North Yorkshire Moors Railway General Discussion

Very true - has anyone looked at the Mid Hants line-up, for example, of late? The West Somerset cupboard looks fairly bare, too., as does the East Lancs. I feel bound to agree that the NYMR seems to be guilty of grievously underusing No. 29, though. Years ago the SVR decided to start using its fleet of smaller locos to a greater extent, and I believe that was one reason why 45110 was sold, although I don't necessarily believe it was a good decision.

 

£5000 won't replace many crown stays.

 

Major overhaul costs have gone through the roof. The days when any railway can have a shed full of operational locos have gone, unfortunately. It is now a case of sweating the assets.

 

I can second that regarding the Bluebell. A couple of years ago there were four operational loco on a line where 3 run every weekend day. There's 6 home fleet now (one being Fenchurch) but we've been dependent on 6989 and more recently 2999 on hire.

 

I don't think that is quite true - I'm not sure we have ever been down to only 4 steam locos since the early 1970s. We are thinner now than in recent years, but typically with about 6 - 7 operational locos in any year. (Of course there are times in a year when the number may be lower due to running maintenance, but the mileage charts typically show 6 - 7 steam locos in traffic in any one year. It was normally about 8 pre-Covid. 2022 was the tightest year with 5 of our own locos and one on hire. Currently it is 6 of our own and one on hire.

We do also have a loco on hire currently, but that has been more or less the case for the last twenty five years, except for a few years around 2016-2020 ish when we made do without any hired-in loco.

Tom

 

I may be remembering incorrectly, but I think in 2022 it was just 73082, 80151, 30541 and 65??
263 went out of ticket in February, 178 was also gone. No Fenchurch, or Archie, or Beachy Head yet. Then did 6989 arrive in that June maybe?

 

Yes, that was the tightest year - 73082, 80151, 541, 65 all year; 263 for the beginning of the year and 6989 from June. I guess technically there was a period between March and June when only four steam locos were available. The position has recovered somewhat since then.

Bringing this back to the NYMR - we had a period about 10 years ago when spring failures were quite common, and the solution was to invest in the track - I'd say a traffic loco being stopped now for a broken spring is a rare occurrence. Railways are systems, and frequently underinvestment in one area shows up as an unbudgeted cost in another.

Tom

 

As per @60044 there is 44932 at Carnforth, also 48151 (though that may not be suitable for Whitby).

Looks like Tornado will help, but I don't think that can run to Whitby either.

 

So indulge an off-the-wall thought.

I was thinking about the NYMR, and in particular the Whitby situation, which in many ways seems to be a 6 mile tail wagging an 18 mile dog. It struck me that from a passenger perspective, the Whitby operation is in many ways a mini-Jacobite. People come for the journey, through fabulous scenery, with a destination worth spending a few hours at. They want steam and old carriages, but the intervening railway infrastructure (stations etc) is secondary, except in as much as you need the core infrastructure to run on - rails and signals.

If you consider how West Coast run the Jacobite, they have to provide loco, carriages, crews and marketing, but they simply pay a fee for infrastructure that is someone else's problem. Whereas the NYMR has to provide the lot, and has all sorts of compliance issues with its own stock and crew in ensuring everything is "Whitby-compatible" even though most of the railway doesn't require that. They also carry all those compliance issues through the winter when there is little demand to go to Whitby.

So the left-field thought: Why not simply franchise out the Whitby trains to a third-party? That third party would be fully responsible for providing loco(s), carriages, crew and would market the operation in their own (non-charitable) fare structure. You'd probably base a loco and set of carriages at Pickering for the summer, remove them over the winter for maintenance. In exchange, they'd pay the NYMR a track-access charge for each trip to pay for the infrastructure costs, but the NYMR would have no responsibility for maintenance of that rolling stock. (*)

The NYMR could then run its own ("heritage line") services, with no need for Whitby-compatible locos, carriages etc. Its overall requirement for rolling stock would be somewhat lower in any case (because it would only be running trains over 18 miles). The franchisee would be making a contribution for infrastructure costs based on its track access. The NYMR could then develop services on the core heritage line much more aligned to the charitable / heritage values. It would lose the Whitby fares, but would also lose the costs of maintaining sufficient locos and carriages to go there, and the crew training necessary to run on Network Rail - all that would become the franchisee's responsibility. If the loco sat down for some reason and couldn't come off shed - well, that's not the NYMR's problem, it would be down to the franchisee to ensure they had a suitable locomotive fleet - just as West Coast manage now with the Jacobite operation.

You'd have to do the maths. But on the loco side, you'd no-longer be worrying about which locos could or couldn't go to Whitby. You'd have no electronic equipment to maintain. You'd have much more freedom in which carriages you operated, because none would need to be Whitby compliant. And you'd have a tenant who would likely be paying hundreds of thousands per year in track access charges which could be ploughed back into infrastructure repairs; they would carry the risk of setting a fare model that maximised their yield per train. Essentially, you could simplify the whole operation by transferring a lot of the mainline complexity to a franchisee, likely an existing mainline operator who would be more set up to deal with it.

Probably a mad idea, but if the current model isn't working, what would an alternative model look like?

(*) They could of course bid for a commercial maintenance contract - but that would be very much based around whether that could be made profitable in its own right.

Tom

 

I think that a franchise arrangement could work well, allowing a franchisee to develop a specific marketing campaign and would leave the NYMR management to focus and concentrate on running its own railway - which is what it really, really needs to do.

 

Isn't this to a degree what the Swanage Railway did for their Corfe to Wareham trials. Difficult to see where the franchisee obtains volunteer labour from. Once you move to paid staff the operation needs ongoing public subsidy like the rest of Northern.

 

How do West Coast operate the Jacobite services? With paid staff or volunteers, or a mixture? My thought is if it works there, couldn't it work at Whitby?

(And the flip question - if it doesn't work - does that not suggest there is no commercially viable way to run steam to Whitby?)

Really it is about risk and reward - you offload most of the risk and reward of the Whitby operation, but in exchange remove a lot of complexity and therefore cost from the core NYMR business.

Tom

 

I am not convinced the franchise concept would work economically because of the constraints imposed by integration of the “core” and Esk Valley sections of the line, which is imposed by the limited line capacity throughout. These are what force interworking of rolling stock and locomotives, and untangling them would remove present economies of scale.

Unbundling an existing integrated operation has a habit of undermining the ability to benefit from shared costs, and making the two more expensive than the sum of the whole.

 

My suspicion is not that there’s no way to operate steam economically to Whitby, but that the fundamental challenge is with the cost model of NYMR as a whole.

While splitting the operation would force careful self examination, my fear would be that any franchisee would run very lean, and the residual NYMR would not adjust accordingly.

 

That's certainly an intriguing take on the Whitby service and offers all manner of interesting solutions. The aspect of it I think tempting is that it simplifies the core Grosmont - Pickering operation making it more of a heritage offering as well as divesting itself of costs. I certainly wouldnd't be against that approach as it would be a move back towards the railway operating as an historical trust. That is what was intended back in 1973 and worked well for several years.

It is difficult to judge the finaancial implications for the NYMR as a company. Losing the Whitby costs in terms of track access, Network Rail costs for certified staff , compliant coaching stock etc would be a considerable saving but set against this would be lost revenue from Whitby based tourists. How the balance of profit and loss would fall would need much consideration before taking the plunge.

My personal view is that since the line was viable running Grosmont - Pickering before Whitby entered the equation, and that the present modus operandi is clearly loss making, then a stategic withdrawal would be wise from both a heritage and financial point of view.

All that said I must then turn to a "franchised" Whitby operation. Whilst nothing is impossible I realy don't think this is remotely practical, financially viable or even desirable. There are literally dozens of obstacles, so many it is difficult to know where to start. How is it even possible for the NYMR to offer a franchise a service on a line it doesn't own?

Insufficient revenue. It wouldn't pay, too small, pathing limitations, Network Rail restrictions, at least two locos to support a minimal service, maintenance costs on an infrequent 6 mile branch line.

I could go on ad infinitum but if anyone is in doubt I would refer them to an obscure 63 year old document published by HMSO. The Beeching Report.

 

I think this is a really interesting idea. I suppose the possible issue is that, as you acknowledge, with the Whitby buisness being core to the nymr, removing that would almost destroy what the nymr is to some extent. Now, we can argue that many heritage lines (Bluebell is a perfect example) succeed perfectly well (just about!) running as effectively a tourist attraction (as much as I hate to say that) with no fundamental 'destination'. I can't see why the nymr wouldn't work like this, but it would need a reasonable amount of restructuring in how it delivers its services. For example, you would have to add extra family events I suspect, and improve the situation with steam-haulage. At a guess, the only reason the public accept diesel is because they get to go to Whibty. Understandably your proposal would seek to reduce pressure on the steam fleet, improving availability.

Another possible issue is demand, both for visitors and for infrastructure. The Whitby operator would (probably) seek to operate two sets at approx. 1tp2h. This means there is only a path for an nymr service once every two hours. As soon as you put the Pullman in, you have a 4 hour gap in the core nymr service. (AIUI the infrastructure and loops can only do a train once an hour for the most part.) I could also see issues with visitor distribution. For average travellers, they will want a steam train to the seaside. This money would not go directly to the nymr (although they could benifit from catering etc). I fear too much patronage would be lost if Whitby was sub-contracted. That said, I think the overall idea is good, and I'm not trying to suggest that it's foolish at all, but those are my thoughts - welcome to discussion / disagreement.

 

I suspect that this is a case where correlation does not equal causation, and the root causes are significantly deeper

 

Agree. Maybe the question is--- why should it be any more commercial to separate out the Whitby than not? If you are going to run a service 300 miles from your base, I can see the case for subcontracting the loco operation and maintenance as WCR do to Ian Riley, but that's a different problem with a different solution.

 

What if the answer to improve revenue flow is to, without drastic action, improve marketing for the Grosmont-Pickering section. Take a leaf out of other lines' books: A steam train journey through beautiful scenery. Add some family events at Grosmont. Even better Goathland or Levisham. This forces people to alight there and reduces demand on Whitby trains. Or, run Whitby as a shuttle apart from the first and last through trains?

 

Interesting thought from Tom. I think what it provokes is the question, “if another operator could make Whitby profitable why couldn’t the NYMR?”

I think that the question might boil down to how high a ticket price the service could bear. And again if the franchisee could charge that, then so could the Moors, which prompts the further question as to whether the solution mightn’t be a much more expensive Whitby service which runs just once per day each way (because undoubtedly passenger numbers would reduce, but the trick would be could you get revenue to rise faster and perhaps constrain costs by running less often to Whitby, but charging a lot more.)