North Yorkshire Moors Railway General Discussion

You aren't wrong in your conclusions but you mention complications whereas I think the situation is much more straightforward. My thoughts may not be as nuanced as yours but in basic terms the reserves are depleted and a mainline locomotive has been sold to plug the financial gap. Every loco the NYMR posesses are routinely "thrashed" on Goathland Bank but, as you point out, 76079 was very suitable for Whitby duties..

Lack of management foresight and planning? - You are absoloutely right but it is far worse than that.

The bottom line is in the red and it becomes more crimson with every season. Reserves are low and the infrastructure crumbling. Dickens expressed it very well "Annual income 20 pounds, annual expenditure nineteen pounds, 19 shillings and 6 pence, result happiness. Annual income 20 pounds, annual expenditure 20 pounds and 6 pence, result misery".

Hopefully Bean Counter recently seen back in the parish will be along with a more professional assessment.

 

I think the situation is more straightforward and a lot worse, don’t forget that the NYMR stated that the propping of the bridge would cost £250k and from what I have now seen the cost of propping bridges 35 and 42 is now over £750k.
The work to repair 42 is £800k with no estimate of what it will cost to remove the propping and clean up the riverbed. I have no idea what the repair of 35 will cost but if I take a guesstimate of £150k to remove the propping on 42 (this was the cost of the crane hire alone) and £100k to repair 35 then this whole exercise will have cost £1.8m and as far as im concerned that really is terminal for the NYMR. Then there’s the work needed on 37 and 39…
That money raised so far is going nowhere near paying for this work and the railway does not have that kind of money in reserve.
Questions have to be asked about how this propping operation has cost three times the estimate, how the propping has cost more than the estimated full repair and the big one which is did this really need doing at all and when the very inconvenient but not fully unexpected truth comes out it is time for the entire shower at the top to face the consequences of what they have done to this Charity.

 

Again, I agree with most of what you say - but it will require someone to stand up at the AGM and ask, forcefully, the awkward questions; not me, unfortunately, as I've terminated my membership in protest.

Is bridge 35 the one that has recently been propped up using Acroprops? If it is, I haven't seen an estimated cost of repairs, but I can't think of any significant bridges south of Goathland, and I'd have thought work necessary on them would be relatively minor and well within the scope of the volunteer + paid PWay staff please explain why it's more than that!

I think the key to it all really depends on how the rest of this season goes, and that in turn will depend on the seemingly large marketing staff of 17 really earning their pay. If they cannot do that, it would be very hard to justify retaining their services, along with the CEO who should be cracking the whip, and the FD who is unlikely to have much in the way of finance to direct..... Those measures might well provide some much-needed finance.

 

Can I just quickly ask, does the NYMR actually have 17 marketing staff? I know we joke about the amount of resources used for marketing, but is the seventeen figure a joke or is it actually true? I cannot by any stretch of the imagination comprehend that a single attraction that is not a chain could need that many people to do marketing? I feel one should suffice, maybe two or at a stretch three. You obviously need other people to handle bookings, events, education etc. But 17 for marketing? With that many people it's hard to understand the service reductions due to lack of demand. If 17 staff working 8 hours a day 5 days a week then that's 680 marketing hours per week. Round that down to 500. Say working 40 weeks a year. 20,000 marketing hours per year. If one person can produce a piece of publicity material every 2 hours - 10,000 pieces of publicity material per year. If each piece is seen by 100 people - 1 million people see NYMR publicity per year. Divided by ~200 operating days, that's 5,000 people per day. A 7 coach train seats maybe 400 people. Granted not everyone who sees publicity will pay the line a visit, but there are other things I haven't accounted for in the other direction. Repeat visitors? Some marketing material will be seen by more than 100 people? So maybe we need some more marketing staff to boost visitor numbers?

 

Has there actually been any genuine market research completed that says the Teaks are a reason for people visiting the line?
I can understand folks may like the look of them when they are in operation if they are already there, but I would struggle to believe they attract more than a few die hard enthusiasts to make a visit purely because they are (maybe as I never seen a rolling stock roster) in operation.

 

Surely the propping of the bridge can't be so over budget? £250k seems expensive for propping as it is.

It would be useful to see a running spending total each month to set against total raised so far.

 

I don't know about market research but I was a volunteer platform bod over a 30 year timescale (not continuous due to family commitments) . They were always more popular than Mk1 stock and, when there was a choice, passengers of all varieties would make a bee line to travel in or be photographed with what are obviously heritage vehicles.

Even families who have little railway knowledge prefer wood and varnish to paint and formica.

 

I can second this. At my line, there's no complaint about mk1s, but loads of people who turn up and find the vintage stock absolutely love it. A number of times I've taken photos of people in Victorian four wheeled compartments. Never been asked to take a photo of someone in a mk1.

 

They were one of the factors appealing to visitors, even if they didn’t actually travel in them.

 

I dont know if there are 17 full time marketeers but the fundamental point is that there are too many who don't seem to know anything about railways.

Back in April I emailed Park Street asking what was a very straightforward question. First email no reply, 2nd email respondent didn't understand the question, 3td response partial answer, final responses actually addressing the problem was replied to by two different staff clearly not being aware the other was doing the same thing. The four replies I got were from four different people. Another enquiry in May was similar in that I got three replies from 3 more different staff members - So that's seven staff members inside two months.

Marketing as such isn't inherently bad but if it is undertaken by recent graduates in Public Relations from the University of Central Nowhereshire it won't be as effective as someone who actually understands the question and can provide a meaningful answer. It is the perfect role for a volunteer who cares about the line rather than the marketing budget, tick box response forms and filling in spreadsheets.

It might be stretching the envelope slightly but anyone who has read "Moors Line" recently knows just how appalling that publication has become. It used to be the flagship for informing members of developments and upcoming events. It is now a badly produced, error ridden, pathetic pastiche of what it once was when produced by knowledgable amateurs. Now it is theoretically a "professional" production generated by a paid clack who produce what the CEO tells them it has become promotional clap-trap with only one obvious characteristic. It is the perfect justification for the conservation of trees.

 

I'm not sure this is worthy of a reply, but here goes. The NYMR is supposed to be a heritage railway, and what people visit for, at least in part, is to see items that obviously have some obvious claim to represent a bygone era. Mk1 carriages don't really, but teak ones do. The SVR, Bluebell, NNR and other railways recognise that, but that recognition seems to be only slowly sinking in at the NYMR. It wasn't always so - when Philip Benham was GM we had a visit from the all Party Railways supporters (or whatever they called themselves), and the teak coaches were requested by Philip Benham to i9mpress them, rather than use the Pullman train. It seemed to work well!

 

The figure of 17 people in marketing came from another post (I can't remember where) and may be an exaggeration. All I can say is that there seem to be rather too many, doing too little, if the cockups documented here and elsewhere, and the falling passenger numbers, are anything to go by.

 

I think marketing at heritage railways is an interesting problem. Because of the structure of the organisation there are lots of awkward situations of interaction between paid staff and volunteers, some of which are not very sleek. I agree that this sharing of responsibility is how things need to work, but in places, more needs to be done to make things smoother. In my opinion, public timetables should be written by train planning, not by marketing. This is not me having a go at anyone at all, but as a volunteer from an operations background, I can instantly spot if something is up with a timetable, and email the right person to get it sorted. However, those from a marketing background do not have the specialist railway knowledge required to fully understand and check a timetable before it is published. By glancing at something, I know it can't work. That platform is blocked by another set. The section time is too short. A recent timetable published by a marketing department at a heritage line had two services occupying a section at the same time. I was able to see the working timetable for that day. The marketing staff member used the arrival time from the sidings as the station departure time. I can tell they do not understand how the railway works, through no fault of their own. I see that similar errors have occured in nymr timetables recently. Don't get me wrong, paid marketing staff are crucial to the survival of heritage railways, but we need to get the balance and interface right between those with railway experience and those with marketing skills.

 

Page 23 of last year's accounts.



So not all in marketing, but 17 office staff. Losing a dozen operations and maintenance staff is a concern though, and explains why overhauls take forever, general maintenance seems to be lacking, and the infrastructure is falling apart.

 

I can't comment authoritively on the '17 people in marketing' statement because I don't know. All I do know is that a while ago someone in C&W told me that there were more people in marketing than in C&W and I reckoned on there being 6 paid staff in that department at that time.

 

The actual timetables are drawn up by people in operating working to a brief by the senior management team and the head of operating is now part of the SMT. However, I don't think he is part of the 'inner circle'. Even so, it is not unknown for timetables when first drawn up to have errors in them. For many years the steam gala T/T used had a theoretical head on collision just outside Levisham.

 

They might be happy to publicise the total raised, but I doubt they want to make details of the spending on bridge 42 public - especially a detailed breakdown thereof. (Maybe they will surprise me.)

Noel

 

Sure, but that wasn't the question, which was (paraphrased - I'm too lazy to find the original to quote it) 'are they so special that they will tip people who would not otherwise come to the line into doing so'. If that were true, that would of course make a quantifiable difference (whereas a preference for wood carriages, over paint and formica ones, would not).

Noel

 

I think they reinforce the heritage and preservation characteristics of the line. They were certainly well liked and the LNERCA had a deserved prominence in the railway. The buffet was very useful.
These carriages would've been seen on the King's Cross to Whitby trains in summer.
Together with ex LNER locos it's a significant victory for preservation to run trains over the Moors. It's particularly sad, if I'm right, that the third class open will not run on NYMR.

NYMR is not just a tourist attraction but has a plethora of meanings for its supporters. That's not just members, but hundreds of thousands in Yorkshire who regard the NYMR as theirs in some way.
These people have supported it through donations and by repeated visits over the years.