North Yorkshire Moors Railway General Discussion

Will terminating at Goathland actually require more than 4 coaches? For the last 18 years the railway has almost solely marketed itself as a park and ride service for Whitby to the detriment of the rest of the line. From visiting last summer, non-Whitby services were very quiet. Yes, the steam ban didn't help (though putting 60163 out on the diner made an absolutely mockery of that), but the fact the railway were putting the autocar and trailer out on Sundays shows that internal services were expected to be very lightly used. Even midweek, if the diagrams had allowed, chances are three coaches would've been sufficient a lot of the time.

 

The answer is simply that even with the through services to Whitby, passenger numbers have fallen off in recent years, and a four-coach service to anywhere on the line, even if full, would not be financially worthwhile I'd say that the railway needs to run 6-7 coach trains in the peak to be worthwhile. If, as I feel is likely, there will be no through services to Grosmont this year it will the impetus needed for the railway to rethink the way it sells itself as a destination in its own right and start to rebuild the traffic it enjoyed before it started running to Whitby. How to do that, given the short platforms at Goathland is another matter. Is the obstacle posed by the signalbox at Goathland a red herring? If trains are to be top& tailed, surely they could run into and depart from the other platform, which I think could be temporarily extended by one or even 2 coach lengths?

 

The question is not how long the trains are, but how full they are. That is about demand, not capacity - and the challenge that the railway will need to respond to if 2026 does see no running over bridge 42.

 

Exactly. There's no point in running 7 coach trains with a capacity of 400 seats if only 150 people want to travel on each train. Shorter trains, smaller locos. There's even a case for using the teaks for the first time in a long while if only internal services are running. Pity the DMU is out of action indefinitely.

 

The bit that then needs focus is getting demand up so that it needs those longer trains. The "we only need 4 coach trains and they won't wash their face" argument is not one I'd expected to read from @60044, and I'm surprised to see him fall into the same trap that those he criticise also sit within.

 

Fascinating though it is, whilst reading through all these proposals for how you could operate a Pickering - Goathland service, I don’t think I’ve come across anything that addresses the financial viability? Some many pages back ticket price was the topic de jour iirc? In particular the options and deals available, and how running to Whitby impacted these prices?

IMHO, Whitby is a massive draw for families, and so can to some extent justify a premium price. Whilst you and I might enjoy to sit back, admire the scenery and listen to the loco, families want something more to entertain their children. In fact, without Whitby I’m not sure I’d even convince my wife to travel …… unless the ticket price was considerably less expensive.

So that’s my point - where do you price a Pickering - Goathland return?
You’ve already lost some customers for whom Whitby is a large part of the raison d’etre, and I’m pretty sure you can’t get away with pricing the new offering anywhere near a high, so what do the economics look like?

 

That is the really interesting question - and where part of the answer has to be making a virtue of the section that is available so that the product is one people want to buy. I think that demand is there, but has been crowded out by Whitby traffic and demand.

 

A fifteen mile heritage railway is not exactly an unknown proposition, so I'd suggest a starting point is to look at comparable lines.

Looking at lines of similar length (but very different base structures and therefore cost models); and just taking as a single price the "adult non-member day rover":

Severn Valley - £26 - £33 (depending on how far in advance it is booked).
GWSR - £28
WSR - £36 (but that line is rather longer, at 20 miles).

I think that sets some sort of guide price. Obviously you can fiddle around with member discounts, advance, how you price children's tickets (*) etc, but I think as a broad comparator, somewhere round about £30 +/- a few quid is probably about right. To get it up to, say, £40 I think you have got to be demonstrating a truly outstanding offering, and that will be very hard this year, given that the advertising slogan could be paraphrased as "come to the NYMR - now half the length of last year".

I accept I am basing a pricing strategy from the point of view of "what is the market likely to bear", and I appreciate that may be some way removed from a pricing strategy based on "what do we need to charge to cover costs" - which is my sense of what prior NYMR practice has been. Both approaches have their weaknesses. My sense has been the NYMR has gone down the latter route in setting ticket prices, but without the realisation that if the high price puts people off, the inevitable result of that mindset is to further ratchet up prices to cover the falling volumes! The reductio ad absurdum would be to say your standard ticket price is £8m, which is great provided you can find one person per year willing to pay it ...

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(*) For children's tickets, there are three basic models that a typical 2+2 family might encounter in this world.

• "Children half price"
• "Children more or less free" (i.e. kids for a quid type deal)
• "Here is a family ticket option"

They all have nuances that likely make them better or worse for some users. For example, I suspect for lines offering the "kids for a quid" type deal, they have probably silently increased the adult single to cover, but then offer a low kids' price that looks attractive to a family. A family ticket is often priced in a way that is no good for a 2+1 family; about "par" for a 2+2 and perhaps a very good deal for a 2+3.

So those types of considerations require a lot of thought, but for a broad-brush comparator, "Adult non-member, non-privilege day rover" about £30 feels about right.

Tom

 

I didn't say that! I was repeating the management outlook, as quoted in their newsletter, but I think I'd agree that a four coach top & tailed service is going to incur relatively heavy costs in relation to the revenue it generates. What I said is that the situation they seem likely to be faced with really ought to be seized as an opportunity to regenerate the type of traffic that the railway used to enjoy prior to Whitby. Are you disagreeing with that?

 

On the price side that's very much the way I was thinking. But the railways you mention do go to interesting places which make a day out. So......

Alongside that, there is going to have to be a compelling story about what you can do on your day out, package things up for people, give them a reason to choose NYMR. That's why I was suggesting for example the walk to Beck Hole and Grosmont, a visit to the shed and a minibus back up the hill. Things will have to be marketed.

 

This pinged a thought that was in the back of my mind, through this long discussion of 'what kind of service is the NYMR going to run'. The NYMR has a fairly high fixed cost structure. Is the 'new' service framework going to be able to support that existing fixed cost structure? (Running a deficit for the lifetime of the 'new' service framework is almost certainly not an option.) If not, how is the NYMR going to be able to adjust its fixed cost structure to being it in line with the income developed by its 'new' service framework?

Noel

 

Presumably, there will be no gift aid on these tickets either as the "whole of the line" is not available to view?

 

I'd say that is a different question.

For 2026, the immediate question is ' Assuming the bridge is down, what do we need to do in operational, pricing, marketing terms to create the best offer we can to maximise revenue minus variable costs'? Do we need to run a bus from Goathland to Whitby/Robin Hoods Bay? Think outside the box.

In parallel with that, there must be questions about financial sustainability and the fixed cost base. Do whatever you can to buy time to address that.

 

No doubt an issue to be clarified!

I must admit, I'm not sure of the basis of the "whole line" thing (but accept that that appears to be what the railway was initially advised). If you took an equivalent scenario in a country house, if the house were to say "during 2026 there will be no access to the East Wing while renovation work is being undertaken", then I don't think that inherently stops you "viewing the work of the charity" and I am sure a house in that situation would still consider that they could claim gift aid on admissions. So I am not so sure why it would necessarily be different here.

Line closure beyond Goathland is not, to my mind, structurally different from a country house that has temporarily closed part of the property for renovation, or a museum which has temporarily closed a gallery to enable objects from its collection to be presented in a new arrangement. A visitor in 2026 may get less than they would have done in 2025, but they can still fundamentally "view as much of the work of the charity" as the charity is able to display at that time.

Tom

 

I've been reading this thread with great interest, especially the recent discussions regarding the Bridge 42 issues and operational possibilities for the coming year. First off, I'm no civil engineer so can't comment on the bridge itself, and I don't think there's anything I can usefully add to what's already been said regarding the publicity and comms of the railway in general, and of the bridge in particular.

However, I think the discussion of possible alternative operating models ("if" the bridge problems result in the railway effectively being Pickering to Goathland into the normal running season) is quite interesting. In many ways, I think it actually opens up a number of interesting possibilities. There's been a fair bit of discussion on the number of coaches: it's been noted that four coaches may be too few for a 'peak time' train - certainly this would be the case on a Pickering-Whitby service, but it's also been suggested that demand may be lower for the shorter journey - this may be true, but is an unknown. A point which hasn't really been touched on though, is that the NYMR's normal timetable is an almighty compromise based around the available Grosmont-Whitby paths. The 09:20 Pickering departure is always busy because it is the only one which allows for a 'full day' return trip to Whitby, for example, and there are also gaps (in the off-peak timetable anyway) at times of day which would probably be quite popular, it's just that they don't conveniently tie in with the Whitby paths so would require an extra train/loco/crew, so are omitted except on the busiest summer days. A service between Pickering and Goathland would not be constrained by the Whitby timings, so a much better spread of loading throughout the day could potentially be achieved.

I personally think a 4 coach service could work fairly well: top and tailed, with Steam on the North end, and diesel on the South - the reasoning behind this config is to maximise the mileage for steam leading uphill, and also to ease the watering arrangements at Pickering (steam loco on North end just uncouples, trundles to water column in whichever platform is used, then re-couples to the train). It also positions the steam loco more prominently at Goathland, and (especially if the locos were turned to face North) 'looks right' for the train departing Pickering. Minor things, I know, but I think they add to passengers' impressions of the place. A steam loco arriving (and standing) at Goathland in the down platform facing North is also reminiscent of a scene in a certain film based on a book by JK Rowling - some careful marketing of the location, loco, and train there would likely appeal to that market, even if keeping well within the legal constraints of not mentioning wizards or anything!

How would a timetable look? The constraining factor is the Levisham-Goathland section time, which is about 30 minutes. Realistically, a 20 minute dwell time would be needed at Goathland to unload and load passengers, meaning an 80 minute service frequency would be achievable with two trains in service, passing at Levisham. Assuming a first train of the day at 09:00 from Pickering and the next at 10:20, that would allow for about 6 full return trips per day (from Pickering), giving at least 4 possible starting time options for people to have at least a couple of hours in Goathland and still get a train back, with the last one getting back to Pickering around 17:35/17:40. Years ago, I remember it being noted that before the NYMR ran trains to Whitby, it was effectively a railway "from somewhere to nowhere", with Whitby making it "somewhere to somewhere" and thus opening up possibilities for a market from both ends. In some ways, Pickering to Goathland is also "somewhere to somewhere" and there's a lot of scope to market both locations as destinations worthy of a trip, albeit perhaps a half-day rather than a full day.

Advantages I see are:

• Two steam locos, two diesels: so two steam drivers, two firemen, and two diesel drivers per day - that's fewer crews than the normal NYMR service requirement.
• Two guards and three signalmen needed, though I do wonder if a method of operation could be implemented to dispense with the need for one at Goathland on most days, if the Levisham to Goathland section could be temporarily worked as 'one train working' with the route from the main to/from the down platform left set and locked, perhaps using a token as a train staff - just a thought.
• Only 8 coaches needed in total - lots of opportunity to swop them around and thus give opportunities for maintenance time on others.
• Evening (or even lunchtime) diners remain a possibility - no requirement to run round trains at Pickering means the diner set could stay in a platform all day on diner days.
• A sensible, regular timetable which is not unlike that at many heritage railways.
• Small steam locos could be used, freeing the larger locos for maintenance, or hire to other railways.
• Drastically reduced operating costs vs. a normal NYMR service. Fuel and water would be minimised, no need for 'Whitby' FTRs on stock, only three stations to staff instead of five.
• Grosmont shed could concentrate on overhaul works for an extended period, with New Bridge acting as 'running shed' though admittedly it isn't ideal for that, but swops of locos to/from Grosmont would remain possible of course.

Admittedly there are obviously downsides too - loss of footfall at Grosmont station outlets and shed shop, and the obvious fact that it'll require people to think of the railway very differently. However in some ways it could well be a 'back to basics' refresh that the railway needs, with a view to doing a good job in the circumstances, delivering well on customer/passenger expectations, and working towards being as strong as possible for the return to 'normal' running whenever that's possible. Price point is going to be an interesting topic of conversation, but with a reduced operating cost base, I'd imagine a reasonable fares structure could be thought out. How the 'fixed' management costs (based on Whitby running) are factored in or whether they'd need reducing too - that'll no doubt be a mater for debate!

Sorry for the long ramble - just trying to unpack some positives from all of this.

 

I am expecting to be told why this is impossible, but I would look at only topping and tailing on the Levisham Goathland section reducing the diesel mileage massively. The same diesel would swap between trains at Levisham. I would also examine on quieter days not running beyond Levisham at all. I assume it is possible to run round there at least?

 

I agree with a lot of that, though I'm sure @Steve will be along shortly! You'll need more than one crew per loco per day - don't forget prep and disposal, shunting the stock from the carriage shed and back again, plus toilet and lunch breaks.

 

That appears to probably be unavoidable, at this point.

Noel

 

I'd considered that, and it's certainly not impossible, but doing it that way would mean the steam loco would need to run-round, meaning the crossing of two trains wouldn't work as slickly (technically possible with one train waiting outside the loop), so on balance I think my suggestion works better but obviously it's just my suggestion/opinion. Running just Pickering to Levisham and running round there is quite possible, though obviously a much shorter journey.

I don't think more than one crew per loco is essential. For a first train of the day at 09:00 the first steam crew book-on would be around 06:30/06:45, and that loco would be back at Pickering around 16:45, straight back to NB and dispose, crew book off 18:00 - tight but within 12 hours and not dis-similar timing to existing NYMR crew diagrams. Breaks are possible during the standing time at Pickering which would be around 30 minutes between trips. Similar for the second steam loco but 90 minutes later. The diesels would do all required shunting, still well within 12 hour days. One additional relief crew could be rostered I guess to cover all breaks. Again, it's just a suggestion which I don't think is impossible.

 

An issue

An issue I guess (and I have no idea how you would overcome it) is the lack of facilities that exist in Goathland if you were dumping around 200 people there every 90 or 120 minutes. When we have visited by car in the shoulder season (often linked with bird watching at Bempton) Goathland has seemed very busy with car borne visitors and those who already get off the trains there. Eateries from a look on Google Maps, as it is a while since we have been, seem to be the Goathland Hotel (aka Aidensfield Arms), a coffee shop, a tea room and if you want a lengthy walk the Homestead Kitchen & Mallyan Spout Hotel. There may be others not sure, I believe there maybe something at the station. Could they cope with this added footfall, many wanting food and drink?
I am sure they would all like more business, but it does not look good if you are turning hordes of people away. Plus these days probably leads to negative TripAdvisor and other social media comments.
That may lead to the thought of some selection of on train offerings, but does the railway have the staff on a daily basis to provide such a thing?
There are always likely to be a few that may walk to Grosmont, if something is provided to get them back, but I suspect most families and elderly pax, which seem to be the shoulder season clientele are not looking to go walking a great distance, and from seeing the average coach tour pax here in Swanage, many would not be physically able to.