North Yorkshire Moors Railway General Discussion

Deleted

 

No, it will be Pickering based for the duration of its stay.

Peter

 

All steam hauled trains are followed through Newtondale to summit by a fire watch team in a road vehicle with equipment to put out any fire that starts before it becomes significant. Fire outside this part of the line are historically quite rare.
Looking at a photo pubished on Facebook yesterday, the platforms at Grosmont appeared to be wet and I don't think it was because they were being cleaned. How much rain has fallen, I can't say.
https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=28034568606159307&set=pcb.28544707031783483

 

Some rain but not really enough to soak in. Just a few blustery showers.

 

So all in all, a bit of a mess!

 

Regular readers will know that I am very critical of the NYMR's senior management, but I would like to stress that it is not a blanket criticism. I think the MPD staff under Piglet (and also the C & W, who he's also responsible for) and the PWay Dept. are also struggling with facing high levels of use on a demanding railway and pitiful budgets. As far as I can tell they are not being supported by the office=bound staff generating the levels of business needed.

So, as the previous poster said, "all in all, a bit of a mess" - although I think things are a lot more worse than that!

 

Right, but even a little bit is better than none.

Noel

 

Not if it gives people false impressions perhaps.

 

But why wouldn't you just be open and honest about that if that's the case?

 

True; but the world is full of things that give people false impressions. Start with many (most?) politicians... Heck, advertising is an entire industry that has a major streak of 'giving people false impressions'. People need to get better at filtering out false impressions (a capability we seem to have lost, or never been very good at; see the examples above - they wouldn't exist if they didn't 'work').

Noel

 

This is exactly the case and to not be running steam locos (except the special Tornado service) right in the summer holiday season as well is really
poor.

I live close to the line (Whitby end) a haven’t heard a steam engine for ages. MOST people are not interested in riding behind a diesel, especially at the prices being charged. And then to find you can’t even connect to a steam train at Grosmont. How can a railway with a collection so many steam locos have found themselves in this position? It must be putting people off visiting (it has me) and must be the last thing the railway needs if it is struggling financially and had to open late due to
Bridge 42.

 

Open and honest about what?
I don't think the NMYR can be held responsible for people's perception of rain. My point is that a short shower of rain looks impressive, but changes nothing in terms of fire risk, but people may think it does. And then blame railways for not running steam...

 

I would agree the communication on the website could be better, but you can only run what is serviceable. Many lines have lots of locos, but not many have a pool of serviceable ones these days, and the NYMR needs more than most it seems, before you add the complexity of which ones can go to Whitby.
I am not too sure which lines designate the services that will be diesel, although I know some do. There is generally no standard that is followed.
On a random check of some of the southern lines.
Bluebell will say what is planned to be running, but I could only find one day where it said which service was which.
Swanage do identify which service is diesel.
MHR do not say which service is which on two train days, you need to go to the loco roster page to see what is running and for example last weekend when it said 35005, no idea which of the two trains it operated and presumably the other was diesel.
WSR do identify which service is diesel. (No idea how many steam locos currently available as they need two for the school holiday timetable).

Maybe these lines have more detail on Facebook or such things, but not everybody wants to use those.

 

In action today passing Newbridge.
37 x 2
31 Charybidis
NER Autocar
Tornado
Omaha

Some trains looked full in particular the approx 9.30. with a 37
Others was a lot of fresh air being transported.

 

Unfortunately the vast majority of passengers don't read these forums, or care about what problems are happening in the shed. They just say 'we thought it was a steam railway and got a dirty diesel'.

I do find it interesting though, that all the engines suddenly get fixed and sorted for the Steam Gala...

 

I am disappointed that Omaha was out and about as I would have gone if she was: I know things can change at last minute but they must have had a rough idea and could have amended the loco roster accordingly!

 

I'm intrigued that Omaha was out as it wasn't shown on the loco roster provided by the shed, a copy of which I was given.

 

the NYMR's website is silent on the matter of lack of steam. They cannot blame it on the dry weather because that, by default, would mean that Tornado couldn't be used leading to loss of much needed revenue. However, to say that they haven't any working steam locos would have the likely effect of making people decide not to visit.

 

Which is a deception by omission.

 

WSR have three locos available - 7802, 7812 & 9351. Seems 7828 has had issues since May but nothing has been said in public other than withdrawal from the ELR October gala which suggests we won't see Odney out again for sometime.