North Yorkshire Moors Railway General Discussion

According to the BBC £10,000 of lead has been stolen from Pickering station roof.

"Thieves have caused extensive damage to a heritage railway as they stole £10,000 worth of lead, police have said.

Two men targeted Pickering Station, the main terminus of the North Yorkshire Moors Railway (NYMR), at 20:50 GMT on 23 January.

British Transport Police (BTP) said they scaled a gate and climbed onto a roof before removing a £20,000 lead haul and damaging the building.

NYMR chief executive officer Laura Strangeway said volunteers and staff at the charity were "very saddened" by the incident."

 

The NYMR’s offering in the same period is 43 trains although it only goes up to the 6th June. It’s generally 4 days/ week.
As a matter of interest, do you know how many paid staff are normally involved?

 

As a guard in the 80's I remember a chap, I think he was called Charlie, who used to travel on the trains selling guide books. I think they had walking routes in.

Dave B

 

If you set the price too high, people don't come. It's as simple as that.

 

From a rough estimate, the NYMR dining train is about 208 tons. Virtually the same weight as six Mk1s but only a third of the capacity. That's incredibly inefficient and wasteful.

I see the Bluebell's offering varies between a simple SP-EG-SP working, or adding in a move to HK and back as well to lengthen the journey so it's either 22 miles or 31. There's no flexibility in the NYMR's operation, it's always a 36 mile round trip.

The most the diner can earn is about £10,000 in ticket sales. I wouldn't be surprised to learn that once all direct costs have been taken out (staffing, food, laundry, washing up, etc.) then the actual income is half that. That's before any money needs to be put aside for maintenance of the stock and other running costs. Is it really worth it?

 

That is a huge commitment. What proportion of the staff involved are volunteer? As well as all of the direct costs does the income pay for the life cycle maintenance costs of the stock and still leave a profit?

 

Charlie normally with his straw hat on in the summer was one of the founding members of the NYMR, "guide to the line £1.80 please". He used to volunteer day in day out. He also ran the Yellow Pages fund raising program.

Lovely chap. Although not a happy bunny if you left him behind at Pickering when working the 11:20!

Sent from my M2003J15SC using Tapatalk

 

But if you set the price below what you're costs are you go broke. Ignoring the politics the Nymr has disadvantages in terms of its length, the gradients and the costs of running on the national network in this respect.

 

And the price point for a day out is different to the price point for using the train to go for a ramble.

People are I think more active than they were, but far fewer would consider using the train as the basis for a walk, and if I am paying £50+ I want the organisation I am paying to entertain me for whatever I feel is enough to justify the price.

 

What you are suggesting is that the market won’t bear the costs of the product offer. And your probably right.

 

Not so long ago, my wife and I would always combine the railway and walking on our visits. We would park our motorhome at sites in Pickering, Goathland, or Whitby and use the railway in one direction and walk the other, or to get to a starting point. Price increases didn't really put us off, as we saw it as a contribution to the railway, but over the years, the timetable changes made it increasingly difficult.

 

We've had a lot of detailed discussion about the fall off in traffic at the NYMR and the subsequent financial woes, but I think it can all be summed up fairly succinctly - the NYMR management in recent years have forgotten that the railway is supposed to be a heritage attraction, and have forgotten how to go about doing that (if they ever did know and understand the concept). I keep coming back to the point that heritage-themed events still do well - so why aren't there more of them? And, as in the previous post, the Whitby tail is wagging the dog in that the timetable is designed around services to Whitby, to the detriment of people wanting to use just the NYMR, who probably contribute the bulk of the fare - and other - income.

 

They only have the brains to say, 'money to be made up there lads, let's get it'.
Think of the risks involved climbing over that roof!
Think of the poor folk underneath in this wet weather waiting for trains, thank goodness there aren't any at this time.
Will insurance cover it or is it another expense on top of 'The Bridge' ?
I feel very sorry for the NYMR at present, but not inclined to visit them nowadays either.

 

Even if insurance covers the cost and I expect it will there will be an excess to pay, which could easily be the first £50k

 

Whether Whitby is tail or dog is a different discussion. But I do very strongly suspect that the Whitby traffic is dominant, and that is why marketing etc has focused so heavily on promoting that, rather than “internal” traffic.

 

Can't agree with you on this one. A lot depends on why you believe the railway is there in the first place. When it was first established it was viewed by the National Park Authority as a means of accessing the National Park; that's why they supported it! I don't think Whitby actually lies within the park, so it would be a bit perverse of the Park Authority to be encouraging people to pass through and out on their trip. In reality, I think the promotion of the railway as a destination in its own right has been allowed to lapse, and if it is going to continue to run to Whitby it should nevertheless put a lot more effort into promoting its own attractions.

 

I think you have it back to front. The railway was preserved to preserve the line through the park - agreed. But it was a section of a longer line, where the 6 miles south of Pickering have never been restored, and the 6 north of Grosmont remain part of the national network. The destination of that line was and is Whitby, and reopening 20-odd years ago was a restoration of what had been lost.

If I look at traffic when I’ve visited, it has been Whitby centred. That reality is what has underpinned the strategies of the railway management in recent years, and caused them to focus on the easy bit of marketing, especially as the influence of “Heartbeat” has waned.

In considering the challenges of the railway, that reality has to be acknowledged - it is not the tail wagging the dog, but the underlying creature (though if we’re using animal analogies, I might agree that it’s become a cuckoo in the nest).

The problem, brought into very sharp focus by the threat to operations over Bridge 42, is that there has been a corresponding neglect of the “internal” section and its value. It has suffered disinvestment, as in the timetables post-Covid that made use for a walk difficult or impossible.

You mention the view of the National Park, and it’s fair to consider why they have supported the railway. But to put that first, whatever your personal reasons for supporting the railway, is definitely to put the cart before the horse.

I say that despite wholeheartedly agreeing with you that driving custom south of Grosmont is essential to the future of the railway, certainly for as long as NYMR’s access to Whitby is limited to the highly constrained section and timetables determined by operating patterns nowhere near the area (I’ve heard that the Whitby timetable is in part determined by service patterns at Leeds).

 

Yes, I think you are revealing the long forgotten "Countryside interpretation project" which if I recall was entirely funded by the national park. I think they may even have funded construction of the halt. As well as the station and walks, there were interpretation panels up and down the railway and listening posts, for which some kind of tube based headset could be purchased. There was also a kind of theatre area in what is now the shop, in which an audio visual presentation could be watched. Also at this time people were encouraged to explore Newtondale by car with the actively signposted forest drive. This enabled passing trade to Levisham station, which allowed tourists to discover the station and the railway.

Sawdust.