North Yorkshire Moors Railway General Discussion

I live in Yorkshire and much of the predicted rain hasn't materialised. The ground and soil is still very dry.

 

Whilst that personal engagement with volunteers was obvious I believe the former PLC chairman's principal concern was the morale and motivation of the paid staff which, given some of the suggestions on here and elsewhere, is understandable.

 

It's been pretty wet over the Moors the last few days - we've been staying in Grosmont.

 

I’d be more interested in revenue rather than passenger numbers, as towards the end of the 2024 season it felt like some 40% of passengers were using their annual pass (rather than the previously quoted 20%), and often accompanied by children travelling for free. So, although the train were sometimes running rammed (particularly after the coaching incident) I do wonder how much revenue they were actually generating… @Lineisclear much quoted “a fools errand” comment springs to mind.

 

In which case, how come that didn’t happen the previous year, claimed to be such a success?

 

The booking system will have very accurate figures including postcodes. Traffic means money, so traffic figures are very important.

 

That the Gift Aid 12 month fee return initiative generated additional income of over £400k is beyond dispute. Although initial uptake of the free return option was around the predicted 20% it did increase. However that does’t equate to loss of income. That would only occur if those taking up the free option would have otherwise travelled and paid. If the only reason they returned was the availability of free travel there would be no loss. Potential overcrowding would be an issue as would the HMRC limit of five operating days on which further free tickets could not be issued. As special events ( such as Scotsman’s visit) are to feature more in the railway’s offering that limit becomes more of an issue shifting the balance back to in favour of the alternative Gift Aid model.

 

Not if the said “traffic” were using an annual pass.

 

As @Lineisclear indicates, the 2023 predictions were bang on forecast and hence was a success. But why the % returnees increased in 2024 is a good question!

ps the % gift aiding in 2023 and 2024 at some 70%, as is my understanding, was also bang in forecast. Just a pity it couldn’t have been, say, 90%; most people I asked willing gift aided if able to ie were a UK tax payer, but a small minority chose not to for whatever reason. We will never know if that would have made the difference in maintaining the annual pass system rather than switching to the 10% donation model.

 

I would have thought that in 2024 second year of the scheme, there were plenty of people using passes purchased in 2023, and so an increase in the % of travellers using passes was always highly likely?

Jon

 

They’re top secret, despite @Lineisclear saying they will/should be available.

 

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I think this is a fascinating thread and it discusses much that has relevance elsewhere. I think we need to be careful about expecting too much information to be shared publicly. Visitor numbers are obviously a bit commercially sensitive.

Thinking back over this thread over the last couple of months I have been trying to summarise for myself what I have learned about the NYMR situation. Some of this is my supposition based on “reading between the lines”. Here is what I think I have learnt:

1. The Moors saw an opportunity to attract additional visitors by running to Whitby.

2. Running to Whitby has been successful in attracting many visitors and has become the core product offering.

3. For a variety of reasons - many not foreseeable at the time the decision was taken, like inflation post COVID - the revenue generated by running to Whitby has not outpaced costs. As a result Whitby running hasn’t resulted in a more commercially successful business measured as the ability to generate a bigger percentage surplus. To put it another way, I presume that the original plan was that the increased visitors and price would result in running to Whitby running generating a lot more revenue and some more cost and net the surpluses would be greater.

4. Running to Whitby forced many changes upon the operation of the railway, from competence management to FTRs to timetabling. These were obvious and probably anticipated. The culture change that has I suspect has also taken place was not anticipated. I suspect that it wasn’t planned, and has mostly been subtle and creeping. There has been an effect which few were aware of on the way in which the business of the railway is conducted. This is now becoming much more apparent and critical.

5. At a number of points the best judgement of management has resulted in hiring additional paid employees (over the years) to keep pace with the unrelenting demand of a long railway with operations that must also fit with someone else’s railway operations. Each individual decision would undoubtedly have made sense to someone, but the creeping result has been the acquisition of a large workforce.

6. Financially the railway has arrived at a difficult point and I suspect the boards and management feel there are few good options.
6a. Running to Whitby is what generates most of the traffic. Take that away, and will anyone still come?
6b. Staff costs are uncomfortable, but redundancy hits cashflow at a time when I suspect that as with many railways, it is cashflow that keeps it going. It may not be affordable to reduce staff.
6c. Whitby running probably cannot ever generate enough revenue to achieve the original vision, but with various grants and undertakings simply stopping isn’t an option, and takes us back to 6a
6d. Deferred maintenance is known to be there, is largely uncosted, but remains a concern

7. The subtle creeping culture change that has happened isn’t acknowledged by everyone, indeed it won’t be obvious to everyone because for some they haven’t known anything but the recent. It impacts the ability to address current issues. Internal communication is critical. The type of communication needed is hard to achieve, unless it comes fairly naturally. For an already pressed management it may feel impossible.

8. I think you can see indications that there is a move to reduce the over reliance on Whitby revenue.

9. The accounts have been qualified. There is time pressure to make changes that improve the finances. If new/additional/replacement roles are needed to make that change it might be difficult to find volunteers with capacity and capability to do them in time to make a difference.

I have some thoughts about how to react to this problem, but that wasn’t the point of this post which was to outline how I see things based on this thread and to acknowledge that this is not an easy set of issues. How we got here doesn’t matter, who’s to blame doesn’t matter right now. What will matter is getting clarity on remedies and bringing everyone inside the tent.

 

Thank you for the clarification - in other words, it provided a one-off boost which:
1. Increased revenue but
2. cannibalised future revenue by too much to remain viable

I’ve given my views on the price rises associated with the shift to the 10% model, and observe the significant discounting that has followed. Those speak volumes in support of the hypothesis in the excellent post by @21B

 

I agree with you about 21B's post but you're jumping to the wrong conclusion about the reason for the move away from the 12 month free return option. Obviously the reduction in operating days means the returnees would be spread over fewer dates increasing the possibility of overcrowding. As suggested before a key reason is greater dependence on sale of special experiences like Scotsman which, yes, would have meant their financial benefit would be reduced . However, that's the result of a change since the original Gift Aid regime in the type of service being promoted. Had we stuck with seven day operation of standard timetabled services the 12 month free return option might well have continued.

 

Noted, although the description of visits like FS as “experiences” stretches my dictionary. I agree though that it is a cautionary tale for the idea of Gift Aid being an unmitigated boon

 

I have been away for a few days, but I'm appalled by the situation the NYMR has descended into, and which I fear it can never recover from without severe structuring; I cannot see a realistic alternative to a very heavy curtailment of paid staff to anything but an absolute minimum; even with a sudden massive input of funds there are too many problems lurking in the background, such as Bridge 42, which is the brick-built viaduct separating Grosmont station and the loco works. It has been suggested to me that it might be necessitate running over the bridge whilst repairs are carried out and if they cannot be carried out over the winter (and where's the money for that going to come from? - and, if it is somehow found, that must mean no money at all for urgently needed maintenance elsewhere) then how will that affect Whitby bound traffic from Pickering, which we are told is now the main focus? Similarly, if the line has to be curtailed to diesel only operation from Grosmont to Goathland, how attractive will diesel hauled services over the rest of the line be? We have arrived at a disastrous mess and I cannot help feeling that the blame lies firmly the PLC Board and paid managers. The sooner they are gone and replaced by people who understand the business the sooner there's a chance of salvaging something from what little is left. I've heard Ian Riley has been offered the chance to buy back 76079, but I suspect he's probably waiting for the chance to grab 45428.

To my mind Whitby is a lot of the problem. It has been popular, but the NYMR was undeniably popular before it started and it seems as though what really happened was that instead of visiting the railway and the opportunity to ride on it and look around and spend money on it, they now ride and spend their money in Whitby. There's no real emphasis on promoting the railway any more, it's just a means to an end now and despite the fixation with "charitable objectives" now, it seems to have given up in its primary one.

 

As 21B says, it has become a park and ride.

 

If Riley wants another 5, surely he’d be better off with 45491 which I understand is due to be evicted from the GCR and is potentially up for sale? 5428 is such an integral part of the NYMR fleet that they’d be daft to sell it in working order unless it was guaranteed it could stay on the line on hire.

Re Whitby, there’s clearly a balance to be struck. Clearly it brings in a lot of custom but equally I think people dont realise the whole line is an attraction in itself.
If something happened on the Esk Valley Line and the NYMR was cut off from Whitby for a length of time, would they actually be able to convince people to come anyway?

 

Do you seriously think Riley would be better off with an incomplete and unfinished 45491 rather than 45428 which is, to a certain extent, NR-registered? If you do there's a bridge across the Thames I'd like to sell you!You are right in one respect, the NYMR would be daft to sell it, but these are desperate times, and I think the management are probably desperate to continue to keep getting paid, so I would not put it past them. As for your last argument, that sounds to me like a Lineisclear "Chicken Little" argument? It now seems to be generally forgotten that it's only in recent years that the NYMR has run to Whitby and its advertising effort seems to have swung heavily in favour of that. It could, and should (and must!) be looking to rebuild its Pickering to Grosmont patronage.

As for it being impossible to stop running to Whitby, one obvious prerequisite for doing that is that the rest of the line should remain open!