North Yorkshire Moors Railway General Discussion

Profit is a balance sheet thing. Cash flow or to be exact surplus cashflow is what pays down loans

 

Fair enough and yes, I know that debts have been an ongoing feature on the accounts. My point is that when we had the revenue to pay interest on those debts that was affordable and to some extent the borrowing could be managed. Over the last three financial years the PLC has lost over £1 million, though the latest figure still hasn't been disclosed to members or at the seemingly ever delayed AGM.

When there are ongoing operating losses the only sources of additional income are either grants, donations or bequests. Whilst all three such sources are of course positive it doesn't excuse the underlying failure to manage the business or allow either PLC or Trustees to shift responsibility. Reducing debt is good but what is important is the ability to service the debts that still remain.

 

As a folksy example: suppose you are a jam maker, and I wish to start a business selling your jam at a market. I go to the bank, borrow £100 as starting capital (or I guess $100 as it is you!) and you sell me 100 jars of jam at £1 each. At that point I'm £100 in debt but have £100 of assets, so I'm even.

I then go to the market and sell all the jam at 50p a jar. I make £50, which I use to pay down the debt. Now clearly I've made a trading loss, but I've also paid off half my debt to the bank. The only slight problem is I no longer have anything to sell tomorrow, and I still owe the bank £50 ...

You could see how in a railway example, you might be able to trade and pay down debt, but at the expense of deferred maintenance on assets. In some circumstances - especially if interest rates are high - the might even be a sensible course of action. But it does show that understanding railway finances is complex, and you have to look at the whole picture. If railway A has high debts and pristine p/way, while railway B has no debt but half the sleepers have rotted away to nothing, then who is better off? You could philosophically look at deferred maintenance as a form of debt, it's just less obvious on the balance sheet.

Tom

 

I wasn’t around at the time but your question is really whether the then Trustees had the necessary authority? The answer must be Yes as like any charity the Trust is run by its Trustees not its members. It might have been prudent to explain the decision to members but I have no idea whether that was done or not. Of course since then the situation has been apparent from the Annual Report and Accounts.

 

Crowds at the steam gala today. Hundreds on the station this afternoon. Car parks full.
Delays on trains, but everything, seemingly, running in TT order.
I think today, September 24th, is the first day this year when an all steam timetable has been run.
Two teaks each running in set B and the Levisham shuttle. At last!

I hope those in Park Street looked out of the window and observed that steam sells.

 

A

……and that their hard work has paid off?

 

The steam gaa is generally a resounding success; it isn't at the root of the financial problems (unless they've f****d up over transport costs!). The real problem seems to be coming up with, and running other successful events; for me I would start looking at a wartime event but a.) ban the nazi reenactors as having no relevance or place, and b.) learn from @Lineisclear's experience at the GWSR and try extending it a few days to broaden its scope and c.) scale it back both produce a manageable operating surplus and make the crowds a bit more manageable.

 

In the Philip Benham era, there was a running joke among other preserved railways about NYMR annual passenger numbers.
At the time, HRA guidelines for extrapolating day rover tickets to equivalent return trips was to allow something like 1 day rover = 1.4 passenger returns.
Almost all preserved railways reported their passenger numbers based on the HRA formula.
NYMR calculated their day rover tickets as 3 passenger round trips, because that is what they COULD do.
Which maybe how NYMR used to report over 300,000 passengers per year.

 

Who’s hard work, though? Matt Bell and his team and Piglet and his team and all those station staff and others at the sharp end who made it a success I will wholeheartedly agree with.

 

That explains why supposedly record numbers resulted in only a break even position, thus the seeds of the current situation were sowed.

Sawdust.

 

The all line ticket becoming a day rover, was a me too decision following the svr doing the same thing.
Goodness knows how much revenue that threw away.
I thought it a mistake at the time.

Sawdust.

 

When I last looked Matt and Piglet were PLC Directors and integral parts of the much derided management!

 

Just supposing…. There are three trains that usually load well. They are the first one out of Whitby and the first two Whitby trains out of Pickering. Let’s say that each carry 350 passengers so that’s 1050 / day. The normal operating season was about 230 days/ year. That comes to 241,500 passengers/ year. However , there were several other trains which also carried passengers so that’s total would increase, even if not significantly. Then there were the evening diners and the Santas and other festive trains which were outside the normal daily T/T. I can see 300K being a realistic possibility. Not today, though.

 

You are twisting what some of the vociferous critics have been saying. Piglet in particular does a fantastic job of running Grosmont mpd, but is presently (and has been for some time, I believe) trying to run with his feet tied together and his hands tied behind his back by those sitting in the comfort of the Park Street offices, who have reduced his budgets for repair and maintenance to barely subsistence levels.

 

You are twisting what some of the vociferous critics have been saying. Piglet in particular does a fantastic job of running Grosmont mpd, but is presently (and has been for some time, I believe) trying to run with his feet tied together and his hands tied behind his back by those sitting in the comfort of the Park Street offices, who have reduced his budgets for repair and maintenance to barely subsistence levels.

 

Directors who were unsuccessfully pushing for change, I believe. I’m sure that, as a Trust director until recently, you will know far more about it than me.

 

In the thread about the gala, overcrowding has been reported. Given that this is only Thursday, that is concerning.
However this demonstrates that the right product will attract customers. It also highlights the deficiencies of the current regime in that so many carriages are still out of traffic.
Sawdust.

 

I don’t know but all directors of any board share collective responsibility whether things go well or badly.

 

23 coaches is well short of what would have been available for a gala in earlier years. At least four 7 coach sets plus a 3 coach shuttle at Pickering. For a minimum.

 

Indeed; my suspicion, when I asked the question, was that assets were disposed of, to produce money to pay down the debt (given that, as I observed, there had been operating losses in recent years - surpluses from which would be the ideal source for money to pay down debt). But it was just a suspicion, which is why I asked for details on how the debt was paid down. (Which I have yet to hear.)

Mind, as you point out, that path (swapping assets for debt) is not necessarily a bad way to go; with the debt gone, debt service payments won't have to be made. (So, in a way, it's doing just what I said was necessary - watching pennies.) Of course, to balance that, one has to know what assets were disposed of, and if they would ever have been of greater use to the line, at some point in the future. But of course, 'future utility' is worth 0, if one doesn't make it to that future.

So maybe those supposed disposals were the right choice - but if they happened, they're hardly something to crow about; they're B school 101.

Exactly; it's like 3D chess. Not simple.

Noel