North Yorkshire Moors Railway General Discussion

Why is the cab still in anti-rust primer?

 

Three steam out today (23rd) with 2253, 44806 and 92134 doing the honours. 37264 & 37688 also out and about. At least, that's the plan!

 

Surprised to see that Steve. I take my hat off to any crews working in this weather.

 

Interesting that 2253 continues to come is as a late replacement. Its only just appeared on what is now V3 of todays timetable (I was looking at V2 just before I saw your post.) I wonder why it isn't being scheduled in earlier (shortage of trained crews?, still going through more thorough checks after each run before committing to the next one?)

Looking at the temps today and over the next few days I suspect 2253 is going to get some good mileage in.

 

Random thought. The footplate of a steam engine is one of the few places hotter than the outside world on days like today. Is there any difference on 2253? With the reason behind the conversion being able to run more during hot weather I wonder if there is any less suffering for the crews on that engine on those hotter days.

 

The lack of manual labour for the fireman would be a huge advantage, and to a lesser extent not having the fire hole doors open too.
I guess the rest comes down to insulation and ventilation.

 

Presumably on the lack of trained crews point, the railway will know weeks in advance who is rostered that day and whether they posses the competency? I appreciate there can be last minute changes though.

 

2253 hasn't been running in oil-fired form for very long. I don't suppose it is much different for drivers but not that many firemen will have had a chance to try it out yet. Perhaps one of shed staff is rostered to accompany anyone at any early stage of learning.

 

The more you have traction and / or route specific rostering, the harder things get - given the mixture of steam and diesel at the NYMR and the need for some trains to go to Whitby, I can imagine that crew rostering is a nightmare - and that is before you layer on the need to keep on top of expiring competence elements. (Your daily roster suddenly fails because someone hasn't renewed their working at height training and therefore goes out of ticket - that sort of thing).

That's basically how we bought Beachy Head into use. Once the workshop staff had done their running-in period and on the basis of that prepared a set of instructions, we had a week of crew familiarisation in which those rostered to go on the loco in its first couple of weeks got the chance to drive / fire the loco on non-service trains. Then, the early trips all had either an inspector or one of the workshop staff go out with the crew on their first operational day; and generally any crew who wasn't picked up in that process over the first month or so would, when they eventually got on the loco, go out with either an inspector or a driver who had significant experience on it. It worked well but obviously puts additional requirements on the inspectors (i.e. more turns to cover) and, where the person riding was from the workshop, it is a direct cost as they are taken away from other maintenance work.

Tom

 

I visited yesterday too and had a good day.

I agree, from Levisham to Goathland there seems to be lots of reduced speed sections. Unsure why.

They managed to keep on time though...ish. Lots of passengers, especially on the Whitby sets.

 

"Temporary" speed restrictions due to mounting numbers of defects with track and bridges, I believe. Victims of budget cutbacks.

 

There's a mile of 10mph north of Levisham and three 5mph restrictions on bridges/culverts.
It adds to journey length.

Plenty of Whitby passengers yesterday when I was there. I did wonder if closing two days a week in June was a good idea in the light of how busy the area is with adult visitors before the main summer hols.

 

Along with one other person, I looked after footplate rostering for 10 years and it was an interesting challenge. the NYMR uses HOPS for footplate rostering and it is a good tool for doing this. Footplate crews are categorised on a hierarchy system from Whitby driver, NYMR driver, Whitby fireman down to NYMR fireman. Thus, a Whitby driver could, in theory, be rostered as an NYMR fireman although this is only ever done if desperate and with the agreement of the person concerned. The other complication is that crews can start from either Grosmont or Pickering and, when putting in availability, volunteers can opt to be available for one or both ends of the line. HOPS can cope with all this and is programmed to fill the roster from those who have put in availability when the 'button' is pressed. The one thing HOPS can't cope with when compiling the roster is to avoid a volunteer from the north being allocated a turn at Pickering whilst a volunteer from the south is allocated a Grosmont turn. This does happen and the roster clerk always checks the roster before it is published to avoid the two volunteers concerned passing each other on the A169! Inevitably, there will be gaps and these are hopefully filled by people volunteering to fill the empty spaces. As the day nears and there are still vacancies it is time to pick up the phone and persuade people to give up their free time for the railway. The roster gets more complicated when diesels are added into the mix as crews are passed on individual motive power types. That needs a lot more in the way of human intervention but is not usually a significant issue.
It's all good fun!

 

Roster clerks must be some of the unsung heros of preserved railways. In my main department which I volunteer in (platform staff) our roster clerk often has to send out requests for vacancies. Pleasingly a few weeks ago I was able to help out. But at other stations, the shortage of volunteers is much worse. There are people looking at it currently and the situation is improving. But for the roster clerk, that's a really hard situation.

I also look at most of the operations-related rosters on the railway from a train planning perspective, and it just makes you appreciate how complicated it all is. Because not only do you have to find the right people, but you then have to work out the turn times. And then planning have to create the diagrams and allocate the staff members. But it becomes very complicated very quickly. For example, I've spotted a turn which is on the 12 hour limit. Make the off-shed time later? No, because the engine has to do shunting. Move the shunting to a different day? That will take many back and forth emails to happen, and will throw up other problems. Then the signaller roster times, for example, will have to be adjusted. I think in the case I'm talking about the loco turn will have to be split. But that's 2+ more volunteers to find for a Friday night.