North Yorkshire Moors Railway General Discussion

The Locomotion No 1 visit seems to be a resounding success as there are absolutely no time slots available on any day on the website, unless there is a technical issue.

Goathland does not have unlimited parking, the only pay parking in the centre fills up quickly with walkers, there are plenty of double yellows and most of the free potential involves inconsiderate parking outside houses and the school or a fair walk from one of the exit roads.

The best location is clearly Pickering and whoever owns that Trout parking opposite to the NYMR car park entrance must make a fortune.

 

No my response is they are both the results of "events".
At the NYMR is is a visit of what most of the public seem to regard as the "only steam loco" although I have never understood its appeal myself.
At Bournemouth and Poole is inspired by the nice weather.
Population of neither place is really relevant as both suffer from the same result insufficient parking spaces.
My point was that from the reports on here I would have expected something like a 100 tickets a day, not 23.

And to make sure you do not miss out on a "BA story" when our new head office building was built the local council planning restriction was insufficient parking spaces for the number of staff working there and a park and ride had to be created, which increased everyone's commute nicely one day a week.

Parking a problem the world over.

 

Have you been to Grosmont?

 

Yes a number of times. Parking is not great, but in drier times there may have been fields that could have been hired to make a park and ride, but it would be a very risky strategy in October.
Unlike the British GP where people will pay £200 to get stuck in the mud, I suspect most FS punters would be somewhat unhappy.

 

Never underestimate the power of word of mouth.
The current management should take this on board.
Sawdust.

 

It seems to me that, once again, there's a lot of hair splitting and beating around the bush going on in this thread, some of it by folk who really have no grasp of the locations. Quite simply there is very limited car parking space in Grosmont, and the roads in and out are very narrow for a very long way either side. Goathland and Levisham aren't significantly better, if at all, and intermediate stations do not make great starting points. Pickering does at last have greater carparking capacity, on and off the railway and more could have been co9ntrived. Had Pickering been chosen as the FS train starting point, the diner could have still been run from Grosmont and lightened the car parking pressure on those days when it ran. The fact that none of these options seem to have been considered, and the parking issues not anticipated, can only be seen as a real black mark at best, and - imho - an indication of limited abilities in the SMT. Those responsible really need to be reprimanded and put under notice that, if something similar happens again, the need for their services will be very critically reviewed. Personally, I don't think that's too harsh, and it should work down from the top without looking for scapegoats. Others may disagree, of course but the management really needs to have to defend their actions when things go badly wrong. Everyone deserves a second chance, but they also have to show that they can learn from their mistakes and not repeat them or brush them under the carpet. One lesson they might usefully learn this time is to try taking advantage of the wider, longer term "institutional knowledge" present in the volunteers.

 

Is the need to make as much money as possible from an event blinding the need for sensible planning?

 

You do wonder

 

All this discussion about parking makes me wonder about some kind of allocated parking slot with the ticket and if there is not enough capacity, parking and shuttle bus from Flamingo Land. Does NYMR have any kind of relationship with Flamingo Land?

 

Guess it would work well if you could start at Pickering, but if loco mileage constraints say Grosmont is 20 mile each way a saleable park and ride addition? I have no idea, but may not be the best sales pitch.

 

I agree, depends on being able to start from Pickering, that part of the discussion is probably the dominant factor.

 

I was at Pickering on Tuesday enjoying working on the little ticket item when the big ticket item shunted by - what a contrast and what an enjoyable shift


Peter

 

Perhaps you could answer a couple of questions for me, Peter? I believe that the replica has a few tubes in where the original simply had a single flue. Also in that area of the loco, videos of it I've seen appear to show it having 'puffs' from the chimney. That indicates that there must be a blastpipe of sorts in the chimney base. Is this right and if it is, how is what must act as a smokebox accessed and cleaned?

 

Jealous! I've had my day on the big one, but the little one is definitely on the bucket list!

Tom

 

Despite running every half hour during the visit of FS (except Mondays) all slots (with a max capacity of 20 pax per train) are now sold out.

 

Parking on the cricket field limited to 25 and near to its entrance (staff only) due to the wet conditions.

 

You should have watched Guy Martin on TV (CH4) last week, which showed Guy cleaning out the tubes, apparently necessary after each trip unti the change in fuel. Seemed like it was Guy alone that restored Locomotion back to working order!

 

Steve, I enclose the front page of a three page briefing note issued to aid unfamilar crews. I'm not to sure about the original boiler but this has thirty tubes as shown in the diagram. The cylinder exhaust pipes run along the top of the boiler to join the chimney part way up it but there is no blast pipe as we would know it as far as I can tell. The chimney has been slieved to reduce its internal diameter and this has greatly improved steaming. I believe that the original chimney was taller than that in current use.
The second photograph, taken at New Bridge on Wednesday shows the plate at the base of the chimney that can be removed to provide access for tube cleaning.


One thing that saddens me is that these days there is no mention of Mike Satow who originally built it back in 1975. Along with John Scholes, John Coiley, John Bellwood, Pat Whitehouse Peter Beet and others he is one of the forgotten heros of that era to whom we have so mush to be grateful for. Put it another way, Locomotion No1 started the current trend for new build replicas, but Mike Satow's pioneering work in this field is now completely overlooked.

Peter

 

I watched the programme; that’s why I knew it had some tubes rather than a simple flue like a Cornish boiler which I guess the original would be based on.

 

Thanks Peter. Introducing the steam into the chimney would provide some draught, even if it wasn’t in the form of a traditional blast pipe. A bit like has been done on many industrial locos with the ejector exhaust.
I agree with your comments about the unsung heroes of the early days. I met Mike Satow when he was looking to build the broad gauge replica. He was wanting an Austerity 0-6-0ST to base it on and I had to show him what we had available. In the end he went for one available in a different NCB area. Never met John Scholes or Peter Beet but did know the rest. You can add Bill Smith and Alan Bloom to the list; never mentioned nowadays.
The chimney was indeed longer on the original.

Edited becasue it wasn't wasn't well written originally.