North Yorkshire Moors Railway General Discussion

I think the issue is one of credibility as you say, it isn’t a good look. The details should be right because people will naturally question if the details aren’t right what else isn’t. I do worry that if you stack up the paranoia about comments in social media, the extreme secrecy, the stranger management structure (with many buzz words in the management titles) and the lack of planning (or revision of the plan at a late moment - whichever you prefer) for bridge 42, with this really poor letter and the timetable that like iOS is always being updated, you start to question whether the team have a grip on things.

 

Charities can claim back the VAT for work done, assume this is the 20% discount mentioned.

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I would assume not since they are VAT registered (or at least the company is), they can claim the VAT anyway? But who knows?

 

This PCC member (= charity trustee) is acutely aware that charities have no explicit right to claim back VAT on their projects. Churches benefitted until recently from the Listed Places of Worship Scheme, which was to close in April but has closed ahead of schedule because it's run out of funds. No other general charity VAT relief was or is available.

If a charity trades, it can reclaim input VAT - just as any business does. That is not a discount, and if it is being represented as such, I would be concerned.

 

My thoughts on the the decision to launch a new Day out with Thomas event are...it's an interesting one.

It could be said it's bravely aiming at a new family market, or it could be argued a more desperate move to widen their target audience, to earn some much needed cash.

Running the event for 8 consecutive days is an interesting one too...the outgoing costs being for 8 days, rather than a standard 2 day weekend. You then have to be confident you will get 8 days worth of different punters to cover those daily costs.

I can only imagine the NYMR is having to hire in a Thomas loco too - the costs for which could be quite eye watering.

The whole event is a bit of a high cost gamble and I wish them the best with it! I see the marketing has already started on the website.

 

Well the MHR have a 9 day and a 6 day one. They seem to make it work, and as the usual suspects continue to moan that the railway does not run "events" then be interesting to see if it works "up North"

 

The economics for the MHR one are rather different though as they have their own 'Thomas' based there AIUI.

 

The hire fee for Thomas would not make or break the event, it came about because of the number of days we used to run and the fact there was a reasonably ready hire market. It is perhaps one of the few locos that can earn its keep that way.

 

Have they a couple of teaks to be Annie and Clarabel?

 

Many years ago, the owner of “Bulgy the Bus” used to charge more per day than it cost to hire a Thomas! And the bus broke down regularly!

 

In fairness Watercress was one of the first to do Day out with Thomas events. They've taken years to gain a great reputation and never stopped doing it when most others stopped. Thomas events are a huge gamble in this day and age. But there's nothing to say that NYMR won't do well out of it if there's an audience there for it.

I'm definitely keen for it to do well, due to lots of reasons Thomas events never seem to happen much anymore so I can respect the effort by NYMR for giving it a go again.

 

Doing such events well seems to be the key to success - and other than enthusiast-orientated events, I'm afraid there isn't much evidence of the NYMR doing events aimed at non-enthusiasts particularly well. But I don't think they are shy about proving to a wider audience that they can do do worse if they try hard enough.

 

The impression I have been given by someone who has been involved with Thomas events is that with the licensing etc. they are quite expensive to run, and the key to making them a success is to have plenty available to facilitate secondary spend on things like catering.

I wish the NYMR the best of luck with it- there's very few DOWT events now so maybe they are accessing a market that is currently untapped in the North of England.

Chris

 

The key to any event is doing it well!

 

Untapped in the North....... East, East Lancs Railway in the North West has run DOWT events for many years and continues to do so, with 7 days over 3 events this year.

 

Would not exactly call the ELR and NYMR to be overlapping markets for a non enthusiast event.

 

Meanwhile another version of the timetable appears (now onto the 5th edition). I have V1.0, V1.1, V2, V2.1, V2.2.

Download.ashx

 

It's the modern approach to design - you put an initial version of your product out there that is buggy as hell, and allow your customers to do the user acceptance testing for you in production ...

When you think of all the factors that go into a timetable (section times, crossing times, interface with NR, allowance for run rounds, servicing etc, loco diagrams, crew diagrams (making sure they fit within acceptable hours etc), platform occupancy, shunts, and then consider where your recovery time is, it is non-trivial. But it still seems odd to be making what seem like fairly basic errors like timetables and loco diagrams not matching up, so that steam locos magically transform into diesels and so on. Maybe the office needs a big Brio set so they can plot all the moves visually?

Tom

 

And it's still wrong! Showing dining trains running from end of March, but you can only book them on the website from 25th April. V2.3 incoming...

 

The timetable is still advertising steam both ways ? I thought there is no longer a run around at Goathland ?