North Yorkshire Moors Railway General Discussion

I think it was about the time of the marketing surrounding "Yorkshire's magnificent journey" or whatever it was called, the last big lottery project was launched, I began reading things like sustainable development and people saying things like "we have to just stick to doing certain things" or "we can't keep on taking on more locomotives and carriages". And that at the time made me wonder if the ambition for growth had been dropped or at least seriously downgraded. Inevitably the opposite to growth is stagnation or even decline and I think unwittingly the NYMR has stumbled into managed decline, which now shows every sign of becoming uncontrollable decline. Before anybody says "Ah but COVID", there were already moves to try and change the ticketing model from turn up and go with tickets valid on any train that day. You would hear people compare the NYMR with how the Jacobite or Torbay and Dartmouth but sadly the NYMR isn't in those places and they operate in very different markets. The other thing being something was obviously going to disrupt the economy, things had been stable with very low interest rates for years. I remember saying to Lineisclear, when I met with him in my workshop, was that one reason to reduce staffing costs and borrowing was that something worse than the foot and mouth crisis was inevitable. I'm the end it was of course many times worse than that and the railway like many businesses only survived due to the money printing machine. I think some thought that would continue because they thought the railway was too big and too important to the local economy. But that isn't going to happen government spending has not fallen back to pre COVID levels.
When I was on trust board we had directors who were in their twenties, thirties, forties, fifties, sixties and seventies and I wonder the age balance the board is these days? Is it made up of people whose outlook on life is too old?

Sawdust.

 

I well remember our interesting and helpful discussions in your workshop. A high level of borrowing secured on the railway's assets has been a feature for many years and certainly long before I first got involved 20 years ago. Additionally the railway has for many,many years relied on an overdraft facility to see it through the cash starved winter months. That's why the relationship with its lending bank is so critical. Another large heritage railway was threatened with cancellation of its overdraft facility which could quickly have resulted in cash insolvency. Currently the NYMR retains its lending bank's confidence which, in no small measure, is due to the all important relationship with the railway's Finance Director. So much so that the bank are willing to increase the overdaft facility. Over recent years secured borrowing has been substantially reduced from its peak. If there was a magic formula that enabled that to be achieved while at the same time growing the business then I'm sure the Chancellor would be eager to hear about it! Age is not necessarily directly related to outlook on life but the criticism of the age profile of the Trust Board is fair. The problem is that it reflects the age profile of heritage railways generally. There are some notable exceptions but, even on those with a high proportion of volunteers iy's skewed heavily to the male grey and silver hair end. To its credit the NYMR has encouraged a strong Junior Volunteers scheme despite volunteering on a heritage railway under 16 being illegal. Change to that law is being pioneered by the HRA but facing Government resistance. That may give way especially as there are indications that at least one local authority may prosecute a heritage railway for having volunteers under the age of 16. A younger age profile and more diverse Trust Board are very much criteria that can be taken into account by a Nominations Committee . It's been calculated that heritage railways generally must find over 700 new trustees and directors over the next few years. Finding them will be a critical challenge especially if the benefits of those leaders' younger ages and greater diversity are going to be realised.

 

It’s not just railway boards that have that age profile issue. In my early 50s, I’m the youngest member of the (non rail) charity board I serve on.

There are several reasons for that, but one important one is that it reflects the wider membership.

 

When I stepped down from trust board, the situation was that there was no borrowing from early summer onwards until well into the closed season and negligible borrowing if any at any point in the closed season. The borrowing dates from having to buy the assets on service agreements of Jos de Crau before his death because of Dutch IHT, these included 80135, the class 25, the met cam Pullman's, the MK1 RF and almost all of the blood and custard set. This debt was then allowed to increase when it should have been reduced slowly over time. You were unconcerned by the amount of borrowing "because the of borrowing was cheap". Yes large businesses can operate that way but the NYMR is not a large business and certainly not a conventional one. The single most common criticism I hear from outsiders is that the NYMR spends a far greater percentage of its turnover on wages than any other heritage railway in the UK. If that had been addressed nearly a decade ago then the infrastructure wouldn't be so knackered that it's use has to be rationed and the borrowing would have been reduced much more, if not eliminated. The NYMR was only running with large seasonal debts for its first twenty years, largely because it was paying the county council for the railway, which is why until the late 90s the local authorities had representation on trust board.
I think it is highly likely that trust board is largely made up of people who's experience is only of large organisations and is in dire need of members with small business experience.
The sooner you reduce the fixed costs, the greater the likelihood of being able to turn the situation around. Another financial shock now would prove fatal the railway.

Sawdust.

 

Fundamentally I agree but there’s a danger that we just go back over old ground. It’s unrealistic to expect to be able to reduce infrastructure fixed costs. Suggestions of fixed cost reduction are usually shorthand for dispensing with large numbers of employees. The problem is that the assumption that it’s possible or economic to replace them with volunteers is flawed. Even to the extent it might be possible it would take too long. There really is only one answer which is to develop new profitable products and services.

 

I think that is somewhat of a counsel of doom, though I agree there are major challenges involved.

Sustainable revenue growth is essential, but it needs to be able to sit on top of the base costs, not incur significantly more. A major reason for that is that the fixed costs of NYMR are very high, and limiting scrutiny of any one of the major categories is to tie your hands behind your back - especially when the relative scale of one any of those categories is very high for the sector.

And that is where I do believe, strongly, that NYMR needs to create for itself a reputation for being a natural place to volunteer, where it really values volunteering and what volunteers can do for the railway. There are too many tales that suggest that NYMR is a long way from that position, and needs to step up from accepting and tolerating volunteers, to pro-actively welcoming them. The example given previously by @Steve about volunteering at weekends at the shed is a really good example of the difference between the two levels.

 

Yes, but what you haven’t explained is how attracting lots more volunteers ,in the MPD for instance, reduces fixed costs unless it also involves reducing the paid headcount? I keep seeing claims that posters on here don’t want to see any compulsory redundancies. There may be some scope for voluntary ones but those can result in loss of essential resource. It’s easy to say reduce fixed costs. In the real world it’s not obvious how you can do it without also cutting back on the current size of the railway.

 

As usual, excuses! Try fixing the atmosphere to one more welcoming and encouraging first and bring in the new volunteers, and then worry about how to trim the paid staff. What you have come up with here, to probably no-one else's surprise, is the perfect defeatist reason for not trying in the first place!

It is all very well to claim that there's no scope to reduce labour costs, but there seems to me to be a fair number of staff whose roles vanish for around 5 months of the year when the railway enters its closed season - I can think of at least one guard and several staff in the railway's control department, for example, and there may well be others - what do all these people do in the winter months? That is surely somewhere when job sharing could come into play, but I cannot recall ever having seen any of these people working on the Pway, or carriage shed or S&T, for example, when I 've been there in the winter months. What does the operating manager do for five months when there are hardly any trains running?

 

That doesn't answer the question. Sawdust's post suggested an urgent need to reduce fixed cost . Encouraging more volunteers doesn't achieve that in the short term unless it involves an early and substantial reduction in the number of employees. That's not an excuse. It's just hard reality.

 

In the short term, it might well not reduce fixed costs. But your duty, as a trustee, is not just in the short term but also the long. And there, if you can live up to the claims made by the CEO, you stand to obtain a structural change in the NYMR cost model that would make the railway more sustainable in the long term.

I am not advocating redundancies, whether voluntary or compulsory. I also acknowledge that it's likely that NYMR is sufficiently cash-constrained that, even if desirable, they would be unaffordable. But investing in supporting and encouraging volunteers, fully welcome as part of the NYMR family and not allowed to feel as if they are merely tolerated if they can do what's wanted when it's wanted, might just be the sort of investment that eases the burden of the inevitable year on year cost increases, not mention addressing the catch-up of costs as deferred maintenance bills can no longer be avoided.

Your response above also saddens me. The framing suggests an organisation which has lost sight of the need to find efficiencies, and which is so consumed by the need to find more income to meet the present outgoings that he can't see the importance of plans that may well not realise their full benefits for 2-5 years.

 

That's unfair! The railway has made efficiencies such as the Project Blastpipe reductions and subsequent use of part time rather than full time posts but let's get back to the fundamental issue...............an early reduction in fixed costs. I'm pleased that you accept that redundancy is not the answer. I agree fully that investing in volunteers can ease the burden of year on year cost increases. That intention has been highlighted recently and should bear fruit over the 2-5 year timescale mentioned. However, that's not addressing Sawdust's perception that fixed cost, which can only realistically mean the wage bill, must be reduced quickly. Any suggestion that can be achieved painlessly, and without detracting from the size and scale of the railway (including opportunities to volunteer), is niaive.

 

That's a really pathetic answer, tbh. Even if more volunteers does not lead to or permit the instant gratification in the loss of paid staff such an increase would permit more to be done in the short term, and the paid staff, like the grey-hair volunteers you seem to despise, are also aging and will eventually retire - at which time it may be unnecessary for them to be automatically replaced. The NYMR has many problems; you have said before that it cannot trade its way out of them (though I fervently disagree with that!) and now you are saying the opposite! It seems to me that the approach being adopted is the Micawber one of "something will turn up" and that everything else has been turned down as "too difficult".

 

You will have have cut back on the current size of the railway, if not by choice the cuts will eventually become forced and more severe. You cannot keep trading with significant losses and just hope that next year's takings will be better.
You should review how dining trains and trains are operated, perhaps franchise out some of the catering for example.
Anyway I asked grok ai to make me this table, since it's ai it may not be accurate.
### UK Heritage Railways Over 10 Miles: Employee Numbers

Here's a quick overview of employee counts for major UK heritage railways longer than 10 miles, based on the latest available data (mostly 2024/2025 financials). Sorted by length descending.

| Heritage Railway | Length (miles) | Employees |
|-----------------------------------|----------------|-----------|
| Welsh Highland Railway | 25.0 | 140 |
| Wensleydale Railway | 22.0 | 18 |
| West Somerset Railway | 19.5 | 40 |
| Weardale Railway | 18.0 | 10 |
| North Yorkshire Moors Railway | 18.0 | 140 |
| Severn Valley Railway | 16.0 | 70 |
| Mid Norfolk Railway | 15.0 | 12 |
| Gloucestershire and Warwickshire Railway | 14.0 | 22 |
| Ffestiniog Railway | 13.0 | 140 |
| Vale of Rheidol Railway | 13.0 | 37 |
| Romney Hythe and Dymchurch Railway| 13.0 | 22 |
| East Lancashire Railway | 12.5 | 64 |
| Bluebell Railway | 11.0 | 127 |
| Keith and Dufftown Railway | 11.0 | 10 |
| Kent and East Sussex Railway | 10.5 | 48 |
| Churnet Valley Railway | 10.5 | 30 |
| Llangollen Railway | 10.5 | 11 |
| Mid Hants Railway (Watercress Line)| 10.0 | 42 |

**Notes:**
- Data from company filings (e.g., Companies House). Ffestiniog & Welsh Highland share the same operator, so combined figure.
- Total employees across these: ~1,013 (rough sum).
- Sources: Official accounts; let me know if you want links for any!

I would say a reduction of ten to twenty people across all levels and departments coupled with other actions such as restructuring how operating days are distributed across the year, piloting some dining services to try and capture a higher quality/price/margin market, reinstate the spring gala, I know the shed don't like it but it used to provide an important boost to income when it was most needed. Try and be innovative with new events. Recession in the 90s gave birth several events which boosted income often for small or no outlay. Once upon a time operating staff took on other roles when trains weren't running moving to other maintenance tasks, does that still happen? Give staff a bonus if they take their annual leave in the closed season. Try and set up some kind of internship scheme with mainline operators.
Once the situation is stabilised, and you see what works then you can start to expand again.
Remember, steam is king, word of mouth is more important than any marketing, this is Yorkshire perceived value for money is important, set the fares so the July and August trains are full, only offer enrichments to travel the rest of the year.

Sawdust.

 

Given the duties of directors, I guess a lot depends on (a) your analysis of the base situation and how long you have got, and (b) a hard headed assessment of the prospects of the additional revenue generating activities. In the sector I come from (not heritage, not railways, no volunteers), the only credible option when the sector ran into acute financial difficulties was to slaughter the overheads while protecting all activities with direct revenue against their costs. In our case, the alternatives looked worse and/or riskier.

 

Alternatively, try contacting out your services to outsiders, to increase income.

Sawdust.

 

I do not mean to cause offence, and if I'm not seeing things that should give me greater comfort, then I apologise for any offence caused. In the same vein, I need to clarify that I did not say "redundancy is not the answer", but "I am not advocating redundancies". There is a difference, and I would not wish to be understood as wishing to imply that I don't see that they might, sadly, be necessary.

In another context, I recently read a report by a wheelchair user, feeding back on his experiences as a visitor. Over and above the (sadly predictable) "you can't do that" treatment by some he encountered, there was an underlying theme of people and organisations wanting to be helpful, but not knowing how to, and not realising what it was to genuinely welcome that visitor. The result was a visitor who felt unwanted, unloved, and in some despair.

I feel the same about the language used of volunteers at NYMR. I hear the welcoming words, welcome the intent, and believe it is honestly stated. But I then notice all the "ifs" and "buts" creep in, and start to think "are they really welcome?". The combination of what is being reported, and I have to say your own language in previous discussions, leave me far from convinced that they really are welcome. If I'm right (which I hope I'm not), then it is hard to have confidence in the plan. The simple example of MPD work being restricted at weekends will serve as an example.

That then feeds into the elephant in the room - what is the "right" number of paid staff. @Sawdust has produced a useful summary based on mileage; I've seen others based on turnover. Both tell me that NYMR is carrying a heavy fixed cost through staffing. Without wishing any redundancies at all (they are never a good thing), I do not observe any strategic statements about where the target ratio of staff to turnover (or mileage) is over coming years. Without that clarity of intent, it's hard to see how the plc board can be held to account by the Trust for delivering that change, or the trust board by the membership. And in the medium term, I fear that makes redundancies more rather than less likely as cash gets tighter if it isn't possible to boost revenue.

The example given by @30567 stands as warning.

 

I'd add reinstating the wartime event to the list, with a revision to try to scale it back to a level where everyone pays, there are no controversial aspects (less focus on military) and there are no external events to fund (e.g. requiring road closures) I'm sure it will be a popular event still

 

You are not spending enough on the infrastructure because you spend so much on wages and other staff costs.

 

That's the standard business school answer - and it looks to be what the current NYMR management is trying to pull off (and has been for a while now). But will it work? As someone observed many pages ago, there's a reason the Beeching Axe fell on the NYMR, back when (although admittedly the current NYMR management is now trying to cast a far wider/larger net than 'regional transport solution').

I imagine the current NYMR management will keep desperately looking for The Answer - but if there isn't one, at some point they may be facing an involuntary large bag of compulsory redundancies. The NYMR may at that time go to various elements of government, and ask for help, but their success in getting themselves perceived as an 'ordinary' business is going to work against them if/when that happens - because those government elements are not in the habit of bailing out 'ordinary' businesses.

Several people have suggested that the NYMR needs to give up on trying to be an 'ordinary' business, in various ways - most recently, here, by having a much stronger volunteer aspect. However, there seems to be resistance from some to stepping away from the 'ordinary business' path. If the NYMR cannot make a go of that path - it will likely face what generally happens to 'ordinary businesses' that fail to make a go of it.

We shall see.

Noel

 

I’m sure that the NYMR is doing all it can to welcome more volunteers on board, though negative social media comments won’t help that aspirational. In addition, I am aware that the railway has been trimming its paid staff, as evidenced by comparing the 2023/24 accounts with 2024/25.

WRT paid staff, I’m aware that some of the paid staff are “seasonal” and employed during the operating season, some of whom are part time eg to cover posts where there are gaps in Booking Office volunteers, to ensure as far as possible that all booking offices remain open. There are also full time operational staff, some of whom work all their annually contracted hours during the operating season, taking their holidays and down-time during the closed season, whilst others are then usefully employed elsewhere eg C&W, MPD etc.

It is a misnomer to say or suggest that there are any paid staff are effectively twiddling their fingers during the closed season.