North Yorkshire Moors Railway General Discussion

To be brutally honest, I don’t think all heritage railways will be sustained. Those that are most likely to do so will have these characteristics imho:

1. highly engaged membership and a strong positive relationship with the management structure
2. Infrastructure that is by construction lower maintenance - built on chalk, relatively few bridges, etc
3. Exceptional cashflow management
4. Good catchment area
5. Willingness to evolve and experiment with new experiences for visitors
6. Cost control and a focus primarily on serving the available traffic (whatever that is) with minimal equipment
7. A strong brand and a good value proposition….e.g Bluebell or Festiniog etc etc

 

I think you might be a bit out of date with your calculations - IIRC the NYMR have raised ordinary membership to £60-00/yr. Doesn't seem to have transformed the finances, though..... I don't know what effect it has had on volunteers coming forward, though. I suspect that the dire "Moors line" advertorial that is now forced upon the membership will probably have had ac just as adverse effect - for anyone rarely visiting it is all they get for their subs, and quite frankly it is barely worth reading, but as it is printed on non-absorbent paper it is not a lot of use for anything else!

 

While I was on TB, membership was falling worryingly low, eventually we insisted a tear off form was included on the annual timetable leaflet.

It doesn't even include a timetable anymore.

Sawdust.

 

A good few years ago @Lineisclear asked on another forum what the purpose of the NYMR was. I responded by saying that its prime purpose was for volunteers to enjoy their hobby. I was quickly told that I was wrong and the railways prime purpose was, as stated in the Mem & Arts. I still think that, practically, I was right as those that want to play trains need a railway to do so and that is ther NYMR. Heritage railways are possibly also unique because those volunteers are looking for someone to pay for their hobby in the form of Joe Public. This has generally worked well since 1951 and I think that there is still life in that model. It's ironic that you are suggesting volunteers paying in a similar way to a golf club but it is not that long ago that the NYMR senior management were advocating that volunteers shouldn't be fee paying members of the Trust in an attempt to be more inclusive. There was actually a bit of a backlash from volunteers at that idea so the compromise was that you needn't be to volunteer but wouldn't have free membership of the Trust.
As I said, I think that there is still life in the old model. I also think that one of the errors made by the SMT has been to price the railway out of a large part of its market. Being a fully paid up Yorkshireman, if I went to the booking office today to obtain a ticket, my first reaction on being asked to pay would be 'Ow much! (Note the exclamation mark, it isn't a question.) I don't think I'm alone in that thought. Let's look at a coulple of sums. The Railway needs to be looking at £10m turnover. If we take an annual passenger figure of 300k that works out at £33.33/person, which is a much more realistic fare for Joe Public. Now, I know that not all passengers are adults but that was a simple calculation and we are looking for turnover to reach that £10m, not fares so it is a round figure spent/person. There's car parking for many people and there will also be discretionary spend in the cafes and shops. There are also premium services where fares are much higher than that, such as diners, galas and footplate experience which contribute to that required turnover.
The question then becomes whether 300,000 passengers is achievable. There are essentially three trains a day which fill well; the 10.00 off Whitby and the 09.20 & 12.00 out of Pickering. 300-400 passengers/train (and more) used to be a regular occurrence on these so 1200 passengers day ought to be an achievable target with perhaps an additional 200 coming from the non-Whitby services (10.55 with the teaks, for one, and diners for another). To get that 300,000 passengers would require about 250 days running/year or 8½ months. There was a time when the railway more or less did this with half term running and Santa/New Year services (back in the days of Philip Benham as GM). In recent years, the number of operating days have been substsantially reduced to extend the life of infrastructure and equipment but the railway needs to get back to that level. I believe that Philip Benham's philosophy was that you only make money when you are running trains but those trains had to be profitable. That's not hard to achieve as, as Tom has said, direct operational costs are not that much. Philip used to produce a spreadsheet giving great detail into every bit of operating a train service so you knew exactly how much it cost to run a train. The civil engineers could have ther £½m to relay half a mile of track or repair a bridge over the winter but the price was that the line had to be open for the half term so that trains could run. Similarly the MPD had to have locos available in exchange for their money.
I don't think that approach was far wrong.

 

I think the NYMR's social media ban is rather damaging.
One man on here seems to defend the boards at every turn. But why not have others from the management boards engaging with critics?

The lack of transparency in publishing passenger statistics, event takings etc., is hard to fathom. Cynics may say they have something to hide. I hope not.

Did Thomas make more than 10 days of ordinary running? We don't know.
Would 10 days of ordinary running at peak time attract 300 full ticket sales in a day?
If so, the turnover could be £115,000 over ten days. At 400 tickets per day, it would be £154,000. So the Thomas event needed to have made at least as much to have been a success. Did it?

How much extra money does the new Santa arrangement bring in? Do we know?
Has it improved takings?

Since Chris Price stood up at the AGM and said that running trains doesn't make money, the
money problems have got worse.
Having 'Not for profit' as a strapline doesn't help.

 

The next time I see Chris, I’ll ask him about the context of his “trains don’t make money” comment.

it could be that Chris was making a general comment as to the NYMR’s level of train services compared which passenger numbers and therefore income. Or it could be that he was the wrong person in the wrong job!

 

Regarding the (overly complicated) fare structure, I find it quite baffling that it's cheaper for two adults and four children to travel in the middle of the school holidays, what should be the busiest time of the year, for less than two adults travelling on a wet Tuesday in October (£105.70 for 2A+4C peak vs £107.70 for 2A off-peak).

 

To be clear I actually agree with you about the primary purpose, and my thought excercise was actually demonstrating that it wasn’t a very attractive model to charge golf club fees. I don’t think that is practical, but the thought exercise has value in helping to focus on what can work and what is important. I

 

I think he was making the general point that income earned from operating a train service did not, in general, cover the costs of operating train service. There might be a few exceptions, Snowdon Mountain Railways, Vale of Rheidol, Dartmouth, but most rely on ancillary income or members donations even if it is pretty well hidden e.g. locos that are not owned by a railway financed by the ownership groups.

Many of what we might have seen in the past as our premier lines are possibly at risk as they are longer lines and more interesting to operate but in the current market place it may be the shorter, simpler lines may the better option I have not been to the KWVR for a long time and I might not find it the most interesting line to work on but these days being able to run 4 or 5 return services a day with only one loco in steam but be attractive to the bean counters.

I am getting on a bit now but over my time I have seen various trends. When I was young the railway I volunteered had loads of student volunteers over the summer as they were on student grants. When they stopped there was an influx of early retirees on good pensions. Latterly as it has become expensive to restore locos but many railways have received generous legacies from early volunteers. I am not sure what is going to step in next to keep the heritage sector going