North Yorkshire Moors Railway General Discussion

Exactly! The charitable purpose is framed around the social benefit it confers on those volunteering not the economic benefit to the railway. The NYMR is encouraging, training and relying on volunteers so how do you come to the conclusion that it is not fulfilling that charitable objective?

 

Your own words about the working structures in the railway.

 

Might I suggest, overriding all else any business, be it a charity or not, its management has a number of ordered priorities. My view is straightforward and they can only be: Priority One - don't kill anyone. Priority Two - Don't run out of money (or you're put out of business by your creditors for nonpayment and lost your railway into receivership). Priority Three, onward = don't really matter if you fail in Priority Two. Hayho. Mike.

 

The railway is also a registered museum, I would suggest it is failing both as that as as well as being a charity for the reasons you describe by not adequately maintaining either the infrastructure or the rolling stock.
If income has not returned to previous levels then it is not unethical to say make a third of the staff redundant if by doing so it secures the long term future of the remaining employees.
Trying to soldier on as you are, in a doom loop of managed decline will ultimately end in complete failure.
As I told you (I think it was 7 or 8 eight years ago) you were and still are spending too much on people and not enough on things and I believe this still holds true only you have very little time left to change direction. I also said I wasn't going to give money to an organisation to in effect subsidise the wages of people who earn more than I do. You have squandered huge legacies left to the railway, as evidenced by the increasing list of knackered locomotives and rolling stock.
You want people to donate money for the overhaul of 75029, do you really think those that gave money for 80135 are going to dip their hands in their pockets again?

Sawdust.

 

Are you familiar with the term/concept "self-licking ice cream cone"? Those bodies are funding the NYMR in part because it employs a lot of people - in other words, they are helping to create the thing they want to help. What will happen if that music stops? The ice cream cone may lick itself, but it can't make itself.

Noel

 

It's been 17 years since the Bridges and Wheels appeal was launched, and still no sign of the latter part appearing. Maybe the railway are hoping people have forgotten about it. Even with a substantial donation a few years ago, it doesn't look like the loco will be back for quite a while.



If a fully funded overhaul is going to take 4 years to complete, how long will one take that's only raised £15,000 so far?

 

I thought £46k had been raised by August towards Green Knight and that 80135 should be out early next year. Hopefully there will be an opportunity to double-head with 80136.

ps the current Green Knight auction initiative stands at £2549
https://www.32auctions.com/NYMR-THEGREENKNIGHT

 

If correct (I haven’t checked), the need for that post is in itself an indictment of NYMR communications

 

A normal business might well do as you suggest. A substantial redundancy programme is a typical business response to financial stress. It usually involves a cut back in the scope and scale of the organisation. A retail business will reduce the number of shops or stores; a manufacturing business will close plants and a service business will reduce the range and frequency of the services it offers. People are an expense but it's people that make things work or happen. Cut back hard on that resource and the consequences are unavoidable. What consequences would you suggest the NYMR should aim for? Abandon its best selling Whitby product? Cease to operate Pullman dining trains? Contract out overhauls? Operate even fewer days and perhaps over only part of the line? All are unthinkable but cutting the wage bill substantially within a short time frame raises those spectres. Far better, surely, to focus on successes and opportunities that in many cases only exist because of the paid staff. A good example is the forthcoming Flying Scotsman visit. The services may depend on volunteers to operate them but without the initiative and hard work of marketing staff that critically important financial opportunity would not exist. No doubt it will be suggested it's simple. Just replace employees with volunteers. Of course that should be done where possible but it's a long process. The idea that there's a legion of volunteers ready and able to step quickly into gaps left by departed employees is as much of a myth as the fabled magic money tree. The inescapable truth is that the current cadre of paid staff enable the NYMR to function at its current size including the opportunity for volunteers to take on vital roles. Reducing the wage bill as you suggest would inevitably see the NYMR shrink to a pale shadow of what it is today.

 

You always set out the options in black and white terms, but reality is not like that. Most businesses that are struggling in the way that the NYMR is will look in the first instance to work more efficiently - they'll encourage their staff to become more multi-skilled and ignore "job labels" so that two people can handle the work previously undertaken by three, for example, so that if someone leaves they need not necessarily be replaced - that's a reasonable and fair thing to do. It needs good management at the top to spread the message that everyone is in the same boat and that the costs of doing business need to come down. They need to instil an "every penny counts" attitude across the board. When Chris Price took on the post of GM at Fairbourne he was in such a position and executed it very conscientiously, much to the dismay of former regular suppliers. Obviously the NYMR is a much bigger organisation, but that type of attitude needs to be really encouraged. Allied to that there needs to be a more inclusive effort to integrate volunteers, both existing and new, into anywhere where they might be able to help - we have already seen cases reported where volunteers have been replaced by paid staff because it was easier than trying to find another volunteer - it should be an ongoing and well-established process - but isn't. Yet, quite often there are people willing to lend a hand, but perhaps not offer to plunge straight in at the deep end, but are willing to dip their toes in the water and learn the job, and I don't see too much in the way of that happening in general. On FB, for example there are regular post by a former RAF fighter pilot who helps out at Ropley shed describing the jobs he undertakes; the equivalent post from Grosmont describes what he has cleaned and painted. Now that latter person may be happy with what he is doing, but I'm willing to bet there may be others who would like to learn and do more, but do they have the opportunity to do so if they do not come pre-equipped with the knowledge? I'd be willing to bet that they are more likely to get handed a chipping hammer and a paintbrush than shown how to make good use of a spanner! The NYMR trains apprentices, but does it do much in the way of training. volunteers? They should, because it's a way of controlling costs.

Management is about so much more than slashing maintenance budgets, but that seems to be the primary tool at the moment and ultimately it solves nothing because the work will still have to be done and paid for eventually, and may well cost more because of other damage done whilst it is delayed. The management needs to be a lot more savvy about what it is doing.

I would really like to see your evidence for making a wide-ranging and seemingly unsubstantiated statement like this "It stands to reason" really doesn't cut it! And please don't retort that I have done the same, I have tried to make some sensible criticisms and suggestion rather than make a bald statement!

 

Actually, last Facebook post states £21,105.

https://www.facebook.com/share/p/17Q8ewehpE/

Watching the video posted by the railway of the current state of the boiler, the inner firebox is still a kit of parts. 80136 should stay in traffic until August, baring any issues. So there's a chance of an overlap, but I would've thought it unlikely. Happy to be proved wrong though.

 

Anyone remember the 60s weekends? Successful, low cost to stage and were volunteer organised. That is until paid staff thought it should be their job to organise.
Result goodwill lost and the event died.
It's not just about numbers of staff but quality of staff.
I would argue that the NYMR is already a pale shadow of what it once was, it hasn't been this low since the early 80s when they had to hire a 31 from Thornaby to maintain the service.
The fact is as a percentage of income staff costs are too high. It's been very noticeable that the railway suffers from assistant manager syndrome. Someone competent retires or leaves, their successor finds their job too hard, so an assistant or two gets taken on. Often roles become split and the assistant then becomes a manager as well.
Lineisclear, you have a big business head but the NYMR is a small business and needs to think like one. People will more readily donate to innovative projects or the nice heritage things that the railway can't afford to do but they won't donate to overhaul the same items over and over again in sufficient numbers that you hope for, otherwise you will find they all progress so slowly that the service can't be maintained.

Sawdust.

 

I agree with @60044 on this. But one further point. In @Lineisclear’s last post, the implication is that the staffing is perfectly balanced and that there’s no opportunity for improving productivity.

I simply don’t believe that, and think that the black and white consequences outlined lose credibility as a result.

 

Self deception is a major part of Linesisclear's arguments - "it can't be done", "it would be too expensive", "it would upset the grant-awarding bodies", "the NYMR s a big business, it's in the top xx% of UK charities etc". At some point the excuses need to stop and and positive "can do" attitude needs to be start being expressed by a leadership more in tune with what is needed. The NYMR hasn't just stagnated, it's engine has stalled and the whole thing is rolling backwards ever faster down the slippery slope. If the present management, including both Trust and PLC boards can't do any better it is time they stepped back and handed over to people willing to try a different approach, whilst there is still something left for them to try to build on.

 

I'd happily agree with 60044 's aim of efficiency and adjusting roles to fill gaps when staff leave. That's already happening. However , my response was to Sawdust postulating the loss of a third of the paid staff to protect the jobs of those surviving. It's not about balance between employees and volunteers. Hard reality is that the scope and scale of the railway's activities depends to a large extent on the human resources available. Whether the current balance is right is not the issue. Today's resource is what it is. Changing the balance may be the right thing to do but would take a considerable time. If in the short term you try to save cost by taking out a large chunk of that resource it's bound to have a negative impact on what the railway can be.

 

If the NYMR can't figure out how to solve their apparently insoluble problem, that may happen anyway.

Noel

 

That’s fine, but I’ve seen too much posted here on that theme that can be summarised as “it’s too hard”.

I've written before, and reiterate, that even more than finances, the issue appears to be one of culture. Unless and until there’s tangible evidence that the Trust is directing the plc to proactively encourage and retain volunteers over using employed labour to fill roles that come vacant , those words will ring hollow.

 

I think one would have to be an optimist of world-class standing to deny that the NYMR is heading quite obviously and visibly down that path. That's not a happy situation for any of us who have supported it since before it opened. It's not a case of wanting to return to the past, it's a brighter future that we look for, and perhaps the nature of that future is where our opinions differ.

Sadly very true. I have mentioned that the concept of being more of a "living museum" has been floated, but seemingly without an underlying vision of how that might be attained, and no timescale - or further action! - towards it. It's all symptomatic of a headless/rudderless organisation. The Trust Board is supposed to steer the PL board in its actions, but has been manipulated to exclude the people who might have any clue, and it's obvious the the PLC board don't have much of a clue either. Until someone wakes up to the fact that running a heritage railway is more important than counting the ticket revenue it's hard to see any hope of improvements.

 

One problem I have with the PLC board is the making heads of departments directors. People can't be poachers and game keepers at the same time.

Sawdust.

 

Views will vary here; in most businesses, there will be directors with direct management responsibilities. A well-functioning board in a well-functioning organisation shouldn't require division into "poachers" and "game keepers".

My hunch is that this shot is not far from the target - with one critical exception. As @mikehartuk observes in post #7663 above, the most important commercial priority is "don't run out of money". That means counting the pennies - but also building a strategy that will ensure long term strength.