North Yorkshire Moors Railway General Discussion

Perhaps Omaha was due on the 1330 yesterday but was pulled?

 

Is that due to the 15mph slack at the bottom of the climb?

 

Very most

Most likely yes. Eric Treacy was the same on the earlier service.

We are load 6, 37 there to provide assistance if needed and as far as I am aware isn’t doing much.

Also being fuelled by diesel as opposed to rapeseed - diesel powered steam engines in 2026? Who would have thought!

 

No the 9F was always scheduled to run that service, she then transfers to the diner service rest of the week (which doesn’t run on a Monday) and thus Omaha has filled the gap today on the 13:30.

 

If you ask me, Tornado should stay in BR green and Scotsman should be repainted apple green, complete with single chimney...but that's just a personal view, of course.

 

A pretty good run out all Things considered for Omaha on the ex13:30 from Grosmont.

Ableit from a slight bit of jerking from Levisham to Pickering things went well and it didn’t appear as if the 37 was having to provide much assistance as stated earlier. Pax numbers again appeared largely healthy on all services.



Sent from my laptop using my fingers.

 

If the timetable is correct, wait for a big bang this Saturday around Darnholme, the 2G46 leaves Goathland for Grosmont at 15.12, three minutes before the 2P11 is due to arrive at 15.15. I'm sure the token system won't allow that.

 

(Deleted)

 

Both in BR Express Blue please!

 

Latest Bridge 42 donations are apparentyl at £330,000 following a £50K donation from the National Park. That's 41% of the estimated final cost. (£800K)

 

That's good news, Steve.

 

Not very good news, is it? The total, excluding the NP donation, doesn't seem to have moved on much otherwise - and in the meantime bridge 35 near Greenend has been added to the list of structures in urgent need of repair and has been propped with Acroprops.

 

Appeals of this nature, i.e. "urgent or we don't run trains", usually bring in cash at the highest rate in the first few weeks thereafter tailing off. Given the high profile of the North Yorkshire Moors I would expect a better response. Whether the job can be done for £800k is of course another matter. Hopefully this includes a large contingency sum.

 

There's a 5mph TSR slow at Fen Bog. Is this a culvert?

 

With the recent £50k from the NYMNP the current figure is still only 40% of estimated costs with ongoing donations are little more than a trickle. Accumulating repairs not dealt with will mean essential expemditure is growing faster than the funds coming in. The hire costs of supporting girders under Bridge 42 have to be paid and every week without actual repairs starting mean growing expense against declining contributions. Remember too that the £800,000 total is only an estimate. When was the last time anyone employed a builder or contractor without the estimate being grossly exceeded?

The £330,000 funding (the current NYMR claim) includes the initial appeal period and the £50,000 grant. There is another £470,000 to raise and short of major asset sales I just can't see where the money might come from. Grants are an excellent source of finance but the NYMR has had so many of these in recent years they are running out of bodies to ask for yet more largesse.

Yet another question was asked in the pub last night - "Does the £330,000 include the proceeds from the sale of 76079?". No one knew the answer but if the 76079 money IS included in the supposed donation total it demonstrates considerable dishonesty and deceit by the Park Street management mafia.

We are told by the PR professionals that Bridge 42 will be repaired during the closed season this winter. That of course makes logistical sense but if another £470,000 is to be found before an October start date, just 16 weeks from now, then that requires a donation stream of £29,375 every single week. The current rate of funding doesn't reach that sum even per month and is declining all the time.

The NYMR is in hoc to Santander for huge sums and has already reached, most would say over-reached, it's borrowing capacity. The point is growing ever nearer when the banks will say enough is enough, pull the plug and the many mortgaged assets will be sold off to the highest bidder, whichever house builder that proves to be.

The management are living in cloud cuckoo land. They draw salaries without earning, they spout balls and take benefits, they stick in their oars with no ability to row, they leech on the carcass of a railway slowing dying. They will then walk away with fat wallets and soiled hands.

 

I don't think the £330,000 includes funds from 76079's sale - the donations have been steadily rising since the appeal was announced, with a couple of large donations/grants already noted. I'd expect the price of 76079 to be about what has already been donated.

 

A seasoned accountant said to me a while ago "any business that relies on grant funding, is destined for failure, it should rely on its own funding, and any grant funding should be seen as icing on the cake"...

 

Whilst I fully agree with most of what you say, I'm less sure that the NYMR is in " hock to Santander for huge sums"; @Lineisclear has stated in the past that there has been an effort to actually substantially reduce its indebtedness to Santander. For once, I'm going to be charitable and accept his word on that, albeit without any evidence either way.

I don't think that - as yet! - any of the funds from the sale of 76079 have been allocated to bridge repairs, some - at least I hope has been allocated to repairs to bring some of the teak carriages back into service,- and, for once, that's a good thing!

 

Entirely agree regarding the Teak set hopefully receiving repairs. It was one of the line's real selling points when I was volunteering and it's withdrawal from regular use was a thoroughly retrograde step.

I'm sure the intent to reduce the Santander debts is there but I don't see that any meaningful progress has been made towards doing so. Successive annual losses (most recently published annual figures being £500k and £250k) I don't see how debts can have been reduced. Interest payments to the bank are a large monthly outgoing and the line is moving further into debt both in cash terms and the declining value of deteriorating assets. Land and property values may still rise but the bridge 42 neglect demonstrates that if you don't maintain structures it costs you dear in repair bills without the income to pay.

Santander have a charge over several railway assets. Another operating loss this year is inevitable. As you yourself have pointed out there has been a decline in revenue through lost running days, no February half term income and a poor return on Thomas weekend. This year's accounts are going to show a substantial loss for the third year in a row. Banks only lend money with the assurance of getting it back and the NYMR is over borrowed without a revenue stream sufficient to pay them back. The disposal of 76079 is the epitome of selling the family silver to pay for essentials.

 

Again, I 'm not sure whether some of this open to interpretation.. Santander do have a charge on most of the NYMR assets, but I don't think that those charges will have changed even as debts were reduced - perhaps someone more versed in accountancy could comment on that? I assume that the previous losses - and presumably this year's too - have been made up from Trust reserves, rather than increasing borrowing, so Santander ought to be reasonably happy . They will only start to get twitchy when those reserves run out and borrowing starts to increase. I really don't know if the railway is overborrowed yet so cannot judge on that.

I do agree that the results for the first half of the year will be well down on what was predicted, but we have to wait and see what the rest of the year brings, although we cynics still have our doubts whether this management could even find a hat, let alone pull a rabbit from it!

The situation with 76079 is also a bit more nuanced than you allow. It was, I recall, acquired to provide another Whitby engine at a time when the railway was quite short of such locos - the situation has changed since then, at least in potential, so its loss is less critical - so its acquisition was to expand the fleet at the time and not as a treasured possession, and therefore one that could be dispensed with. There was also an undercurrent from some areas suggesting that it was too small and being routinely "thrashed", which can't have helped with the case to overhaul it, even if it was obviously nonsense - but throw enough mud, and some of it will stick. IMHO it has become a victim of a chronic lack of foresight and planning at the NYMR, that really stems from the underfunding that sees a loco shortage just about every season. If there had been a plan to overhaul and run 3-4 locos for the first half of the season and then put them in for winter overhaul early and then switch to the larger locos for the peak and later I think more consistent availability could have been achieved. Because of the lack of such a plan, 76079 became an easy target for raising cash, as by then the "family silver" had effectively been reduced to base metal.