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North Yorkshire Moors Railway General Discussion

Discussion in 'Heritage Railways & Centres in the UK' started by The Black Hat, Feb 13, 2011.

  1. Bikermike

    Bikermike Well-Known Member

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    Like the National Trust?
     
  2. Greenway

    Greenway Part of the furniture

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    I think that this sums up many heritage railways. Nostalgia taken to excess. I don't believe the travelling public have any interest in railway hierarchy, they are usually interested in drivers, firemen and train staff and of course how they are greeted on arrival. First impressions are so important and that may encourage a subsequent visit and a talking point among fries and acquaintances
     
  3. ghost

    ghost Part of the furniture

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    Yes
    Surely you mean "traction operatives"?
     
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  4. 35B

    35B Nat Pres stalwart

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    Which is well known for the membership’s universal and uncritical support of the management…


    Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
     
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  5. Lineisclear

    Lineisclear Member

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    I suggest you're making the mistake of thinking of the NYMR simply as a heritage railway. Driven primarily by fundraising potential it's being honest and accepting that its a multi purpose charity albeit with a heritage railway at its core.
    Like most heritage lines it started almost exclusively as a member's preservation society run by volunteers. and funded out of members' subs. and the fare box. Over time as it expanded it was supported more and more paid staff. That's not surprising because it's recognised that, with a few notable heroic exceptions, you need between five and seven volunteers to get the same functionality as one full time paid member of staff, (and that's before you take account of the need for consistency.) There just aren't the volunteers our there in sufficient numbers willing to take on the hum drum back office roles. As the businesses grew, and with the ever increasing burden of regulation, it was inevitable that paid staff would increase. Today it's probably fair to say the railway is run primarily by paid staff, assisted by volunteers and sustained by grants, bequests and donations. For instance Membership subs. are now around 3% of income although their generous donations and bequests are invaluable.
    As a substantial charity with public benefit purposes wider than operation of a heritage railway the use of titles consistent with the charity sector emphasizes our focus on those wider charitable purposes and helps reassure our regulators and potential grant funders.
     
  6. Steve

    Steve Resident of Nat Pres Friend

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    I prefer Command Module Captain and Fuel Transfer Operative if we must have modern terminology.
     
  7. MellishR

    MellishR Resident of Nat Pres Friend

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    If all we're arguing about are titles, maybe the NYMR isn't in too bad a state. "A rose by any other name ...".
     
  8. 61624

    61624 Part of the furniture

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    ROFL!
     
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  9. Steve

    Steve Resident of Nat Pres Friend

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    I think that your perception of things is pretty much spot on. I hate to say it but someone has to but volunteer morale on the NYMR is pretty low at the moment. Volunteer numbers are well down on what they were a few years ago.
     
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  10. Bikermike

    Bikermike Well-Known Member

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    Which goes to show there is little unique to the NYMR.

    I get the point about it being indicative of other fractures, but if that is the case, why waste time arguing over the names?
     
  11. Bikermike

    Bikermike Well-Known Member

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    Or even nostalgia to exclusion of heritage, how many carriages can you restore without cold hard cash?
     
  12. Woof Mk2

    Woof Mk2 Member

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    Not only at NYMR. Paid staff running railway X dont interact as much as they should do. They dont inspire lead and motivate volunteers. How many times do you see paid staff driving/firing, doing shunts when there are volunteers who are able/willing and available to do said duties. Paid staff and higher up management pixx off volunteers who end up doing less and or leaving. And as for nepotism......
     
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  13. ghost

    ghost Part of the furniture

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    I'm assuming you can back up those stats from peer reviewed sources?
    I'm not thinking of the NYMR as just a heritage railway - I know its a business.
    However I think you are making the mistake of thinking of the railway as a business with a few volunteers thrown in, who are really more trouble than they're worth.
     
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  14. 35B

    35B Nat Pres stalwart

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    And I'm afraid that in that single post you have ensured that this armchair member has lost the will to renew his (very dormant) membership, and will be revisiting his list of residuary legatees.

    The choice expressed is an entirely legitimate one, but it is one that I believe loses the core of what made the NYMR what it became, and loses sight of what it should be. It is a similar category error to that of newspapers which saw how their revenue was based on advertising, and decided that this meant that they were advertising companies that happened to produce news, leading to a complete misallocation of resources.

    I compare NYMR with other railways that I am also an armchair member of, and find the strategy only likely to lead to a reduction in volunteering, and increase in reliance on paid staff - with consequential impact on viability.
     
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  15. Steve

    Steve Resident of Nat Pres Friend

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    I'd suggest that it is you who is making the mistake. The NYMR has changed track significantly during your term as Trust Chairman and the vast majority of those who hold the Railway dear to their heart think that this is not for the better. You seem transfixed on the fact that the NYMR is a registered charity and this has to be the all overriding thing. Virtually all your posts pursue this theme. There are a lot of other railways that have charitable status and continue to prosper, adapting as they go along but remaining true to their roots. The Trust Board theoretically governs the Railway setting policy and direction. For 50 years that Board has been elected by the membership from its membership. Not any more; it was decided that these Trustees should be people more in tune with running a charity rather than a railway and many of the present incumbents have had no prior interest in the Railway, being total outsiders. They still have to be elected by the membership (I think, I've kind of lost track) but having any knowledge of what's involved in running a railway or interact with volunteers is irrelevant. That is left to the managers or so the argument goes.
    You also make much of the fact that the NYMR is an £8m business. It needs to be this to sustain the number of people it employs, not to successfully run the railway. It's a simple bit of logic that the more people that are employed, the higher the turnover needs to be to sustain that level of employment. It's not that long ago that I sat in a HRA presentation by a certain GM on a well-known heritage railway based in Portmadoc. That presentation was about the costs of running a heritage railway and one of the main factors highlighted was the percentage cost of paid staff relative to turnover. A figure of 25% was suggested as being a benchmark and one of the slides showed the figures for several well-known railways. Most were around that 25% or even less but the NYMR stood out head and shoulders above the rest with a figure of 50%, which the presenter considered to be unsustainable.
    How many of these paid staff are really needed, I do wonder, especially those with the title of manager or director. Perhaps we'll find out in the not too distant future when the NYMR finds it has to cut its cloth according to its means. Then they'll be glad of those few remaining volunteers that haven't been alienated.
     
  16. 61624

    61624 Part of the furniture

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    Well said. The fear that I have is that the NYMR has become an institution dedicated to protecting and increasing the number of paid staff and that, in the event of hard decisions having to be made, they will only affect the wage bill as a last resort. The NYMR exists to preserve the railway, not jobs. I think it is very telling that a structure showing where all the posts are has never been published. Just how many people are in the safety dept., or the customer services office staff, or the on-train catering, for example? This data ought to be readily available but is never disclosed.
     
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  17. 35B

    35B Nat Pres stalwart

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    This is the key issue for me; in all of the other charitable organisations I am involved with, there is a synergy between what the organisation was set up to do and the charitable purposes. Only at the NYMR* do I see those charitable objectives driving how the railway operates, and becoming the determinant of what it does.

    * - even where discussions ad nauseam on the WSR went round and round on structure, they were in the context of how structures could support the railway's operations, not drive how it works.
     
  18. Lineisclear

    Lineisclear Member

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    Believe me I understand and value the ethos of volunteering and the contribution of volunteers. With 10 working turns on two heritage railways and over 1500 miles travelled this month already to volunteer I can speak from experience!
    The point is that the NYMR is being honest and recognising its role as a multi facetted charity. Operating a heritage railway is not by itself a recognised charitable purpose. What matters are the public benefit purposes a charity achieves such as education. The NYMR is set up and staffed to deliver as a substantial charity and to generate the funding that enables. It relies on both paid staff and volunteers but has had to recognise that the volunteer pool is shrinking. In particular later retirement and reduced pension expectations will impact the whole sector. That is bound to increase the need for paid staff to ensure the continuity and competence required. Any move to sideline volunteers would be very much over my dead body but we have to be realistic and adapt to the changed environment we are in.
    .
     
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  19. 35B

    35B Nat Pres stalwart

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    And in the view of charitable purpose, we have the heart of the issue - a very restrictive (dare I say lawyerly?) view of charitable purposes as a constraint, rather than as an enabler. Without comment on the value of the recent change in charitable purposes, the NYMR had operated successfully and, most importantly, legally with it's previous purposes. That is then leading down the path of an analysis that locks in a requirement for a high level of paid staff, both operationally and in the back office - and more than just at the level required to meet the challenges posed by changes to retirement patterns.

    A side effect of this model appears (and I can only assess from the outside) to be that volunteers are feeling less likely to give of their time to the railway. It is also affecting how supporters of the railway see it - as in my reaction on both membership and will writing.
     
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  20. MrDibbs

    MrDibbs New Member

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    Whilst there appears to be an incredibly nuanced arguament going on as to how the railway should be run, I'd like to add that from my perspective, none of the above really matters to me as a working volunteer. All I look for is the abililty to continue volunteering in the way I have done for the past 11 years and that I still have a railway on which to do this. So long as this remains I will still give my time (22 days in the year to date out of a possible 32 as I can only normally volunteer on weekends what with working full time).

    Whilst I've certainly heard grumbles and complaints both in person and on social media, my experience has been that this has come mainly from people that have been at the railway for a long time, rather than those who've joined more recently though I wouldn't like to suggest a reason as to why this is the case.
     
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