North Yorkshire Moors Railway General Discussion

What you haven't done, though, is said what you think seems to be going wrong at the NYMR, or how to address the issues, which to my mind is really not very helpful!! So, here's what I think:

*1. More heritage-style events. I disagree with @Sawdust slightly - I'd have a mixed steam/diesel event early in the season - ca. Easter - (as winter maintenance on the steam fleet tends to drag on) and a later one ca. (but not over) Whitsun week. Try to run them with everything available and maximise returns by not hiring anything in. Hold a 1940s event in early September rather than later. Heritage events sell, but they need to be different to one another In the old days it was held so as to be close to remembrance Sunday, but military side of things needs to be played down. Maybe other themed music events too. Times and memories move on. Anyone who was a teenager in the heady years of the Elvis & the Beatles etc. is probably now in their 70s, and probably will have less interest in the bands of the 1940s. Let's recognise that and move with the times!

*2. Look at seeing whether "lineside conservation" could be made profitable! (Guided tours, more and better displays & interpretation etc.)

*3. Look at operating a second mixed dining/regular service train in the opposite path to the Pullman, particularly at off-peak times again, try selling these as a premium experience.

*4. Put more emphasis on advertising attractions of the Pickering-Grosmont railway, and working on improving the interpretation features. (Through trains to Whitby sell themselves). Look at using, and actively marketing all the vintage carriages available.

IMHO, heritage still sells - but I think that the reality (although not in the advertising) the offering has been degraded and needs work to restore and improve it in order to reap the benefits.

 

Would you like to explain briefly what difference they would make?

Sawdust.

 

I have no inside knowledge but I suspect Network Rail's finite resources for signalling design and implementation are prioritised for projects like the Transpennine Route Upgrade for some time to come.

 

It was mentioned that the funding was in place for the EVL improvements, however this had now passed to the Mayor, who now controls it.

 

Which Mayor? Houchen? Brabin?

Either way, unfair to criticise NYMR for events beyond their control

 

Actually £6.50.

 

I'd be wary of running a gala involving diesels at Easter and until at least mid May as we have no locos capable of providing train heating. Even with the so called climate change (which ours has always done in my living memory) and global warming, cold weather is still likely at this time of year and Joe Public don't expect to sit in the cold for one hour plus.
I'm in agreement about a 60's weekend although this child of that era is quite happy with 40's music.
Guided tours of the lineside would be interesting and tick boxes but I doubt that they'll cover their costs if undertaken by a paid member of staff. Having said that I recently did a 'free' tour of Oxford. It was free but participants were invited to make a donation at the end and a good sum of money went the way of the guide. I gave a tenner and plenty others did similar, if not more. That worked out at about £200 for 1½ hours. Not a bad return. It was a good tour, though.
I agree that the teaks should be put back into service as a priority. I do disagree with charging a premium, though. They show the opulence of basic inter war travel and should not be marketed as a premier mode of travel, which they weren't.

 

........ which all goes to show that whatever the programme, it needs to be thought through and the pros and cons argued about outside of Park Street, as well as within, for the people who probably have the best knowledge of what the public wants are those who travel on the trains and work on the platforms and there will always be conflicting opinions! At the moment, though, the conflicting opinions seem to be completely ignored, and not used to to good effect to work out a feasible programme, or used as an excuse not to do anything!

The lack of diesel train heating represents almost as big a problem as oil-fired steam locos and needs to be addressed in the form of a couple of steam heating vans, using modern industrial boilers in something like a CCT or Fruit D (though water capacity might be an issue?).

I mentioned, on the subject of tours, that a pre-booked 3-4hr "personal" guided tour at Stonehenge costs £35/head for a group of 6-8 people - and they often get offered substantial tips on top of that - so I'm sure it could be made to pay.

I also agree that the whole teak train should not be charged for as a Premium experience, but two dining cars (ECJS189 and NER945) could be if included as dining vehicles.

 

I must be missing something; I thought the 'right' fare price point would be the one that brings in the most money? That may be bringing in less than is desirable (for the overall health of the line), but one can't get blood out of a stone - if the 'best' fares aren't enough to support the line, one has to look at the expense side, no? Or were you saying that side spending, along with fares, could do it, and a different fare pricing would/could bring in more in total (e.g. lower fares bring in more bodies, whose side spending more than makes up the reduced fare income)?

Noel

 

Basic economics suggests that the "best" price point can be at a distinctly sub-optimal level when considering demand against costs. That requires looking not just at costs, but also at what might change potential customers' willingness to pay a "necessary" price.

 

That's just silly. The guide should have been produced to fit the £5 price point and make a good profit into the bargain. Unless the seller is able to do card transactions it will entail almost every buyer needing change and be high enough to put people off buying it. Having to fiddle with coins will slow the seller down, whereas if the majority of transactions involved £5,£10 and £20 pound notes only, they would get through the train quickly, change trains at the next station, do the following train going the other way, followed by another change to get the next train in the original direction. Because that is how it used to be done. The oldest Guide Line I remember was printed on a single sheet, both sides folded into four. Later on it did become a book but still cheaply produced. It was primarily a fund raising device rather than providing a service.

Sawdust.

 

Surely the objective is to maximise income generated by every train and then tailor your costs to fit within that income. It is the grasping of that principal that many feel is lacking.

Sawdust.

 

The Labour mayor of North Yorkshire, whose name I can't remember?

Sawdust.

 

While I agree with you about pricing to a market, that £5 price point is dwindling and, frankly, if the seller can't take a card payment then they are limiting their market (and, yes, I do appreciate the issues of signal on the Moors). I also think that today's customer is less likely to accept that.

Indeed. But that requires understanding the price elasticity of potential customers, and how they can be persuaded to part with their hard earned. I suggest that the issues commented on in this thread for 2025 have a great deal to do with the quality of that understanding, and the resulting mismatch between the prices that the railway has sought to charge, and the amount that potential customers have been willing to pay for what the railway has to offer. That may be a simple costing exercise, but it may also mean that a limited additional cost would allow the railway to charge a higher price, by offering greater value.

 

I am firmly convinced that there is a heritage railway equivalent to the Laffer Curve that applies to taxation, I shall suggest naming it the Chuffer Curve, and that putting up fares and prices beyond the point at the top of the curve will see a fall in revenue rather than an increase. With regard to fares, if you average loadings across a number of days, if the percentage of capacity is above say 90% then the ticket price can be safely raised but if the loading is below 80% capacity then the ticket price is too high. Obviously real data would need to be analysed over many years of data with the prices adjusted for inflation to try and establish what the actual percentages should be. One for the HRA to try and get some university to research perhaps.

Sawdust.

 

There was an interesting comment made on Question Time by an accountant the other day. It was with regard to the NHS which is considered to be broken. The Governments approach is to give it more money (in taxes) rather than try and fix it, which it needs to do. To a large extent, the NYMR has done the same. The existing model is broken and the approach of the railway has been to raise prices rather than fix the problems. It brings it into the law of diminishing returns. I do think that this is now being addressed but it has a long way to go. It needs to be looking at more than simply breaking even on day-to-day expenditure. We have recently suggested that maintaining fleet of 40 coaches would cost about £400K/year (including labour costs) and locos are going to be at least that. Then there's the civils to consider. That's going to be a similar figure. My simple maths says that the railway needs to be looking at a 'profit' of around £1.5m/year to maintain the status quo, more if it is to claw back the backlog of maintenance. That needs to be achieved by a combination of economies and significantly increasing visitor numbers, not simply by increasing fares to make the figures fit on paper and then wondering why it doesn't work.

 

The NYMR can take card payments on the train but it is a very slow process. I watched a TTI sell some tickets the other day and it took at least 5 minutes to make a single transaction with the purchaser having to leave his card in for a significant length of time. That's not really practical if you are trying to get a majority of passengers to buy something. Cash is king in such a case otherwise you will not maximise your sales (and income).

 

I agree on the general pricing point - and I think that's what we've seen demonstrated this year (and, like the Laffer Curve in the wider world, it is a phenomenon that doesn't exist until it very much does). But because of those limitations, I don't think percentage loadings are a robust guide. I also suspect that, while trends may align, the pricing power of different railways will vary significantly.

Then the railway needs to find a way through that - possibly even biting the bullet and accepting the risk of offline approvals for many transactions. From my own experience serving, a card transaction need take no longer than a cash transaction. The issue here is very simply that, if you can't take payment, you can't sell something. And many people don't carry cash now for purchases like that - so if you don't accept that cash, you are saying that you are willing to forgo that custom.

 

I don't think the analogy works, unless you are going down the (oft discussed on here) path of looking at cost of provision. After all, a major part of the NHS challenge is the way in which it is unable to scale up to meet demand - not generally the issue that I hear bemoaned from the Moors.

 

You've seen it this year, I saw it thirty years or so ago. The NYMR is very price sensitive. Don't underestimate the value of pushing "no fare increase" or "10% off 2025 prices" will have if emblazoned on promotional material.
We saw it, someone put the prices up by too much in one year and loadings and income both fell. Prices were then held for a couple of years and each successive year saw income and loadings increase as inflation did its thing.

Sawdust.