North Yorkshire Moors Railway General Discussion

I take exception to this post, but I do feel that it exposes your true colours. At the time you were elected as NYMR Chairman you went round visiting groups on the railway, and one person told me after those chats that your ambition was for the NYMR to become a fully fledged tourist line like the Torbay Steam Railway. At the time I thought that was perhaps a bit cynical, but as time has gone by that person has been shown to be right - and I have been told today that the NYMR is being run by a triumvirate that includes you but does not include the CEO, who I'm told is little more than a puppet (or muppet, it would seem!). From what I have heard just today an increasing number of people are becoming ever more fed up with the way things are going, and that triumvirate may find themselves having more time to spend with their families following the AGMs. A vote of no confidence seems to the in the offing.

I joined the railway as a supporter of what I believed to be a heritage railway. I might be wrong, of course, but I believe that the general public are still attracted by heritage attractions, of which the NYMR is just one of a variety - Castle Howard and Eden Camp are nearby examples, for instance. That doesn't rule out Peppa Pg, Harry Potter events, or food festivals - indeed I have suggested some of these, but the railway has never tried Peppa Pig, and seems to abandoned Wizard Weekends and light spectaculars - indeed the only successful events they now still do are steam or diesel galas! Correct me if I'm wrong, please, but aren't those essentially heritage events? The bottom line is that heritage is interesting and does sell, but it does have to be worked on, and I'm sorry to say that at the NYMR that just isn't happening

As I have also said before, I believe that the NYMR has a strong heritage attraction potential but it is not fully exploited as things stand. If it was portrayed more as being a lynchpin of life in the area it ran through and its significance displayed and explained it would be a good start. For the last couple of years it has run timetabled goods train services but these do little other than burn fuel and provide photographic opportunities - they don't seem to generate any extra business - but if the opportunity was taken to carry appropriate demonstration loads and show them being unloaded and what the variety of items were carried that would be far more interesting.

Heritage railways will always have to be commercial entities, but they are also heavily dependent on their volunteers and supporters, many of whom are just not interested in providing Whitby with park & ride services, and if that's all the NYMR becomes they, and their time and money, will melt away. Combine that with the inept and flailing pulling of fares structures from seemingly thin air and that's a real recipe for disaster.

 

It's more a case of deciding on spending priorities. The tough part of heritage railway management can be deciding which of a number of competing demands on funds will not have money allocated to them. For instance is it more important to spend scarce resources on track ( the unsatisfactory condtion of some parts of which contributed significantly to the repairs needed on the teak set) or on bridges or other items that are essential for anything to run? As has been identified the opportunities to use the teak set are limited. When there are other pressing demands on funds it's hard to justify a charity spending large sums on third party owned property as well as paying to hire it when operationally it's of only marginal benefit. The set is a heritage jewel in the crown but if the crown doesn't fit the wearer is prioritising on it appropriate when other urgent priorities would suffer as a result?

 

You have frequently mentioned meeting the railway's charitable objectives/obligations - isn't it the case that using the teak carriages is a case of meeting to meet those? Just as the railway pays rather larger sums to hire and use locomotives that have similarly restricted fields operation? Or the goods train, which is funded by the Trust and barely earns any income when it is used on timetable demonstration trains? Can we expect to see all these laid up too?

 

Whoever suggested the triumverate idea I'm happy to confirm they're wrong. I'm still a trustee but only part of a cohesive team that includes the CEO. Perhaps my mistake is to try and explain on here what that team is trying to achieve?

 

I take your point about the difficulty of spending priorities with a limited budget, but whilst I don't dispute worrying about paying for the maintenance and use of the teaks, but it does feel that paying for the hire, whilst not paying for the maintenance and therefore being unable to use them, feels like somewhat of the worst of all worlds for the railway.

You mentioned in a previous post that the business needs to give people what they want, not what we might think that they should have, but is the NYMR sure that it knows what people want? After all, heritage is big business and extremely popular. Why do people go to Beamish or Ironbridge? Why are the pre-nationalisation carriages so popular at the Bluebell or SVR, or the vintage carriages at the Talyllyn or Ffestiniog?

Sent from my SM-S926B using Tapatalk

 

Fair comment and no one doubts that the teaks are popular. However, so is a ride on the NYMR to Whitby and back. As long as that is a through service the opportunity to use the teaks set between Pickering and Grosmont is operationally constrained. That’s not a restriction that applies to the likes of the SVR or Bluebell. The NYMR could prioritise heritage experiences using the teak set but at the cost of not focussing on the trip,to the seaside the majority of visitors appear to want.

 

I strongly suspect that there is no one thing that needs to be done to attract visitors. A couple of posts ago you suggested that the reason for not using the teaks was because the best hope of attracting people to the 18.5
Miles of railway that isn’t Grosmont to Whitby is things like Peppa pig. Apparently though the teaks are popular. The answer I think isn’t one or the other so much as both.

I don’t think anyone has this worked out yet, but there has to be a range of events and activities that specifically target different demographics and from that cross sales/returning visitors are created. The wider the range of offers the wider the section of the population to whom you can promote. I would place particular emphasis on sections of the community that would be entirely new.

The most difficult task is breaking through the noise and letting people know you even exist. However, with the polarised nature of most people’s understanding of the world (we all see mostly only the things we are interested in) it is very important to have things that “punch through”. Wild example - a theatrical performance in an evening at one of the stations, might be a way of grabbing attention of a new group of people. That sort of creativity is what’s needed, along with doing ALL the other more traditional stuff AND having a real focus on heritage. The

The only way to expand visitors today is to appeal to a much wider section of the world. I do think though that the closer to some form of perceived authenticity that you can get the more positive will be the reaction. I would absolutely be finding a way to use those Teaks because with the best will in the world all but the “K” variety of mk1 fails to deliver a heritage experience, and people really do want that.

 

Will the Gresley visit see the ECS workings at the start and end of the day as with Royal Scot's visit last year and in the post-Christmas services?

I would like to know the rationale behind these workings -is it really cheaper to incur the fuel costs and wear-and-tear on the coaching fleet rather than have, say, Lucy at Pickering to pre-heat the train?

There must be a valid reason for it, but 36 miles of ECS running for 7 coaches every day on a hilly line like the Moors seems excessive?

Jon

 

I believe that 60007 runs through light at the start and end of each day

 

They do have two Midland carriages which are the focus of their Century appeal. One is being actively worked on, the other is under storage but I think where there are tasks that are more efficiently undertaken on both vehicles at once they are doing that where possible. They also have some LMS BGs; I don't know if the plan is to convert one of these too or not.

 

Your analysis is spot on. As my earlier post suggested the opportunity is activities that draw in a wider section of the world who would othewise never consider visting a heritage railway. The teaks can play an important role in making that happen but as long as through services operate to Whitby they are operationally constrained to limited use as special, possibly premium, attractions. The NYMR wants to use them in that way but can't justify the luxury of spending the money needed for other priorities on repairs while at the same time paying hire fees. Continuing to incur those while being unable to use the set is of course a highly unsatisfactory situation but at least the NYMR has continued to provide vital income for the LNERCA. The answer has to be a revised agreement that works for both parties and unlocks the potential of the teak set as a special heritage attraction.

 

I'm uncomfortable with this, as one of the key features of the use of the teaks was that they formed a special attraction working the "internal" diagram - something that is IMHO of value even if not marketed as a premium attraction. The overwhelming sense I get is of jam tomorrow, attempting to reframe the arrangement between deal in a way that makes it fundamentally different.

 

The internal service seems to being portrayed by @Lineisclear as a nuisance because it doesn’t go to Whitby. However, there are good reasons why it is a useful service to have. Because of the constraints imposed by running to Whitby, it is the only crew diagram that allows a crew to have two round trips so, to many, this diagram is the star turn. It is also good for training purposes as it means that a cleaner can fire without robbing the fireman of most of his turn. The shorter trains also allow the use of the smaller locos such as the J27 and Lambton tanks.
And if the teaks are a nuisance because they can’t go to Whitby why has the railway decided it would be good to spend precious money on overhauling the DMU when that is in exactly the same situation of not being able to go to Whitby? I can probably answer that though; it’s cheaper to run than using a steam loco on the teaks. More diesel mileage and something that is likely to increase in the future.

 

I’m not sure of how the carriage diagram interacts with the timetable, but I’m surprised that there isn’t the opportunity to use the Teaks on the internal only part of the timetable. What I am sensing here is that the NYMR feels the hire cost is too high, rather than anything else. That may be so, and from a management standpoint I can see that it would be more attractive to use the carriages that don’t have a hire fee, but there must be an opportunity for a recasting of the relationship? There may of course be matters which are not for the public domain that impact the relationship as well. From the outside though I hope that the fundamental position could be that NYMR wants to use them and LNERCA want them used. Let’s figure out how to make that happen.

 

Just to push that thinking a step further, it would not be a surprise to me if when tested with customers it was found that trains to Whitby could have a bigger diesel element than “internal” trains. That is to say of you want/need to run more diesel services for cost reasons the services that that could happen on without impacting demand are the ones that go to Whitby. Perhaps always changing traction at Grosmont or always diagrammed so one leg of every Whitby would be diesel etc etc. it occurs to me that this would then make the steam fleet easier to maintain and potentially mean that fleet could be biased more to smaller locos.

 

People like Steve have a much better understanding of the art of carriage stock rotation but I reacall that on the peak Gold timetable of yesteryear it was only possible for the teaks to make one round internal service trip per day.
Your outside view is correct. The NYMR wants to use the teak set and the LNERCA want them used. Figuring out how to make that work for both parties is essential.

 

So to ask a very straight-forward question: why not just carry on using them as the standard stock for the internal diagram? Wasn't that the case in the last season where they were available?

I know they currently need essential maintenance, but what's stopping them simply being allocated to that whenever they are fit to run?

Surely this would free up MK1s as additional capacity for Whitby services/covering maintenance?

 

There is one small flaw in this argument, which is that the NYMR doesn't really have many small locos! The J27 and 29 are all there are atm, next up is then the standard 2-6-4T (and the unfairly maligned 76079, which some too to be too small). Lambton No. 5 and a donated Austerity would be potential additions, but the speed of overhauls at Grosmont these days is so painfully slow that I reckon it would be 10 years before they came on stream.

I keep referring to NYMR services as a Park & Ride service to Whitby, and that should give an indication of the answer to some earlier questions - the first two trains of the morning from Pickering to Whitby are heavily loaded, but I don't think there's a lot of evidence of throngs trying to join them along the way and the last two departures of the day from Whitby seem to show the same pattern. The earlier return workings out of Whitby are not much more than ECS trips as far as Grosmont. It seems to have slowly becoming the case that diesels are used on some of the workings, but the evidence is that the passengers want steam for at least a larger part of their journey. That said, I think there is a reasonable case for changing to diesel on all trains from Grosmont to Whitby and return.

 

Gold timetable of years ago used to have the teaks doing 0930/1230/1530 ex Grosmont and 1100/1400/1700 ex Pickering.

All that is left now, is that is used to be 1100/1400 ex Pickering and 1230/1630 ex Grosmont, which reduces further to 1100/1630 on Moorlander days.