has a reputation for a very strong volunteer ethos. If they can do that, it begs the question of why NYMR can’t. Geography may be part of the issue, but Pickering isn’t that far from the civilised world - and other, more remote, railways seem to be successful in attracting sufficient volunteers to run intensive services.

 

Is it not true that customer facing staff in all industries regularly face abuse these days, especially post Covid. I am sure the BBC News has done pieces about this from time to time.

Just two from a quick Google, would not expect the NYMR 0r any line, to be any different.

https://www.instituteofcustomerservice.com/law-change-ongoing-abuse/


https://www.britsafe.org/safety-man...se-and-violence-against-public-facing-workers

 

You’re right but restructuring creates its own costs which have to be taken into account. The proportion of paid staff on the NYMR is at the high end but the trend on heritage railways generally is towards more use of paid staff including those with a proud history of volunteering. A reasonable question is whether volunteers are there to sustain a heritage railway or whether the railway exists to provide them with the opportunity to volunteer. Sometimes the emphasis seems to be on the latter.

 

> the railway exists to provide them with the opportunity to volunteer.

Wasn't that the exact reason most of them were founded?

 

I don't know how much the Tornado people are charging, but 250 people a train sounds a lot-particularly as it seems it was only ever going to be on the 5-coach set, and has been working the Diners on the days those run. I hope that a much better deal was negotiated for a loco which had unexpectedly been left with no other work. If so, then it seems a decent attempt to boost numbers on the internal services which is something many have been asking for.

The steam ban may well have wiped out the financial case for this visit which would be a shame, as another year , with more advance notice, Tornado on regular services might be an attractive prospect...

Jon
























extra 250 visitors per train to cover its costs[/QUOTE]

 

That’s why I asked the question. The perception that heritage railways are there for the benefit of volunteers is a common one In the NYMR’s case it’s probably OK following the recent adoption of wider charitable purposes that include promotion of the health social and welfare benefits of volunteering but for any that are charities with the more typical public education purpose it’s arguable that they do not exist for the benefit of their members or volunteers. Their raison d’etre is to achieve their charitable purposes. Like any charity they cannot prioritise the interests of their members or volunteers.

 

Bluntly, if push comes to shove, restructuring costs are a lot less than an ongoing paybill. But that misses the wider point that the objective can be achieved by focusing, as @Jamessquared commented, on how tasks are completed and finding ways to use volunteers for them.

As for the trend, it's one I acknowledge. But trends are no more than patterns, and the existence of a trend does not mean that it will culminate in any particular point.

Finally, you raise the chicken and egg question about railways and volunteers. Given the changes that you played a key role in pushing through at NYMR, I think we know the answer to that where NYMR is concerned. Given the concern about compliance, I find the apparent willingness to disregard charitable purposes really rather concerning.

Edit: My post crossed in the ether with post #7092 from @Lineisclear. Suffice it to say that I think the concern over prioritising can be vastly overstated.

 

It isn't disregard of charitable purposes but recognising that the overriding duty of trustees of a heritage railway charity is to achieve them. The RNLI doesn't exist for the benefit of its volunteer lifeboat crews. OXFAM dosen't exist to further the interests of the volunteers that work in its shops. Heritage railway charities are no different. Frequse of volunteers can help a charity achieve it purposes

 

Then, given that you’ve clearly stated in your earlier post that charitable objectives can be written to “include promotion of the health social and welfare benefits of volunteering”, did the NYMR drop the ball by not including such objectives?

 

So then the NYMR does exist (at least partially) for the benefit of the volunteers…

 

Thanks to the change in its charitable purposes, Yes. The same would not be true of heritage railway charities that have not expanded the charitabe purposes in their Articles of Association. Just for a change can the NYMR have some recognition for looking after the interests of its volunteers?

 

My understanding is that the Civil Engineer acted in a voluntary capacity although design work, etc, was often given to a company that he was associated with. Happy to be told that's wrong though.