North Yorkshire Moors Railway General Discussion

Where was that published? The website still showed Saturday's roster when I checked. Today's one is already up, 44806 on Whitbys, 31466, 37264 and 47077 on all other services.

 

Perhaps it wasn’t published, then. It was sent to me by someone outside this forum. I’ve not heard anything about trains being cancelled, though.

 

Tomorrow sees an 0E25 0846 Kings Norton-Grosmont 1453 move operated by Rail Adventure, wonder if they (43s) are coming to take 31 and 47 to the wheel lathe, assume Midland Road?

 

To be honest, with numerous moorland on fire around the country that sounds a sensible loco allocation anyway!

 

Yet more dry weather till the end of the month is likely. Another extreme heatwave is being predicted by some weather models.

 

I'm due to visit in a couple of weeks - am hoping the heat will relent. We went last year in June during the heatwave then and a similar timetable was also in operation. W we re due to go when 60163 is operating so hoping by then it'll be back to a predominantly steam service again.

 

There is zero rain forecasted in the next fortnight. If any rain does fall it will be in the form of isolated showers which will do nothing to alleviate the situation.
We are on the verge of a prolonged period of very warm / hot, dry weather - great for the kids on school holidays, no good if you want to run steam locomotives.
Suspect steam enthusiasts should start to appreciate classic diesels rather rapidly!!

 

To be fair I think we all understand the need for diesels to cover when steam fails or dry spells make it dangerous and irresponsible to use steam, particularly through moorland. The reason the NYMR gets a bad rep with them is the excessive use when that's not the case. The NYMR has been extremely reliant on diesels for quite a long time now just to cover normal (some might say reduced) operations no matter the weather. Hence the constant chatter on this thread about it.

 

I know people moan about me moaning about the NYMR management - which I do out of ever-deepening alarm for the future of a railway I have loved and cherished since I was a teenager, more than 50 years ago - but I am not alone ! The following post has just appeared on the NYMR Unofficial Forum:

"Visited for the first time this year yesterday. I volunteered on and off for over 30 years so I was hoping to catch up with old colleagues and friends.

Immediate impression was it was quiet, too quiet. It put me in mind of the 1960s Flanders and Swann ballad "The Slow Train".

Diesels were of course in evidence and in force and I do understand the fire risk situation. Why 2253 wasn't rostered I don't know but if ever there was a time to use it as much as possible it is surely in the present circumstances. Less explicable was why the resident Park Street buffoons didn't act on advice around 15 years ago to invest in Dame Vera Lynn.

At the booking office (I would have booked online except it's more expensive) I was the sole customer for at least the ten minutes I was around.

Old friends and colleagues? Yes a few and it was good to catch up with them but it was evident that all they wanted to talk about what was, without exception, the end of the railway in it's current form. Not one of them thought the railway has any future at all under the current regime.

There was a widespread belief that the ongoing and increasing losses were unsustainable. These were people very much "in the know". They confirmed the Thomas Event lost money, the Beer Festival barely broke even and that visitor numbers have gone through the floor.

They told me a petition is circulating amongst staff and volunteers calling for a vote of no confidence in the present CEO and her entourage of salaried stooges. Said lady has made it known that she intends to ignore it regardless of how many signarures it receives.

The Bridge 42 appeal still shows the same £355,000 as it did six weeks ago. The money now coming in won't buy peanuts let alone permanent repairs.

At Grosmont the shed was full of work waiting to be done but, again per those who know the truth, there is no money to cover the costs. Volunteers in the shed had halved in numbers since last year and the decline had been evident even before that. I spoke to an NELPG member who said that organisation now sees the NYMR as a lost cause and the management team as beneath contempt.Speculation was not on new projects or developments, it was all about how long or how little time the railway has left before Santander pull the plug completely.

So just what is the point of a CEO led posse of losers who have lost the support of paid staff, volunteers (very few now), the NELPG, the LNERCA, family visitors, enthusiast visitors and even the Pickering business community.

I have spoken out against the current management policies for what seems like an age and it has done precisely no good whatever so this will be my valedictory contribution. Ms Strangeways (as I'm told you read this forum) GET THE HELL OUT OF OUR RAILWAY.

To everyone else grab what you can before Santander bailiffs move in. Thank you and good night."

 

Can’t ’Like’ that but it does force home to me that the many concurring views on here really do have substance and that change is long overdue.

 

2253 is coming out to play today, working the 14,40 0ff Grosmont and 16.15 return from Pickering. with 44806 still working the Grosmont-Whitby part of the services, that's two steam locos to enjoy. 31466, 37264 and 47077 doing all the fill in bits.

 

One other piece of good news is that NELPG are planning to stage a special gala on the NYMR, featuring all four of their engines, on 24/25th October - if all goes to plan it will be the first time in 60 years that all four engines have been seen in steam together.

Four engines would normally be regarded as a bit on the thin side for a gala, but hopefully No, 29 has a long association with NELPG and will join in, and perhaps LSL could be persuaded to make 60532 available for the occasion, in recognition of NELPG's former stewardship? I'm sure the LNERCA's teak carriages might also feature prominently!

 

There's so much to say to this but I feel like a lot of it will be repeating what I and others have said before. I worry that unless someone out there with a love of the NYMR has a boat load of cash they are happy to see the back of, then its only a matter of time until the last rites are read. The lack of maintenance on infrastructure just isn't sustainable. Bridge 42 remains the current crisis but there seems to be a queue forming to be the next one.

I actually applauded the thought of getting Thomas back again. But you can't sacrifice your core market to run it. Bridge 42 had been closed for months at that point. As soon as it opened the Whitby traffic should have been prioritized. That's the bread and butter/foundation to build up from. You take that out in the current guise of the NYMR you haven't got a business. If Thomas couldn't run without closing Pickering then it shouldn't have been run.

Its good to see 2253 rostered again. In reality this needs get be getting used a lot more now. I don't know the progress on crew training but the reality is that the boiler ticket is up in 2028 (unless anyone knows if that can be extended). If the railway are going to get back the investment put in for the conversion this side of overhaul then it needs to be packing in some mileage. With the lack of other steam available then there 'should' be plenty of opportunity for training.

I still hope this will never happen but I do hope that NELPG and the LNERCA have options available and plans in place for if access to Grosmont and Pickering is curtailed. If the NYMR did go under do they have anyway of accessing their property?

 

There is a path for Grosmont - Midland Road on the 15th, so presumably yes, good guess!
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I was surprised to see 31466 out yesterday - it's been on 'emergency use only' for quite some time due to the state of its wheelsets. Apparently it was covering for 37688 which had failed, and if it's travelling to Leeds tomorrow to get that sorted, then they could probably afford to send it out.

I do find myself wondering how the NYMR's found itself in a position of having one working steam loco and then using 3 diesels alongside them, none of which (37264/47077/31466) are able to run to Whitby? Given that a few years back they could field up to 10 locos from the home fleet.

On the note of steam vs diesel, I agree that steam IS a draw. The point about people often going straight to the front of the train to take photos of the loco is a valid one too. But I also wonder if there's the experience during the journey? Sure, you can't see the loco on the front most of the time, but for the ordinary person, as you're travelling up through Newton Dale in your compartment with the window wide open, hearing a steam locomotive chuffing away is quite a nostalgic experience, whereas hearing a diesel engine purring away at a relatively steady rate of revs I don't think generates the same emotion?

Clearly for diesel fans it may - and I'm a huge lover of hearing a Class 50 or 56 working away - but I think for the ordinary punter it's all part of the experience.

 

From my own experience when I visited last year another negative in terms of visitors experience with the use of diesels is that within a very short time of having left Pickering the coaches were full of the unpleasant smell of diesel fumes which continued to be present all the way to Grosmont where I was quite relieved to be leaving the train.
A lady passenger in the same coach was complaining quite vociferously about this to the unfortunate guard and his response that it was a “heritage” diesel loco clearly didn’t impress her!
The occasional whiff of coal smoke I would suggest is readily tolerated by the average passenger as part of the steam experience (and does generally tend to be brief and quickly disperse) but excessive exhaust from a clapped out diesel engine drifting into the coaches for much of the journey is far less likely to be tolerated I’d suggest.
Not sure where 2253 would sit in this regard but would think that if well fired and with exhaust thrown higher, it is less likely to be an issue.

 

I would not disagree on the steam vs diesel point, but I suggest there are now very few preserved railways that can call on a large steam fleet day in and day out. Add to that the complexity of having to have NR approved locos for the Whitby leg, which is what seems to attract the passengers. The line also runs through a National Park, so burning half of that down is not going to be a good look for the railway.
2253 may be a saviour of sorts, but as I mentioned the other day how will passengers view a loco that does not smell like a steam loco and with no coal in the tender. Maybe if it looks like a steam loco they will not care, or will it be viewed as a diesel in disguise? Only time will tell I guess.
I can remember times where lines could call on many locos, but they are long gone, costs, lack of volunteers, age, health, deaths etc have seen to that.
Steam wise with Manston away my line has 3 locos, as does the MHR as far as I know. Bluebell has more but I suspect could not turn out the 7 they will need for the next gala without some pre planning. @Jamessquared may know the average daily availability.
To me there is still a lot of what used to happen in our hobby, rather than what can happen now in reality in 2026. Being such a long line the NYMR will need more locos than most, but where are they all going to come from, because whilst navel gazing is a fine past time, for whatever reason or who ever has or has not screwed up the NYMR like every other line is where it is now, not some rosy tinted view of the past.

 

Some might comment about the smell but in my experience over the years, quite a few people have been surprised that we still run use coal when they have asked about fuel.