North Yorkshire Moors Railway General Discussion

Crikey - what time do you get your ST? I’m just a thinking about whether to go for ours or to have another cuppa!

 

You should listen to Sounds Of The Seventies with Bob Harris, where he invites people to post pictures of ticket stubs for gigs they attended in the 70s - it was peanuts back then.

 

Online, and I had to be out of the door at 8:45

 

I’m not sure that even “spectacular” will justify those costs - that piece refers to massive discounts for packages at Beyoncé concerts. And, with the best will in the world, NYMR is no Beyoncé.

 

Tickets were relatively expensive back then compared with income, but successful bands made their money through record sales, not touring.

Spotify etc destroyed the record selling market and thus successful bands raised ticket prices compensate. Finding people still paid the prices companies like Ticketmaster turned ripping people off into an art form.

You can still have a good time without bankrupting yourself, but not if you want big name bands.

 

I can't say I've read every post on here, but has anyone actually proposed a ticket price(s) that multiplied by the customers such pricing will attract would resolve the financial difficulties of the line, or is it actually not saveable?

 

And there isn't really the equivalent of £5 basement gigs which still happen and my band play. But the wider point of both pricing out regular people is worth noting. We're a credit based economy and the larger, more experience based versions of both are on shaky ground right now.

 

I think there are two issues. One is the interaction between price and quantity, where it’s clear that the current advertised prices are reducing attendance without generating enough extra income.

The other is the cost base. My totally unscientific observations from my visit on Friday were that staffing levels were high relative to demand

 

The trouble with what might seem a trivial calculation is that the number of potential customers is hard to estimate, and the number of those who will actually buy tickets depends on the price in a way that you can only guess until you have a few months' actual figures. To give the NYMR their due, they are continuing to try different pricing policies, though in what seems from outside a somewhat random fashion.

 

Oh I don't know, Capercaillie are not that expensive and well worth seeing.

No but nobody here has a well informed demand/supply model. However, I suspect they have to do something to shift the demand curve outward, grow the market, offer more variety or whatever.

 

I don't think it's trival. I'm not involved with the NYMR and have no feel for the economics of the line but I get the sense that nationally a number of lines have seen a long term drop in the number of visitors, which coupled with rising costs means it is increasingly difficult to survive. Why heritage railways have seen this drop, I'm sure I could speculate as much as the next person.

maybe large preserved lines have had their day?

 

I think that’s the heart of the income issue, as the railway have convinced themselves that demand is falling and therefore that the answer is higher prices and a more restrictive offering. In doing the former, they seem to be mislaying opportunities to grow demand where spare capacity exists; in the latter, they appear to be pushing above what the local market will bear. All of the above is in the context of a high cost model.

 

I think it seems fair to say that demand is falling for the basic offering, by that I mean a standard ticket on a run of the mill service day.
Where demand seems to hold up is on the top end, or at least higher end offerings. So for example such things as fish and chips, beer trains, cream teas, footplate rides, even drive experiences. Often these are what would not be described as "cheap". Then there are those lines which have a premium dining option such as the Bluebell. In some ways this mirrors why Saphos, NB and Statesman seem to have full trains, the clientele are less price sensitive. Even gala prices these days seem to get some enthusiasts wound up.
So the question becomes, especially if you want to operate more than at weekends what as you say is the price point.
Now looking at the NYMR I do not know if £49.50 is too much for Whitby, but I have heard little about trains not filling other than the diesel issue during fire risk. I have heard much about fares too high for the core route, and maybe they are, but again on a daily basis, even at £20 return is there this mammoth untapped market for Grosmont or Goathland? We have established there is little you can offer from Whitby in fresh air capacity.
I see Whitby as very much a far larger Wareham issue in that the core line has a price you need to have some reasonable income to the fare box and therefore you need to have a higher fare, not give away your core fare.
@simon asked
maybe large preserved lines have had their day?

I think in a small way yes, but it is far from that linear. We have a cost of living crisis, which has led to a drop off in days out. There are now many more ways to entertain yourself and compared to the launch of the heritage movement there are many cheaper opportunities for foreign travel. Add to that the original base has either died or is probably far less mobile and numbers drop, which is probably what something "a little differnent" to a pure train ride seems attractive.

 

I don't think there's any dispute about the need for premium offerings, and the ability of these to boost income.

The question I'd be asking is how the fall in the number of bums on seats correlates with attendance in the local tourist economy. If we accept the railway's returns as accurate, a decade ago they were carrying over 300,000 people a year, trains were full (at least, in season), and operating profits were being reported. That was on fares that were generally more than £20/head even then.

We now see repeated 6 figure annual losses, fewer and less full trains, and no attendance figures. The combination suggests to me that the railway is underperforming its peers, whether that's defined as other heritage railways or the local tourist economy.

 

Talking to someone at work on Friday and she had taken her elderly Dad on the North Norfolk earlier in the week . She enjoyed it but thought it was "a bit expensive for what it was, but it was something he wanted to do ". I think NNR is around the £20 mark (?). Not sure what chance the longer lines if £20 is considered 'a bit expensive' by those outside the original base.

I agree on the top end comments , and there's also clearly a place for the volume market on Christmas services and some family events, but the pure train ride clearly faces challenges. Paignton does well and NYMR has shown that there can be demand above capacity on some Whitby services, but whether that demand can hold up at a price the railway needs to cover costs is looking uncertain

Jon

 

I think you are trying to draw too many conclusions from too little data! I can't say whether Whitby traffic is holding up on the NYMR, but even if it is I don't think it is sufficient to sustain the railway, and certainly not the current levels of employees, and there isn't the capacity to increase Whitby travel much, if b at all via longer trains or more paths; equally, cutting train services outside the Whitby flows isn't going to achieve much - steam locos can't be turned on and off at will, and will continue to burn fuel and require manning even if they are standing still, and diesels just don't provide the same attraction. The conclusion has to be that the NYMR has to focus on filling non-Whitby trains - if that can be done with premium services, so much the better, but just filling them would be a good start!

I don't see much of a parallel with Wareham, tbh. A lot of the argument for Wareham has been based on a. having to ability to get there by the main line, and b. running commuter services. No-one seems to really consider Wareham to be much of a destination in the same way as Whitby, and without that I don't think it was ever going to be a good target.

 

I never said Wareham was a destination, the comparator is that is further than Norden, as is Whitby from Grosmont, hence it needs a price difference. Having said that both Whitby and Swanage are seaside towns at the end of a railway line, and both seem to be carrying less people than they have in the past, like virtually every other Heritage Line.

 

I didn't say it's trivial. I said it might seem trivial but explained why it isn't.

 

The answer to the question lies in understanding where the fair value line lies…. ignore that this illustration says farmers…. The key things to understand are:
1. How do customers rate you on price (low to high)
2. How do customers rate you on benefits
3. How do they rate your competition on the same scales

you will get a plot of customer perception of both price and value. If you end up below the line then they think you’re expensive for what you offer. If you’re above the line you’re offering more than they expect.

In marketing the bottom right hand corner of the graph is known as the whither and die zone.

It is important when developing strategies to address being in the bottom right (which I have done very successfully) to remember that it is about how customers perceive your offer. That can mean there is something wrong or lacking in the offer itself or that you have t communicated the value or created the right sense of value around the offer. Banal example, a restaurant with a letter missing off the sign and peeling paint and paper napkins might be perceived as expensive, but without changing anything else (and let’s assume those weren’t indicative of bigger problems for a second) might deter customers and make them feel the restaurant was over priced, but a quick lick of paint, a repaired sign and linen napkins and customers are happy to pay 5% more than before and rate the restaurant as great value for money.

Prices being lowered/discounted doesn’t speak well of a price that is reflecting value well enough.