North Yorkshire Moors Railway General Discussion

We did that last year, single tickets are available for rail trail, and yes, we went to the buffet when we got back

Jon

 

Posts #9561 & #9571 with link refer.

 

It all depends whether they Redeem the voucher or not... see section 9 here: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/business-promotions-and-vat-notice-7007#:~:text=8.9.&text=As the consideration for a,consideration exceeds the face value.

 

Ive done a study of the southeast heritage railways with a National Network connection for a business case. In most cases the traffic generated from the National Network was pretty minimal. The biggest was Smallbrook Jnc which generated Around 8% of the IOWSR passengers and is obviously a bit of an oddball being isolated on the Island. I reckon that its probably a lot higher for the metropolitan railways notable the K&WVR but for most rural railways like the NYMR it would be negligable.

 

So, is vat payable on the value of the voucher, whether redeemed, or not?

 

Some strange points in this comment, I think! Surely, a heritage railway 's main selling point is that it is basically just a train ride - albeit one embellish by nostalgic ambience and surroundings Most heritage railways are not fortunate enough to serve a popular destination.

I would hate to see the NYMR become a Whitby-Goathland operation, because it would then be missing the best scenery, but when it opened steam trains ran between only between Grosmont and Goathland and routinely ran round at Goathland. Pickering-Goathland was a DMU service. Perhaps it will end up reverting to that?

 

I see the Bridge 42 finally has an update on the website. I'm not too sure on the amount of times they say the word 'proactive'. Surely that would have been if they had propped it before closing it?

https://www.nymr.co.uk/News/were-proactively-propping-bridge-42-to-ensure-2026-season-opening

This little detail is also included further down:

'NYMR aims to raise a minimum of £800,000 to enable the necessary repairs to be completed.'

 

Absolutely, I think the destination element is being overplayed here. I've yet to meet anyone who during the holidays will take their family on a trip over the Settle to Carlisle line, or to Pwllheli on the Cambrian Coast but they will go on a 5 mile journey from nowhere to nowhere in an old carriage with a steam engine on the front. The journey through the Moors by steam train is the attraction. Whitby is just a (albeit attractive) coastal town that if you're holidaying in the area will undoubtedly be quicker and cheaper to just drive to.

 

But the point is that there is an overlay in the two audiences. The acid test would be the number of visitors if NYMR didn't go to Whitby. I suspect the answer would be quite uncomfortable.

 

Either of those two is hardly equivalent, but I suggest that whist there will always be some for whom the ride is enough, such lines as the WSR or Swanage would have a lot less passengers without Minehead or Corfe Castle and Swanage.
Pickering to Grosmont also suffers from the issue of any long line that is only single track with passing places in that if the timetable slips for whatever reason there is a lot of sitting around doing nothing at passing places. Watching webcams would imply this is a common occurrence on both the NYMR and WSR. This will be as unattractive to most as the proposal of changing trains at Grosmont to get to Whitby.

 

Does anyone really travel on the WSR with the aim of arriving at Minehead for the day? And whilst sitting around at crossing loops can be an unattractive proposition, does the average holidaymaker study the webcams intensively to see how often it happens? The NYMR has to try to keep to the timetable under normal circumstances, to make its slots at Grosmont and avoid causing delays on NR (which can cost it real money with NR!) so I think that is rather a straw argument.

 

Yes, people do - just as they do for NYMR. The demand is acknowledged to be highly tidal (also true of Whitby demand), with days out in Minehead one of the predominant demand patterns.

The average holidaymaker does not, but poor reliability of any tourist attraction has a habit of creeping into word of mouth

 

As a guard on the K &ESR who gets to see people walking up the road whilst he runs the loco round Id say around 35 to 40 % of our non experience passengers travel on the railway to get to Bodiam Castle. It would probably be higher if the station were closer as there are quite a proportion of people for whom the distance becomes an issue. I think people see it as a 2 attraction day steam train and fairytale castle. Id be quite surprised if the NYMR Whitby traffic isnt comprised of a fair proportion of passengers who consider they are taking a Whitby plus steam train day out, that market would then be lost if it became a Grosmont and steam train day out.

 

Additionally, the WSR has more than one seaside station. When I've visited (not that often) quite a few got off at Watchet and good number at Blue Anchor. Which leads us back to the discussion on intermediate stations.

 

The point I'm making is that the steam train element is the main attraction. Whilst the destination will help e.g. Minehead, Swanage, Bridgnorth it isn't the be all and end all of those railways as Whitby shouldn't be for the NYMR. Why not scale back the Whitby operation to certain days thus allowing days where the rest of the line can be better utilised?

 

Based on your numerous posts championing the journey over the destination, I’m taken back to the 70s, when new operations were springing up all over the place , and whilst I worked regularly on one particularly successful line, I would happily travel long distances to sample others, particularly if they had locos I’d not experienced before.

However as the years past, most of us got married, had children (and now grandchildren) and our priorities changed. Visiting far off lines was no longer a means to an end - most of the locos were now very familiar and the family wanted more than just a train ride. Over time this led to us arriving at a short list of places that ticked our boxes - for me, larger locos and interesting stock, plus decent scenery and an interesting destination for the family all at an affordable price.

A special event might tempt me, but it either has to be local (eg GCR, Statfold esp if classic cars involved) , or coincide with a holiday (eg KWVR Beer & Music). Photo charters aren’t of interest as I don’t go line-siding and it’s not wife friendly either.

So for me, a train ride alone is rarely going to appeal, and I fancy I’m far from alone?

 

I think that is a bold assumption to make, especially now that the Whitby cat is loose. My hunch is that the steam ride is not primary, and the main attraction is a day out in Whitby behind steam*. From holidays in Pickering in the decade after through operations restarted, my hunch is that this is a genuine public response, rather than the result of something that's been marketing generated.

Two conclusions follow from that analysis. The first is that reducing Whitby services may reduce income significantly more than costs. The second is that demand for travel to Whitby may become more focused on the reduced number of operating days, which may in turn limit the scope to sell out capacity without turning away demand.

You then raise the question of line capacity. The "internal" timetable is pretty "clean", saving when the diner isn't allowed to take "ordinary" passengers. The commercial problem is that the lack of paths on the Whitby branch means that it is not possible to flex that timetable to respond to demand, especially if trying to generate demand for custom from Whitby to Goathland or (particularly) Pickering. My own view is that there is significant scope for selling "internal" services without incurring additional costs, and therefore improving margins by diversifying from the current highly Whitby-centric model.

* - I am trying to be dispassionate here, and should declare that I find the section from Grosmont to Whitby pretty indifferent so would always personally go for the haulage (steam or diesel).

 

Coming back to the point about walking: I think there is a difference in how people think about combining activities and how long they want to spend out. (There is also a point about curated visits - see later).

On my first visit to the NYMR in the mid 1990s, we got the first train out of Pickering (can't remember when, but probably about 10am); got out at Goathland for a long hike in the hills, and came back on the last train which - due to some late running caused by engine swaps for fire risk reasons - didn't get back to Pickering until well after 7pm.

These days, my experience on the Bluebell is that fewer and fewer people want to be out that late. The trends I've noticed seem to be:

• Sundays are declining in popularity - I believe now on the Bluebell that quite frequently Friday (midweek) is busier than Sunday (weekend).
• Late trains are a thing of the past. Pre-covid, we had one iteration of the timetable that had a last round trip from Sheffield Park that left at 5:15pm and got back about 6:45pm. Those days are long gone, now the last round trip is typically 3.45pm in the summer, earlier in the winter. It feels like no-one wants to be out late.

That does put constraints on the ability to enjoy intermediate stations (or surrounding countryside / pubs). As timetables get pared back, the opportunities for any "hop-on, hop-off" type itinerary gets ever more limited: the issue though is that is the decline in such usage because the timetables have become unfriendly; or have the timetables changed to reflect observed low usage of later trains? I don't know, but if you have once cut later trains due to poor patronage, it is a brave decision to reinstate them and thereby increase operating costs.

There is then a second point, which is that many people are no longer able to interpret a conventional timetable and thereby work out what their options are for changing trains. For travel on the big railway, the default experience is to go to an app and it tells you the times and - if required - connections. Outside of enthusiasts how many people can look at a traditional timetable and work out an itinerary along the lines "I'll catch that train to X, get out, spent 45 minutes looking round, then cross platforms and catch the next train to Y ..." and so on? A few months ago I had a really enjoyable trip to the Mid Hants in which we got behind both engines in use, felt like we had a really good look round both intermediate stations and got in a big mileage. But I doubt many people that day did that - I'm sure for many, they turn up, buy their ticket and ask what time the train gets back, without much concept that there is stuff to do in between, nor how you might plan a day around such activity.

I think for any heritage railway that wishes to encourage travel to intermediate stations, I think they really need to give some pre-planned itineraries (and then guarantee they will run, i.e. that connections will be maintained). Probably on an App - if you have timetable 1, 2, 3 etc then you need something to say "here's how best to enjoy the line if you have all day, and here's how to do half a day". It's hard for people to work out on their own now that the skill of reading a traditional timetable has largely died out.

Tom

 

I think it's important to realise the losses seem large but if they are £400k for 2025, then that's 5% of a standard years takings.

It's less than 10,000 trips. 8080 to be precise.
Less than a carriage per day, or just around 18 people on three trains daily make the difference between profit and loss.

 

Interesting Tom raised the App idea above for building itineraries. We looked at that for the Watercressline at one point and there were a surprising number of iterations (a couple of hundred) depending on where you started and what trains were running etc. It didn’t come off, but it would still be a great asset I think if promoted.