North Yorkshire Moors Railway General Discussion

That was the case with me and my family on Monday, so yes I'd concur with that as well as a proportion of the public believing that firecon risks are in place.

 

I wasn’t implying it was the specific marketing team, more that the railway as a collective has rather lost its way commercially.

Tom

 

I’m not surprised that they have reduced the number of evening diners. That has also been our experience - we still run some, but not as many.

I get the “dress up to go to dinner” thing. But the NYMR is quite remote, so to do that, you either have to have a long drive at night on small roads after dinner (and at least one of you has to commit not to drink); or else you have a longish taxi journey that probably adds considerably to what is already an expensive evening out.

At least for a daytime trip, the trip home doesn’t involve nighttime driving on small roads.

Tom

 

Just seen a few videos on YouTube with less than 40 people on the Tornado service, mainly only coaches 2, 3 & 4 in use in a 5 coach rake
These wee taken mid week don’t know what the Saturday services are like passenger wise

 

The road south to York is actually quite decent I found - I drove it around 21:00 on Sun and 19:00 on Mon. It is a bit up and down but has plenty of dual carriageway sections and quite smooth.

It's literally a world away from doing Highley to Bridgnorth in the dark. Was that a pothole, an animal or something else I've just hit?

 

Two points I want to pick up on:

Evening diners - it has been found at the Bluebell that these struggle to sell compared to luncheon trips.

Steam vs diesel. The other day I was volunteering in a passenger-facing role for day 1 of fire risk steam ban. Many people didn't mind. Most were understanding. But plenty of parents were having to explain to dissapointed children. And, some people were angry. Some people turned away or demanded refunds. Clearly, to some, steam was a crucial part of the experience, and they were not happy to be told about the diesel traction. And it's a perfectly justified steam ban, for reasons which we explained to visitors, but I don't want to widely broadcast online.

That day really made me feel for NYMR station staff volunteers. Because they must have to put up with every single day some of what me and my colleagues were subjected to. Thankfully, there was no major abuse, but some people were very angry. I worry, if I had to do that every day, there would come a time where a passenger became verbally or even physically abusive.

Maybe not everyone is desperate for steam traction. But to many people, steam is crucial.

 

The evening diner strikes me as something that would work well of it ran to and from Whitby, as there is plenty of accommodation, and folk often plan their break around being based in Whitby.

The additional stage of having to get to Grosmont or Pickering an evening adds complications that I can see would be off putting for folk.

It makes is significantly easier if folk plan to have a few glasses of wine.....

 

From Pickering to York absolutely is. From Grosmont to Pickering, however…

 

And it's not just diners. There's the staff to consider as well. You may get back to Grosmont at 10pm, but catering staff won't be booking off until gone 11, and rail staff even later.

 

I think these days once you get away from roads with streetlights people have become less inclined to drive. Then add to that as you say small roads, random wildlife, being blinded by the new intense headlights it is easy to see why fewer are interested in dining trains in the evening.
Personally now I try to avoid all driving in the dark, yes not always possible but down here, not much fun constantly looking out for random, often large deer, or badgers that can cause serious financial damage to your vehicle.
Certainly these days traffic past out house at night is way less than when we moved here in 2014.

 

As we are now into August, it has been some weeks into the full timetable with predominantly diesel haulage.

I know diesel traction is cheaper to run and this led me to reflect on the money being saved by having so few steam engines rostered.
As there have been savings made in engineering and other areas I wondered, rather cynically, if the operational savings of not running so many steam locos were part of a plan to save money.
Passengers arrive expecting steam haulage for all or part of the journey, but they get a diesel throughout. The small print allows for this. There will be disappointed passengers but the railway has their money.
Run like this for a month or two and the railway saves quite a lot of money.

Are things so financially precipitous that this method of operation has become convenient, or was it planned all along?

It's deeply cynical to suggest it, I hope I'm wrong and that it's just bad management.

 

It didn't use to be a problem, the dining trains normally ran full, and tbh, if you are travelling from Grosmont - as you must, there's virtually no accommodation for several miles, it's a 1 in 6 gradient via either way in/out on twisty rods. In the old days, running from Pickering meant a n ECS working both ways to start and finish the day; not so now with the carriage barn and the loco stabling at New Bridge, and potentially more holidaymakers from the Scarborough direction at peak times, as well as an absence of narrow and steep twisty roads. I think the NYMR may be missing out in that way, as even the daytime diners still run from Grosmont.

 

I think you are quite right to be suspicious and even cynical, but run like this for a month or two and the railway saves quite a lot of money, but long term word gets round and the numbers visiting fall off - and so does the income.

 

The use of the term Rock Star as a marketing ploy implies to me that there is something special about (at the moment 60163) and at a later date the other two locos in this billing.
There may well be to enthusiasts, but I very much doubt this event is pitched primarily at enthusiasts, you have the gala for that. This one is in school holidays which may make it have an even different market.
So it is an attraction, something more than a few have said the NYMR need to get into, it is cheaper than a trip to Whitby, although not by much with the holiday reduction, but now they have people seem to be rubbishing this. It is basically a train ride to Grosmont and back and is sold as such. A comment was made about no time to go to the shed to get photographs before return, how many would actually want to do that? it is school holidays I suspect an ice cream may be more important to many. At the moment I can see nothing misleading in its marketing (other than my Rockstar view). It tells you what you get for the price and how long it takes and how long you get in Grosmont. If you like it is a mini railtour.
It is a fixed itinerary, like a Santa or lights train, and as the big railway (although with no support from me for the policy) is pushing people towards fixed departure tickets then presumably people are used to that.
What is the suggestion that Tornado should just have been hired to be a random loco on the roster? Would it gauge wise get to Whitby and does the NYMR have some exemption from the basically countrywide steam ban to get there anyway as someone suggested? If the Whitby train is full to standing how long would it need to be to take an extra 50% of the possible Tornado load.
Without knowing what the railway have paid to hire it (there is hardly lots of work for it) who is to say a 40 or 50% load factor is not actually profitable.

Rockstar may be an error, but I see negativity whenever the railway tries something different and moves away from some perceived past utopia.

I happened to read the article by Dr Robin Coombes in a recent Steam Railway last week about how heritage lines have changed and need to change to survive. Surprised no one commented on it as it seems many of his observation are the very things some are saying is wrong with the NYMR.

 

Is diesel cheaper to run? I thought from various other threads people thought the difference was marginal.

 

British Railways must have thought so.............

 

That's a very loose comparison to both a policy decision 60 years ago, but also in that the business workings of British Railways and Heritage Railways are like equivalating chalk and cheese.

British Railways would have seen diesels as more efficient in the larger workings of the company, the reduction on needed infrastructure and reduction in manpower as they aimed to reach single person operation (only driver in cab).

The efficiency difference between steam and diesel, working at 25mph max, will be much less than what BR was focusing on gaining from.
Infrastructure wise. Well, unless we're permanently withdrawing steam and the need for watering facilities, coaling facilities and anything else specialist to steam, there's no savings to make there long term.
Lastly, staffing costs. May perhaps save if footplate crews are paid staff, but more likely such paid staff members will be on annual salaried positions so unlikely to make savings again there.

It is possible that perhaps a few weeks worth of wear and tear on an engine could be achieved during this long spell of fire risk induced hiatus, but that should be balanced with that a few weeks of non availability does not equal the same time being refunded at the end of a boiler ticket.

 

Back in the day, for train crew, working the evening diner was THE turn and there was never a shortage of crew to man it. Not sure about signalmen and catering staff but they were largely volunteers and I don't think it was much of a problem in the 80's. However, signamen were becoming a problem by the noughties, hence the idea of running the evening diner from Whitby to Battersby, which I've said previously solved the problem of driving to Grosmont for the visitor and the lack of signalmen. Unfortunately, it never happened. Those working the diner shift always got a good meal served up as part of the turn. The train used to stop in Northdale for 20 minutes where the train crew ate. The diner would be back at Grosmont by 09.15 and, when I've driven it, I would be in the Tavern or Crossing club by 10.00 as a norm. The good ol' days.

 

Didn't use to be a problem is the key. Lots of things have changed in the last 20+ years. Worse roads, more deer, brighter headlights, wider cars while roads have stayed the same width; (whisper it quietly) probably a less strict attitude to drink-driving back then. None of those is a show-stopper in its own right, but all of them collectively add up to people being less keen to be out in the evening.

The fact that a product used to work isn't a guarantee that it still will. Even changes in people's culinary knowledge has increased over the decades, which probably means a product aiming at the luxury end has a higher hurdle to get over than maybe was previously the case, when the simple fact of having a half-decent meal on a train got a pass because of the novelty of it being on a train.

Tom

 

As I've said on more than one occasion on this thread, there are logistical problems in running the lunchtime diner out of Pickering. There was once a plan to have a third platform at Pickering (an extended Beck Siding) but this fell by the wayside. That would have gone some way towards solving the accommodation problem but fitting things in now trains run to Whitby essentially makes it impractical. Even if you utilise the now vacant 13.00 path from Pickering, you either have to stable an additional loco at New Bridge or run a light engine through from and to Grosmont. Then, when you get to Grosmont, the logical return path at 14.40 is taken up by a Whitby train so it would have to wait another hour to return at 15.40, as the Tornado specials are currently doing.
Providing facilities for servicing the Diner at the carriage stable was a good idea when it was for an evening diner; much less so for lunchtime ones.