North Yorkshire Moors Railway General Discussion

Can we enquire as to what happened to cause that change? (Genuine curiousity, here; not snark.)

100.00% agreement. I agree with him some times; and strongly disagree on others. I judge each instance on its own - not because he said it.

Noel

 

Hammer, nail and head seem to be appropriate words for this. As I've said, it is perceived value for money and the perception by many is that the NYMR is overpriced. And that's true of non-Yorkshiremen, as well.

 

An acknowledgement that trust is shot to pieces and needs to be rebuilt and a little patience is needed.

Sawdust.

 

I've just spoken with Sawdust, and from what he has told me I agree that there is hope - but I think the discussion was an off-the-record one and needs to be kept confidential at this time. I think we'd all agree that it is likely to take some time for things to happen and changes to become apparent - assuming that they do! so for the moment I think it is necessary to sit back,, watch and support.

 

Understood; thanks for letting us know.

Noel

 

Just made me smile

 

A few none contentious points, not the whole two hours.

Sawdust.

 

.... but please note that I haven't told anyone else what he told me!

 

Well the last couple of posts seem to have struck everyone dumb, but I for one am always interested in hearing views of how the business can be changed and evolved. I'm in the camp that thinks it is fundamentally sound, but it has to be priced at a realistic level, and more perceived value needs to be added. Over the course of the thread I've made some suggestions, which I will summarise briefly here, to save you all the trouble of wading through the last 600+ pages, but what other thoughts are out there?

1. Advertise and promote the history and heritage of the area to encourage people to
stop off at the various stations to explore and find out/learn more.

2. Schedule and advertise the teak train on a regular basis as a more heritage experience and look for ways of building on that, capitalising on the (external) work of the LNERCA volunteers to provide it - e.g. 1920/30s dress-up events

3. Find a way to monetise of the conservation work being done along the length of the railway by offering guided tours, for example

4. Work with local businesses to stage artisan food events, beer/gin festivals etc.

5. Work with the local residents and businesses to collaborate on special events that bring additional business for both sides

 

I'm not sure the underlying business is sound, due to the arrears of maintenance that also need to be caught up on.

But, accepting your premise, I think your ideas are all good and worthwhile, even if some (1 and 3 in particular) are likely to have no more than a marginal impact on the bottom line. What I think is missing is an item (6), which is to take (2) a stage (or 5) further and develop the use of "experiences" quite significantly. That might be a more WHR type operation, it might be the YDR operation, but something that provides a more predictable income and especially cashflow.

The challenge (see also YDR) will be balancing that against the turn up and go nature of the established demand patterns.

Oh - that brings up idea 7 - focus more on the existing potential organic demand, and find ways to drive both volume and yield (at the moment, my hunch is that volume is impacted by high headline prices, while yield is trashed by discounting)

 

I think we have to be careful in defining what we are discussing here. When I say that I think that the NYMR's underlying business is sound, I do think that it can be brought back to trading at a point where it makes a annual surplus, but that is probably going ton allow it to catch up on the maintenance backlog, therefore ways of generating fresh capital will have to be found - and quickly! I do think you may be underestimating some of the other opportunities, e.g. premium guided nature tours could be very lucrative, if done well. Gala events could be more lucrative if they are extended to a couple of weekends, with different variations on the theme between the weekends, and more in between. The possibilities are there but need to be grasped, and that requires a management willing to listen to outside the paid staff as well!

 

I trust you’ll pardon my scepticism over the income from pure heritage visits. My experience is that they tend to be very strongly supported by those who are already deeply interested in, but to have a more limited audience outside that group

 

Everything just needs to be trialled. Trial the "vintage train" throughout the month of May, for example. Trial the real ale weekend with local breweries.

Trial a natural wine tasting train in the teaks with a hop-off at each station for the next glass - a surefire way to attract a younger audience with disposal income who may not necessarily be the same family crowd the railway is usually marketed at.

What about a jazz train? Once a week in summer the FR used to run a trip to Tan-y-bwlch, I think departing Port around 6.30/7, with a jazz band playing and a barbecue served. I also remember a breakfast train, something various railways including the Churnet Valley have been doing of late. Too much of the catering offering is centred on the diner.

None of these ideas should be a hard sell to a public who love an "event" or a reason to get dressed up, particularly given the sh!t-hot full-time marketing department. And not every event needs to be targeted at a senior or family demographic because that is not the entire spectrum of people who do things.

There needs to be ideas in abundance and a willingness to test them out.

 

Exactly! I remember Cris Price sitting with me in a cafe in Fairbourne after he got the GM job, but before he started at the NYMR saying "we mustn't be afraid to try doing things differently; even if they don't work out at least we'll have tried". I agreed at the time, and still do, but he never really saw it through.

 

I completely agree that new ideas need to keep being trialled on a continuous basis to find new money, but also just keep things 'fresh'. The SVR/KWVR/ELR keep people coming back multiple times a year because they run lots of contrasting events. Its not just a train ride.

That all said there are simple basics the NYMR need to get right to stop wasting the opportunities/money they already have access to.

In my mind (in no particular order):

1. The railway should run everyday of the school holidays no matter what part of year.
2. Pickering to Whitby services are the bread and butter and should be treated as such. Except for Steam Gala days they should run as normal any time the railway is open. (cancelling for Thomas was a serious own goal).
3. Volunteers are the backbone and the spirit, and should be treated as such. An engaged volunteer is worth his/her price in gold. They also come with a wealth of knowledge from different industries, not just railways. They are already there giving up time (and money), all you have to do is ask them and they will generate ideas, improvements and suggestions. You just have to 'bring them on the journey'/include them.
4. Run more steam! The NYMR is a self proclaimed steam railway. The majority of the advertising is steam focused from road signage to the video on the home page. You might get a lot of one time visitors who seemingly accept a diesel on almost every service, but most of those customers are not coming back (they are going to Keighley!).

Following all of that, the idea for more money I would add isn't an event as such, but a service change. I would drop a coach off the pullman set and add a proper first class to the Whitby set first off out of Pickering. The Jacobite charges a £40 supplement for first class, which on that train is a seat in a Pullman and a steward to serve hot drinks. Those seats are often the first to sell out. I would suggest use Garnet (lowest capacity so lowest loss to the diner, and Car 79 now provides first class there), charge £10 a seat supplement (each way), with a volunteer serving the drinks. Garnet has 18 seats, on two round trips a day (so four chances for the seat to be sold) which is 72, multiplied by £10 is £720 per day. As with the Jacobite, if the option is there I suspect it will be popular, just to avoid the crowded other carriages in a lot of cases!

 

A good start - lets have more constructive suggestions (and no more harping about the mess the NYMR is currently in, we know all about that!).

A comment from me on this idea for a first class carriage on Whitby sets - first of all, there's only one suitable Pullman to use as suggested, but two Whitby sets, which (correct me if I'm wrong, of course) usually alternate on a daily basis on the first first train out of Pickering so which should it be put on? The are no Mk 1 FOs on the NYMR to use either, and I would not think a CK would suffice. v Secondly, dropping a TSO to replace it with a Pullman would result in quite a loss of seating capacity, that might well offset the gain from the 1st class fares and might cause problems on trains that are also said to be heavily loaded a lot of the time - would it be possible to simply add the extra carriages to the Whitby sets?

 

That depends by what you mean by "pure heritage visits"! It's a bit like saying that people only visit Stonehenge because they are interested in bronze age monuments, or the Royal Armouries Museum because they like particularly swords, armour and shield s etc.! My own impression is that people are interested the history and evolution of the landscape around them, and welcome the chance to find out about it - as well as enjoying a ride behind a steam train. Sometimes they can be provided with a guidebook and left to their own devices to explore, but others like to have more guidance and detail, and I think that is potentially an untapped market. For instance a few years ago there were guided tours on the Dorset/Wiltshire border to find glow-worms at the appropriate time of year. I could walk half a mile from my house and find them in relative profusion, but virtually no-one I told about them had any idea, or had ever seen one. Perhaps I should have run my own tours! The NYMR has a flourishing volunteer conservation group that could probably lead such tours along the railway and charge for that - at little or no cost if trains could used to move people about from one location to another. There are plenty of industrial archaeology sites alongside the railway that are now lost and almost forgotten where the same could be done - as well as having a pleasant walk in some spectacular scenery! It would be good way of increasing engagement with both volunteers and visitors.

There is a tendency for all of us to think purely in terms of the railway, but railways were built for a purpose - to serve the local population and industries, even if they don't now. Part of their present day educational value is to link into that history.

 

Hopefully, the worst is over.

A fresh approach and new people in leadership? It needs it.

Sadly, this half-term the line is closed on Thursday and Friday, despite Friday being part of Goth Weekend.
Do they want to make money?

On a more positive note, I'm pleased they've tried Mad Alice and it seems to be selling well.
It fills an evening gap at just the right time of year. Murder mystery is good idea, too.
Why not try
1 Running steam trains
2 Running more steam hauled trains
3 Running fewer diesel trains
4 Santa trains from Whitby to Grosmont.
5 An 'Uncanny' express with ghost train.
6 A Steampunk weekend
7 1940s weekend (Pickering is doing one this weekend but the railway is closed on Friday(!) and on the other days it's ignoring it. Relationships with the town need to be healed)
8 Starting the Pullman at Pickering
9 A better afternoon timetable for shorter journeys ie 1410 departure (Cutting the 3 hour gap in the timetable)
10 A proper departure board at Pickering

 

For clarity, I'm not dismissing the value of these - one of my concerns is the loss of interest in the heritage aspects of the railway.

However, my observation is that there's a difference between visiting a site, and paying for a more in depth experience of it. The instance I have in mind has some extremely dedicated and interested volunteers, but as a purely economic matter, this does not convert into any serious income (and certainly not that would justify the excitement).

The same applies to nature walks - Belton House near me does a programme of these, using existing staff, and my wife tells me that some are very well attended, and others...

The saying is that the way to start a long journey is with a small step, and these may well be some of those small steps. But expectations matter

 

For most of this season (and last) the Whitby sets were reduced to six. It was only during peak that the seventh was added. If they didn't want to go to eight (though I do remember them in the past) then the Pullman could be flexed back off during that period.

I'm not sure how often they swap the sets, I don't think its daily, but yes when they do swap them round this would cause another shunt/swap. Your right I can't think of another suitable coach because its only the two MK1 Whitby sets and the Pullmans that are allowed to go to Whitby. In a different time there would be teak alternatives, but that's a non-starter on NR now.