North Yorkshire Moors Railway General Discussion

This reminds me a bit of some of the conversations about the WSR, where everyone could agree that the line was too long, but no-one could agree on which end should be mothballed!

The difficulty on the NYMR as I se it is that Whitby adds complexity and reduces flexibility - essentially, you have to start with thinking about Whitby in terms of timetabling, locos, rolling stock etc., at which point your options start getting constrained. For example, comment has been made upthread about offering more events, and the success of the Bluebell's Model Railway Weekend - which was great, but that sort of event was essentially built round two venues, with a frequent service between (the normal two train, 75 minute interval service, but with additional shuttles threaded in between). That all becomes harder to manage if (a) you don;t have the venues and (b) your timetable is constrained by the need to manage the Whitby service.

It's a difficult nut to crack, because I suspect both sides of the argument have elements where they are correct: on the one side that Whitby is where the passenger demand lays, but on the other that operating over Network Rail drives complexity into the railway and removes flexibility. On the Bluebell, if we need to adjust a timetable by 15 minutes to accommodate something to do with an event, it's fairly easy to do - much harder if the starting point for your timetable is set by Network Rail.

Tom

 

There's also the problem in that there's no proper road access to Grosmont, nor any space to expand maintenance or storage facilities. That's going to limit what you can do from that end. What really needs to happen is the Esk Valley line gets resignalled and a loop goes in at Sleights, so the frequency of Whitby services isn't entirely constrained by Northern services.

 

I received a communication today, which is self explanatory.
"I read the National Preservation forum on the NYMR.... I am getting concerned people might think the poster called Richards who has recently been quite uptight about another member is me. As I don't have a profile so can't post, would you mind putting up a post clarifying Richards is not me, i.e. the NYMR driver Mark Richards."
Job Done.

 

There's a lot to digest from posts over the last 24 hours. I remain of the opinion that Whitby traffic will remain the main source of revenue both to and from Whitby but there remains a substantial number of people who don't want to traverse the full length of line for various reasons. The NYMR's on-line booking system does not help with encouraging those short journey visitors in my opinion and I am becoming more and more convinced that it is actually doing more harm to passenger numbers than good. It may be good to have people paying up several days before travel as it provides commitment whatever the weather turns out to be on the actual day. The tempter for this is a much reduced fare offering. That fare offering has got to be a commercially acceptable figure from the Railway's point of view otherwise it would be pointless. However, for those wanting a journey that doesn't fit the limited on-line offer, the advice is to pay on the day at the booking office and pay a much higher cost compared with the on-line tickets. I suggest that more people might tbe encouraged to travel if the expensive tickets were discontinued and all tickets were similarly priced pro rata. It might even be more commercially better if on-line bookings were not encouraged and pay on the day became the preferred option. At the recent HRA conference railways were told that people were making last minute decisitons to visit attractions and, if the on-line discounts are no longer available for last-minute decisions, that is going to discourage travel.
It's a known fact that a significant number of people want to purchase single tickets, both to do the Grosmont- Goathland trip and a walk back and to do the Whitby-Pickering trip by train and Coastliner bus journey back but these are not encouraged in any way. The latter gives people a long train journey and overcomes the problems of a timetable that isn't exactly convenient. It's also a cheaper option overall than an all-train journey. Newtondal Halt is another loss in terms of passengers. It used to be aimed at ramblers and was relatively well used with people getting off there and walking to Goathland of Levisham or vice-versa. I don't know what todays usage is like but I remember that, in 2024, I only stopped there just the once. Its use needs to be encouraged.
Then we come to what is the attraction of a trip on the NYMR. It may well be to have a scenic train ride but I'd suggest that the biggest draw is still a steam locomotive yet the Railway's management use every opportunity to put a diesel up front. It may be necessary to introduce diesels due to dry weather or steam loco shortage but dry weather has been the case since at least 1976 and, until recently, in dry conditions, steam was still used on the majority of services, even if it entailed diesel assistance between Levisham and Goathland. Of the four 'Firecon' conditions, only Firecon 4 was diesel only. I believe the four conditions are now reduced to three so there is less leeway. As regards steam loco shortages, there seems to be no real attempt to overcome the problem.
The number of train services in the peak used to be eight each way but that has now been reduced to six and the normal train length seems to have been reduced from seven to six coaches. That indicates a substantial reduction in demand, especially as, in times past, trains tended to be full for the most part. I may be wrong but I believe that, given the right offering, that demand still exists. The reduced T/T also works against people breaking their journey and visiting the intermediate stations.