North Yorkshire Moors Railway General Discussion

I think it is probably accepted that they cannot cut their way out of this one, although there may over time be cost savings somewhere. I think @Lineisclear has indicated that the optimum financial case is acknowledged to be unacceptable.

Now the hard part. Against the well rehearsed backdrop of inflation since 2020, decreased volunteering, increased regulation, increased NI, change to spending patterns, deferred maintenance and the like, what to do?

The qualification of accounts means that the company needs to demonstrate changed fortunes in 1 or 2 years. This implies a need to do three things:
1. Attract more visitors and fill every space on every train
2. Extract more spend/run more profitable services
3. Do not increase costs

This would fix the immediate financial situation, but it will not (cannot) address the deferred maintenance. Heritage railways of this length will in my view struggle to meet all the capital needs out of the fare box (and always have).

Grant funding is harder to obtain at the moment (my sense, others can confirm/deny), but not impossible. However, what funding is available tends to require activities that are seen by many to be “non-core”. They also need staffing.

This I think is the nature of the problem to be solved.

 

And, at the risk of making a circular argument, is where there needs to be progress towards a structural change in the cost model.

At 44% of turnover, staffing is the largest single cost. If - and it is an if - 10% of that cost can be removed by either not doing things, or by substitution with volunteers, that leaves (worst case) 10% less cost to cover with revenue or (best case) 10% of turnover that can be used to do important stuff like dealing with deferred maintenance.

My view is that this is best achieved by acting fully and generously on what's been said by the Chief Exec, and really positively looking to use volunteers if at all possible. That requires creating confidence that volunteers are genuinely valued, and not seen simply as second class labour. There will be challenges in achieving this - I take seriously the point about FTE ratios and requirements for availability - but to treat the structural cost base as a fixed point seems brave.

 

Which accounts have been qualified? Can’t see anything in the auditor’s report for the PLC or Trust for the accounts year-ending 28 February 2025 (not to say I have missed it!).

 

As Lineisclear has a seeming fixation with "sound" business practices, perhaps a timely reminder or about financial realities might be in order? As a business, the YMR cannot keep losing six figure sums each year. When the wage bill reaches 45% or thereabouts of the total turnover it really needs to be reduced in line with other costs. I am not a great fan of redundancy but surely the loss of some jobs is preferable to losing all of them because the business has gone bust?

 

The Yorkshire Post

North Yorkshire Moors Railway refuses to answer chief executive pay rise question after £90,000 figure revealed

North Yorkshire Moors Railway has refused to confirm whether its chief executive has received a pay rise after remuneration details were revealed in its latest accounts.

Recently-filed accounts for NYMR Plc show remuneration of more than £90,000 for its highest-paid director, understood to be chief executive Laura Strangeway, in the year to February 2025. The figure is almost 10 per cent higher than the amount set out for its last full financial year.

Premium article to read the rest;

 

That presupposes that 45% of total turnover is out of alignment with overall size of the business. Actually I am not really sure that it is, though I am on record multiple times agreeing that it is imperative not to pay for something you could get done for free.

There are problems with reducing the number of staff:

1. You need cash now to do so, because you have to compensate staff for loss of post.
2. If you make a role redundant it means that job content is no longer required by the organisation. You cannot make someone redundant today and have their job done by someone else tomorrow. You must stop doing that activity. (I am simplifying here a little). Or carry it out at a reduced level. You can’t just get a volunteer to do it instead.
3. If you reduce the head count you have to be very careful that you do not create a situation where the business shrinks to fit the number of people able to execute that business. That could well be the outcome.

A hiring freeze might be sensible. Natural wastage and/or some voluntary severance might also be helpful, but it is not a panacea and it will not fix the situation on its own.

 

As you say, a major reason for the extension of services to Whitby was to complete the Whitby & Pickering Railway once more. However, it was more than that. The original scheme put forward actually proposed giving the NYMR a licence to operate all the way to Middlesborough. However, at the time this was only considered by the NYMR as a nice to have and the ORR declined to agree to that but it did say that, when they had firm plans to do so, there was no reason why it couldn't be granted. The NYMR did have firm plans to operate services to Battersby, though, and the licence to do so was granted. The plans included operating evening dining trains to Battersby as well as on gala and other days. The big advantage seen for running dining trains to Battersby was that there would be no need to open signalboxes on the railway and that they could also be run at times when the NYMR was closed for maintenance in winter. It was also thought that it could tap into a visitor market in Whitby without people having to drive to Grosmont. A few dining trains did run, if I remember correctly, but in never became the norm. Battersby running was largely killed off with changes to the Northern T/T which didn't allow sufficient time to run round the train at Battersby and trains could only operate if they were top and tailed. There were also problems with crews maintainnig competence and the railway ended up having to run ecs trains to do this, although why they were ECS, I never understood. The present licence no longer allows the NYMR to operate trains to Battersby, AFAIK. It's a shame but I can understand why.

 

On a different note, it’s been posted on Facebook that 5428 is to become 45428 for the gala. I sincerely hope that this is a temporary change for the gala, presumably to match the Ivatt and 4MT, and that that the railway hasn’t wasted precious resources on falling back into the obsession of painting absolutely everything into BR liveries. 5428 stands out for being unique in preservation in that particular LMS livery.

 

Well it's not been a day for good news, but I've had a call today to tell me that the NYMR Head of Engagement left on Friday - so that's 60K/year saved for a couple of months till the replacement is rushed in! Interestingly, I've also been told that in the marketing department there's one person who reports to a manager; that manager reports to another manager above them - who in turn reports to another manager above them! If I'm right, that amounts to three managers per "worker bee" -and people still wonder why I think there could well be scope for economies!

 

Contrary to what certain people might hink, I've never proposed making staff redundant. Indeed, I consider that on the shop floor they are sometimes overworked. I have, however, contually said that they employ too many people in management roles and that they need to look at other options whenever the need for someone arises. The easy option of simply employing someone seems to be the go to whenever this occurs. I also think that more can be done in terms of multi-tasking roles as the business often doesn't justify employing someone full time. In this respect this has recently happened when the Civil Engineer left and the role of mechanical engineer and civil engineer was combined so we now simply have a director of engineering. It seems to be working OK from the ouside.

 

A good few posts back someone asked where the figure of seven people in marketing came from. I think that, as far as Nat Pres is concerned, it came from me. However the figure came from a member of paid staff at middle management level. He is not alone in this in terms of paid staff if the e-mails and conversations that I've had are anything to go by. In most businesses you get a 'them and us' between the bottom and the top but I think a lot of it is justified here.

 

Managers are also "staff". There's no easy way, if the wage bill has to be cut then jobs have to go. With regard to "multiskilling" ( jack of all trades, master of none comes to mind) the proof is whether it stands the intense scrutiny of an ORR inspection.

 

It will also depend on the hierarchy underneath. Been through many reorganisation for an engineering company and there are many ways you can structure but it always comes down to the right skills in the right place.


Sent from my SM-A556B using Tapatalk

 

It was a great pity the evening diner runs to Battersby never really took off. I only worked one of them, a glorious summers evening on Tornado, firing to Fletch (the late John Fletcher). Happy Days.

Seen here on arrival at Battersby at 20.15 on 31/5/2011

Peter

 

Why, may I ask? Yes, such numbers are important in an environment with fierce direct competition - but heritage rail lines are not in that environment (although some may think they are), and haven't been for many decades (and really, ever since the rise of the automobile). Car companies, commercial bus lines, etc - competition in the 'moving people around' market - don't give a hoot how many passengers the NYMR carries. Other entertainment companies, perhaps....

Heritage rail lines are, fundamentally, living museums. Any heritage rail line management that doesn't understand that they are, fundamentally, a museum is seriously confused. Most museums don't see themselves, fundamentally, as competitive businesses. Yes, they have business-like aspects - e.g. they have to make sure their income and expenses balance - but they understand that the essence of their being is elsewhere.

Many heritage rail lines have discovered/decided that the best way to view/organize themselves, in view of the above, is as social clubs, with a dash of volunteer societies. Yes, they have to be very organized - maintaining vintage rail equipment, and operating it safely, is not a task which can be accomplished with a slap-dash approach. That may contribute to the illusion that they are businesses - but they aren't, really.

Noel

 

What is in a title though.
I was a Procurement Manger who reported to another Procurement Manager, who in turn reported to a General Manager. But in other companies all of those would have been just called "managers".
I had no staff responsibility for about the last 15 years as a manager as we had reduces headcount at the company form 55,000 to 35,000 but the only way to even get folks to look at recruitment adverts externally was to give the role a title it would have elsewhere.
So without us knowing what all those NYMR "Manager" roles entail as a JD, your view is just as worthless as mine.

 

I've been reading this thread a while but don't have a lot to contribute, not being a regular NYMR visitor (I've been on the line precisely one and a half times, and never since running to Whitby). However one thing I have picked up on 'up thread' is the lopsided loadings on the Whitby trains which, if I'm understanding correctly, leave Whitby largely empty in the morning and return largely empty in the afternoon. Is there not some scope to market a day out from Whitby, perhaps at reduced fares (still better than carrying fresh air around), for a visit to one of the places on the Grosmont-Pickering section (at least one of which must have some sort of attractions to visit for a couple of hours before the return trip)?

If increasing income is the name of the game then this would seem to be the best way to do that without increasing costs.

 

Not involved with the NYMR but I was told that dropping operations to Battersby was one of the behind the scenes compromises with the ORR over central door locking. If you think about it there not much difference between a Whitby to Battersby dining train and the Jacobite operation from Fort William.

 

I have no idea of the profile of those that stay in the Whitby area. I sense that it is very popular with coach tour companies who probably already have their schedules planned, maybe with a trip on the NYMR (perhaps one way) one day.
I guess you would also need to work out the revenue extraction that would be created from those that may join those services at Grosmont, and what it may do to perception of other fares.
I have never used, or even looked at Seatfrog but on other forums seem to rave about it for the National Network, maybe something similar could be achieved. But does sound a strategy they may have more risks than benefits to me.

 

To be honest I was not considering coach parties. Based on a quick booking.com search for a random weekend in June next year (i.e. when still plenty of availability), there are 21 hotels, 41 guesthouses and 339 apartments within 1km of Whitby town centre. More if you look further out. Assuming demand is such that these are relatively well utilised during the summer (and not just when the place is invaded by goths once a year) then that should equate to a fair number of visitors potentially already there and looking for something to do. And surely once you've been to the beach once, you've been there? Not to mention wet weather days (perhaps not this year).