North Yorkshire Moors Railway General Discussion

Not to join in on kicking the NYMR when they're already down but was there no pictures of Thomas on their own railway they could use?

 

You would think that a fireman would know - The harder the engine is worked the harder he/she has to work.

Peter

 

I am pretty sure that all railways have to use images provided by Mattel. Just like Polar Express are not always of the railway the event will be at.

 

I dont think that "they" were around when Thomas last appeared on the railway. It was after all 30 years ago, 1996, now that he was last here.

Peter

 

Well at least I guess that finally answers the argument from some that Whitby isn't worth it

Jon

 

A Black 5 turns the scales at 125.5 tons, a 4MT tank at 86.7 tons. That’s a tad short of 39 tons the tank doesn’t have to move around (that’s about the same as a mk1 full of passengers) so will have to do a lot less actual work. They are both relatively modern superheated locos so there will be little overall difference in relative efficiency and that lack of extra weight to drag around will have a direct effect on steam and coal used, all else being equal.

 

I looked at all the other ADOWT events and they all had their own images. So it probably is doing the first Thomas in a generation rather than some copyright demand.

 

I don't think it's just that. They simply can't carry enough people with the current method of operation. The majority of the timetable at the moment is 3 x four coach trains per day, plus one return trip with the autocar, and an afternoon diner. I realise it's a simplistic way of looking at it, but assuming every seat is occupied from Pickering, everyone does one round trip, and everyone pays £25 each, that's about 770 tickets each day. A little over £19,000 in ticket sales per day. The reality is it's going to be a lot lower than that. In comparison, a seven coach train going to Whitby has over 400 seats - if every one of those was sold at full price, the income from one train alone is over £20,000!

Some days and some trains have been packed. There are photos of the platform at Goathland absolutely heaving after the lunchtime arrival, and videos of it leaving Pickering with every seat taken. Other days have been reported as very quiet. They're still using 4 locos per day but only bringing in a fraction of the income compared to normal operation despite having similar costs.

@M59137 asked why the pessimism on this thread, even with the good news about the teaks being used later this year. It's because it's the only bit of good news in a long while. If their figures are accurate, the bridge appeal is currently bringing about £1000 per day. It'll be October 2027 before they reach their target! But they're not advertising it enough and making an effort to raise the money. Scroll down the website, at least on a mobile, and the bridge appeal is the fourth item on there, after £750 driver experiences and £1600 GWR saloon hire. They should be constantly talking about, plugging the appeal every single day on social media. But no. What are they plugging? Bloody cat keyrings!

 

It's pretty stark when you put it like that.

When you look at the 2024 accounts, the staff costs alone (including pensions and NI) came to slightly under £10,000 per day, 365 days of the year. You'd better hope they sell a lot of keyrings! (To be fair, those costs had come down by approximately 10% from the previous year).

Allowing for the fact that a the railway probably only opens for half the days in the year, the current operation can't even cover the staff costs, even if it ran at 100% occupancy; you are already in negative territory on the budget before you even start on any direct non-staff costs, let alone any maintenance costs. It feels like a hopeless situation at this point, which is - when all is considered - a terrible thing.

Tom