North Yorkshire Moors Railway General Discussion

There's no way of altering anything at present due to the Northern services needing to clear Glaisdale before anything else can enter the branch. Whichever way you try and adjust things, it doesn't work without something waiting somewhere or removing other services.

The only way to reduce the time the 12.35 ex Whitby sits at Grosmont for without completely rearranging the timetable is to push the departure time back. But as they're so short of Whitby locos at present, that wouldn't allow loco changes at Grosmont as both platforms would be occupied at the same time. Whichever way you look at it, there's no real option but to keep it as it is.

 

This is a change that has been increasingly obvious just looking around at the pubs I frequent. With 38% of the population now over 50, perhaps not surprising. It poses one of the many challenges of adaptation required by heritage railways.

 

I noticed that the first out of Pickering this morning still had to be swapped for another despite the fact both were diesels. I could understand if they'd put steam on that wasn't registered but why start from Pickering with a non Whitby diesel?

With regard to paths I really do hope the re-signalling has some benefit to the NYMR when it happens. I know they aren't supposedly getting anymore paths (unless demand proves too light on customers for Northern to use them in the longer run) but I live in hope that the quicker times between Grosmont and Whitby (without having to stop and start continually to get permission from the signaller) will help them make improvements to timetables when everythings bedded in.

 

I went on holiday to Yorkshire in summer 2023 (I think). We, as a train loving family, went to a variety of heritage lines. I'll talk here about the NYMR and the KWVR. In the case of the former, we stayed for a week near Grosmont. In the latter case, we spent one day there having got the train from York-Leeds-Keighley.

The day at the KWVR was brilliant. We stopped off at each station on the KWVR, where we recieved a warm welcome, and there was lots to do. This was thanks to the two steam sets running back and forth at 45 minute intervals.

The NYMR was in a steam ban. I appreciate there isn't much they can do about that. It was still a decent week, and the volunteers were friendly. However, the train service was infrequent, and seemed to run about 2 hours late EVERY SINGLE DAY.

Regarding the NYMR, we accepted the steam ban - it is what it is. We planned to go back at Easter at some point to get some steam mileage in. I'm somewhat dissapointed that steam is not delivered even in the limited part of the year when the conditions allow it.

Why on earth should I bother returning to the NYMR? That's a massive, massive, massive journey for me. Only to find out when I'm half way up the ECML having woken up at 4am that actually the steam engine needed a washout today so they won't bother.

Contrastingly, I really want to pay the KWVR another visit. We had a great time and I'd love to see it again with some different locos out. It's worth the journey.

I think for so many people steam is so crucial. Young children are so excited. No, I, as an enthusiast, am not representative of the primary market for the NYMR. But I fear most people will turn up to a diesel and say never again.

If money is tight, then I think hiring in addition steam engines to maintain the service is one of the things which has to happen regardless. The Bluebell are in serious financial trouble This is rather an exaggeration, I admit. Recent accounts and discussion are visible on the Bluebell thread on Nat Pres. It is good to see a profit from the last year. This is by no means a statement endorsed by the railway and I have no intention of talking it down. The management people are doing a fabulous job of controlling finances and things are getting much better. but 2999 Lady of Legend is on loan, for good reason. To be honest, if it's diesel for the Whitby section then who cares? But, you, at least, need to have an engine sat in Grosmont platform 4 to take photos with and offer cab visits.

 

I think 37688 is the only Whitby diesel they have at the moment. You wouldn't want to send it to Pickering in case 44806 gave up in section. Except..... it's being sent to Pickering on the 1330.

Interesting to see that it's diesel on the diner today in the form of 47077.

 

That's a dangerous statement to make on a public forum.

 

" The Bluebell are in serious financial trouble". Are they?

 

Firstly, nothing I've said is from internal information. The accounts are publically visible and have been discussed on Nat Pres on the Bluebell thread. I appreciate the concern regarding this; I have no involvement in the finance part of the railway. Equally, none of my views are those of the railway and are simply my own thoughts, in this case exaggerated.

The reason for my comment is the fact that in many recent years there have been operating losses of hundereds of thousands of pounds. Last year, there was a profit, but as stated by someone in Bluebell Times if I recall correctly, there is still more work to do to fully stabilise the financial situation of the line. That said, the people who deal with the money are trying very hard to improve things - as can be seen by lots of recent successful events.

I want to properly apologise for my earlier comment as this was not a fair statement to make nor was it a reasonable summary or explanation of the situation. I have no intention to speak badly about the Bluebell as I love the line and wish it the best.

 

Quite, I don't think there are many (any?) lines where one can say they are in a good financial position.

 

The truth is that all heritage railways are in financial distress. The degree of the distress depends on a few factors:
- Size of operation
- Length
- quality of structures and roadbed
- Ability to introduce new products that attract different audiences
- Support base including membership and good external relationships

There are a relatively small number of railways where the distress is low or very low. I doubt if there are any where they have no financial questions or ideas that haven’t been deferred for lack of money. Any that have gone through the financial mill of recent times (since covid) will still be recovering.

My take on the NYMR for what it’s worth, based on this thread is:

- it’s very long and has many structures which need investment
- it has a large organisation to support with many paid staff (not necessarily out of kilter with the size of operation or other factors, but still a lot of mouths to feed).
- it tries to innovate around pricing especially, but with fairly mixed results it seems, other innovation seem to run up against the constraints inherent in the Whitby operation.

 

I think “serious financial trouble” is too much, but it is not a secret that for many years the Plc has run at a loss, cushioned by transfers from the Society membership subscriptions and donations. There is no imminent crisis brewing, but clearly that is an undesirable state of affairs in the long term.

If we had to write a “balanced score card”, then you’d note on the one hand we have a structural financial deficit that is probably of the order of £300k per year or thereabouts; but on the other hand, I believe we have done more than many lines to invest in our track, carriages and locos. There is only about two or three miles of track older than about 15 years; we routinely have 30 - 40 carriages in traffic spanning seven or eight decades of design; half a dozen steam locos and significant investment in maintenance and storage facilities. That has been a deliberate choice to keep investing in the railway - I’d be more worried if we had just crept over the line of financial break even for the last ten years but had track beset by numerous speed restrictions and carriages on their last knockings of a BR overhaul in 1990.

There is a plan to try and remove that structural deficit, which is based on a combination of cashable savings from a restructuring of the business into a CCBS, and a desire to increase passenger numbers. The plan is for those to go up by about 10,000 - at a typical gross yield of, say, £20 per person (my guess, allowing that not all tickets are full price) that means a £200k boost. Now, I have no doubt that it is going to be a massive effort to gain 10,000 passengers, but it isn’t simply pie in the sky: it’s an increase of about 7%. It’s not as if the plan is “all we need to do is double passenger numbers while running no more trains”.

Pivotting back to the NYMR, it’s that last point that is interesting. Because most railways have very high fixed costs but fairly small variable ones, quite small shifts of passenger numbers can have quite big impacts on the bottom line. Cutting £200k out of a business the size of a typical heritage railway would be pretty savage if you did it with staff (or else pretty short sighted if you did it in deferred maintenance). Whereas an uplift of 7% of passengers is - while far from easy - at least a realistic aspiration.

And, perhaps just as important is the impact on morale, of paid and volunteer staff alike. Who would you rather work for - the organisation that wants to cut its way to financial stability, or the one that wants to grow its way there?

Tom

 

From what I read in the house magazine, the KWVR is one possible exception.

 

That's basically it. One of the problems of running a steam loco to Whitby is that it has to have a fitness to run exam every morning and, if it fails, it can't be used. It can't have an FTR the evening before to check that all is OK. Well, it can but it will still need one the next morning because once the fire is dropped, it cancels any FTR carried out an a fresh one is required. If 37688 is at Pickering and the steam loco fails its FTR there would be no loco for the first train out of Whitby. Different arrangements apply to FTR exams of diesel locomotives. It's all due to a shortage of Whitby approved locos.

 

NO problem, I think that tucked away in the Pickering Archive is the NYMR's own Edmundson Ticket machine.
Now how do you go about extracting it?

 

Which is why I asked before, what is the priority: Whitby or Pickering? Because at this point, one has to be chosen for sustainability.

 

A great shame in the circumstances that no arrangement has so far been possible with a well known Yorkshire owner of main line certified rolling stock who has been more willing of late to hire out locos to other railways in the county and beyond.

 

Does he have any mainline loco suitable for Whitby? Has 44932 got a current mainline cert?
Or are you suggesting just for internal NYMR services.

 

Well either really.
Assuming the certification has been maintained whilst not being used 44932 would be suitable, maybe 45110 could have been fitted for Whitby operations, which isn't "full" mainline kit.
48151?
Then there's the diesel fleet too. I think an LSL 37 is/was hired?
Maybe discussions took place but nothing mutually agreeable was reached. Who knows but as NYMR has the 'Whitby problem' @Steve describes there's really only one short term fix so I'd be surprised if an arrangement hasn't been explored to some extent or other.
You'd assume a long term hire of a black 5 or 8f would be more cost effective than a short term hire of the A1, which can't go to Whitby even though certified.

 

37688 was being operated by LSL but isn't any longer, hence the long term hire to NYMR.

 

The NYMR really needs more operational locos but hiring in to simply operate the service costs money which is simply considered as part of the overall operating cost and I suspect that there is a reluctance to do that. However, hiring certain ‘Rockstar’ locos for dedicated services for which special tickets are required is obviously being regarded as an event and income can be allocated to these locos.
With D7628 and 31466 both out of service, there’s only Pebbles that can go to Whitby. Another NR registered diesel is urgently required, IMHO. Either that or a couple of NR capable steam locos.; probably both.