North Yorkshire Moors Railway General Discussion

That explains the new spirit of (non)-openness increasingly being espoused by what is an increasingly paranoid management and Trust Board leadership. How on earth do they hope to garner support for their funding appeals in this way?

 

Or they're tired of having unwinnable battles online with people who have an axe to grind?

Very few organisations get involved in social media outside their own channels. There is little to be gained from it and they can control any trolls or unnecessary arguments on their own channels.

Some may see this as being paranoid.

Enthusiasts may want, or even insist, on detailed information being published but it does little if anything to help the organisation commercially, operationally or otherwise.

And before anyone starts accusing me of being an NYMR management stooge, I have no links to the railway whatsoever.

 

If you have an appeal for a boiler repair that has barely raised 15% of its total, and seems to have stalled, and have just launched an appeal for funds towards a total that you're not prepared to specify, then I suggest that failing to engage with social media, which may be an important source of info for potential donors is not a great way of encouraging them. As for me trolling, all I can say is that I'm a fan of the railway but not its management. If I look at the past few years I can see only generally poor results and really the management has to be judged on those results. It has gone backwards, or downhill, depending on one's choice of phraseology. In criticising I, for one, hope to prod it into doing better - but for it to do better the management has to react better to the circumstances it finds itself facing- and I really don't have the confidence that it has the understanding, experience and flexibility to do so. What it seems to be demonstrating, instead, is a deepening defensive mentality.

 

Lots of lines, loco societies, etc seem to have Twitter and Facebook presences - and links to them on their home pages, so these aren't externally-organized efforts that the organization may not know about. What's up with that, if there is little to be gained from it?

Noel

 

I didn't say that these railways didn't use social media. I was specifically relating to the railway posting on *other people's* social media channels (like Natpres).

 

X

 

The difference between NatPres and Twitter/Facebook (relative to this point) escapes me; both are effectively open channels on which basically anyone can post basically anything (railway-related, for NatPres) they want. Eh, not important.

However, I reckon that comment provides an interesting insight to the difference in mindset between the NYMR (under current management) and many other vintage lines; a few may have been started with the idea, primarily, that 'Beeching has gotten rid of an important piece of our local transport infrastructure' (and thus perhaps of a viable business), but the impression I have is that that many (most?) were started with (and now almost uniformly embrace) the idea that 'Beeching has gotten rid of an important piece of our history (perhaps local history)'. Which is why many (most?) now put a tremendous amount of time, energy and money into refurbishing (and recreating from scratch, in quite a few cases) vintage steam engines - which nobody in their right mind would do, if all they wanted to do is move people around.

The connection back to the comment is that something that's primarily a business, (of local transport infrastructure), might indeed want to control content on channels which cover them; things which are primarily collections of people trying to save some important (to them) history might not have any problem at all with discussions they don't control.

Noel

 

Social media only becomes a problem as far as organisations are concerned when it is negative comment. If it is praise, it is generally welcomed. The vast majority of negative comments have an element of truth in them and that should be of concern to people. They are effectively complaints, whatever the nature of them is. The heritage railway I am still active with has an item on each board meeting agenda near the top headed 'complaints'. When we get them, they are taken seriously and discussed and this includes social media. Fortunately, they are few and far between. Perhaps other railways should look at what is being posted and, at least, consider what has been put. As I said, there is generally an element of truth in them, hard that may be to accept.

 

Understood. What I find interesting is the way that some railways - notably Spa Valley - use social media to build and develop support. They are open about their challenges, and they generate goodwill in doing so. When they do so, it's clear that there's an underlying plan and strategy, and that in turn builds trust.

What I observe about the NYMR is something different. That openness is absent, and the one poster who did present a "management" view put forward a number of views that were, to say the least, contentious. This has coincided with a period in which the commercial performance of the railway has struggled, and long-standing members have indicated significant dissatisfaction - including (most dangerously IMHO) behaviours like "quiet quitting". Over the autumn, we had public feedback about the GM of the railway being rude in public to staff (paid or volunteer, it doesn't matter), while the execution of the Flying Scotsman visit was poor - and seemed not to have learned from previous experience.

No one can make them engage on social media, and the lack of response here does not provide any particular indication of whether action is being taken in what are difficult circumstances. But the recently mounted appeal is silent on important points about bridge 42 (how much? when? how long?), following a pattern from previous appeals which have sought money without really providing any feedback (I'd go back to "Bridge & Wheels" on that front, where 80135 is still unrestored). While I was still a member, that approach seemed light on explanations and accountability - the decision on one other forum to remove a scan of the staff newsletter suggests that this is if anything deepening.

These are signs of an organisation in trouble and, while I don't share the deeper suspicions of @60044, I am certainly seeing nothing that get my hand to go near my pocket.

The SVR went through a period of very deep criticism that some felt was unfair. What I've observed is that a change in mood followed a decision to become less introvert, and to engage more widely. It would be good to see NYMR do this meaningfully.

 

The staff newsletter, or a version of it without personal details, should be public.

How did the Santa's do this year? Talk in Pickering was they were much lighter on loadings than in previous years due to the high price.
I saw one train with barely a coach filled.

It may be that the later running period for FS meant people used that for their pre-Christmas treat in November.

 

I'm not sure a staff newsletter should necessarily be public (though it depends I suppose what you put in it). Clearly there will always be some things of operational or other significance that you don't want to broadcast too widely. ("Can staff please refrain from using the top car park on Monday - Wednesday as we need it for a film company who are filming on those days"). That said, I suspect on many railways that sort of thing would be on HOPS these days.

In 2020, The Bluebell Times grew out of an earlier internal staff-only newsletter ("Points and Crossings"). I remember the discussion with the then Communication Director at the time, and after some thought we came up with the strapline "A Newsletter for Bluebell Railway Members, Staff and Supporters" and that set the general content we would cover. The key point being that Heritage Railways are strange beasts, and there is a diverse, but important, audience of stakeholders that lies between your staff (who can generally be reached through internal tools such as HOPS) and your paying customers (who generally are the audience that your marketing team have in mind, and which they target through a mix of "official" social media, e-newsletters, web pages, brochures, events and so on). It's the group in the middle (*) that need nurturing - those whose interest runs a bit deeper than "when are tickets on sale for Santas?" but who may not necessarily be in a railway messroom week-in, week-out and fully on top of everything happening in a given department.

It's that middle group - which we can loosely call "supporters" - who tend to hold very passionate views about the direction the railway is going in, for right or wrong, but who also tend to be the people who will respond most favourably to appeals.

It feels to me that the NYMR doesn't do that supporters part very well. It has a marketing presence and can, when necessary, sell to the public, as the large numbers of visitors for Flying Scotsman or Locomotion's visit showed. It can also, I am sure, deal with the operational stuff that would go out to active volunteers and paid staff as required. It's the middle bit it doesn't seem to do much of, and which a desire to pull back from non-corporate social media seems to indicate that it doesn't actually want to do much of.

I've mentioned before that there is a general pathway that those who interact with heritage railways are on, which runs something like:

Visit --> Join --> Donate and / or Volunteer

Most people will only take the first, or perhaps second, step on that pathway, but in value terms the further people go down that pathway, the more value they offer to the organisation. I see a newsletter like The Bluebell Times (**) as something to entice people down that pathway further: we are playing in the "join / donate" sort of space. Hopefully a casual visitor who visits for a Santa special and then follows the railway's main social media gets pointed at BT and sees there is much more behind the scenes; maybe eventually starting to think about the value of an additional step in commitment by joining the railway, or donating to an appeal, or signing up as a volunteer. I think one of the tragedies on the NYMR is that, based on much of what was said here by @Lineisclear, the upper echelons of the railway perceive little value in that wider group of stakeholders. If you don't value supporters highly unless they are actually buying tickets, you aren't going to put much effort into recruiting new ones. Just don't be surprised that when you ignore that wider support base, you may find insufficient people care deeply if the railway is in a real crisis and needs all the help it can get.

(*) I accept that many people will be in multiple groups, and some in all three.
(**) Other similar things exist for other railways, sometimes in other formats; I am not claiming we are unique. One thinks of "Branch Lines" on the SVR, "In the Loop" on the MHR etc.

Tom

 

At work, our default confidentiality setting is where we regard information as confidential, have protocols for keeping it that way, but do not get heartbroken if it gets into the public domain - we have higher security settings for that information.

What is bizarre is that the newsletter, which is by definition liable to "leak", is being treated as so sensitive that "unauthorised" publications of it are being withdrawn. Especially when the content both explains what is going on, and provides useful context for the uncertainty that exists. That should be forming part of the public messaging, to be replaced by more information when that's known.

That shrieks to me of a very unconfident leadership, unsure of itself and how it can relate to others.

 

All true - most railway GMs (or equivalent role) don't post regularly elsewhere in a personal capacity. The notable exceptions being Gus Dunster (SVR) and Jonnie Pay (Spa Valley). Robin Coombes used to give occasional insights to the running of the KESR on his personal Facebook page before he left too. Most people don't expect the GM to be posting daily updates about the railways, but the Moors itself is often dreadful with social media and giving out information. When it does it seems to concentrate on the wrong thing or just ignore questions. There'll always be keyboard warriors, but if the information is put out in the first place, there won't be such a vacuum to be filled.

The shed vlogs are good, but a lot of the Facebook posts are dreadful. Advertising Santa Specials two days before Christmas shows they haven't sold well. The latest Facebook post from today is "Cowans, Sheldon & Co. Steam Breakdown Crane No. 107 lifts and rolls SR No. 34101 "Hartland"’s boiler ready for the fitting of crown stays." That's it. No commentary, no explanation of what's crown stays are, just a video of the boiler being lifted and rolled on to its side. Watching the boiler being tipped over like that makes me feel very uncomfortable. Maybe it's a common occurrence that happens everyday away from prying eyes, but seeing it land like that looks bloody dodgy to me.

https://www.facebook.com/share/r/1AoeVUxAPa/

The length of the line was effectively halved overnight last month and there have been two posts about it, and one of them was a vague appeal for money which, as @35B said, was very light on details. Contrast that to the SVR with daily updates about the landslip last year.

The Spa Valley has been mentioned. Their appeal for the bridge replacement is pinned to the top of the Facebook page and the fundraising link gives a breakdown of much has been raised so far, and what the costs and timescales are. How much money has been raised for 75029? It appears to be a secret. The auction that aimed to raise £20,000 barely made a quarter of that. The Spa Valley even had a miniature railway offer to donate a day's proceeds to their appeal. The NYMR seems very lacking in charity from outside sources. Unless it's another grant from somewhere, or those two words uttered ad nauseum by John Bailey - gift aid.

The railway gives off an air of arrogance. We're the best, we have all these grants, we have TV shows made about us. Great, but no one is giving you any money when you launch yet another appeal, because people think the railway will get the money from elsewhere, or that it'll be badly spent and disappear into the ether, before another appeal is launched.

 

Many on here it would seem agree with your statement that the railway gives off an air of arrogance. But if you do not reside in our closed world on here not sure that is true.
If you check Rail UK (where one member from here seems quite vocal) and wnxx nobody seems to be getting too concerned. Yes couple of comments about no price quoted (which I agree with from my post last week) but even that was batted away by your good self it seems, with "Because they don't know how bad it is yet. The staff newsletter said they hope to have more news and an estimate in the next couple of weeks."
If I did not reside here I may well have seen about the appeal and thought no more than, "what bad luck this has hit them out of the blue"
I only ever look at lines Heritage Facebook pages if I really have to, as I do not have, nor want, a Facebook account and I fail to see why lines support Facebooks desire to have the world as a member. It must be possible to set it not to ask for a login after about 20 seconds if you want folks to view your info as their is one unofficial Swanage Facebook page that never does.
As apart from Railway Herald (which I normally only ever skim read despite paying for it) I see no magazines all, so I would see is the "good news" you mention, as I suspect will the public.

There seems to be two schools of thought these days, "we need to know everything" or "why are you not telling us everything we deserve to know" You can makes cases for both being right or wrong.

 

I suspect this has hit NYMR partly out of the blue, certainly as to when it has hit if not that something would be required. They are due some sympathy for having to contend with the problem - the question is how much sympathy, and whether other weaknesses outweigh the sympathy due.

You then comment on the perceptions displayed on other forums. NP is hotter on governance than the others you mention, and many enthusiasts are frankly tribal about their affiliations. That means awareness can be limited, because the things that lie waiting to damage the railways we love are not seen, and for many, are of no interest.

I am being quite careful in what I say because I don't know the ins and outs, and I don't know what's going on in the background. Management teams do need time to work out and sort out problems, and to consider how to respond to them - they are humans themselves. Judge Jefferies may have been right in his judgments, but his eagerness to condemn people did nothing for the credibility of those judgments.

My concern about NYMR is that the weaknesses consistently point towards not being interested in building relationships with supporters. The sense given, partly from the posts of @Lineisclear and partly from wider NYMR behaviour, is of a transactional view of relationships. Other railways, which have nurtured their relationships, do much better on that front.

The results of the 75029 appeal point to this - this is a locomotive that is a good candidate for support, on a railway with many fans. Yet the appeal appears not to be doing well, and the sense is "please give - ok don't bother then", which does nothing to encourage shy donors.

If the narrative is "none of your business", then the likelihood is that people like me will go "ok then" and look elsewhere. If the narrative is "none of your business but give us your money", then the reaction's likely to be a lot less printable.

 

Two threads have converged in this one I feel. The first is the lack of information being made available to members. This is a long-standing problem and has been acknowledged by the NYMR Management, who have pledged to improve the situation, but the reality is that they have made a poor show of doing so - the revised, and much derided Moorsline revamp being a case in point, for it is now more of an advertising brochure and contains less information than it ever did. Secondly, and perhaps more seriously there seem to have been a series of management gaffes and blunders that haven't helped to boost confidence, from the top echelons down. The CEO seems to have little feel for what a heritage railway should look like, and is unable to build and run a team that does and can advertise it as such. The lack of identity and purpose as a heritage railway seems to be reflected in the ongoing decline in ticket sales. It's therefore ironic that the best results (perhaps the railway's saviours) have come from enthusiast orientated events, which are in the main long-standing. There have been no significant new events created by the paid staff to replace the volunteer-originated ones they have ditched. To cut a long story short, the NYMR does not appear to have many competent paid managers nowadays. (Obviously there are exceptions!).

Bridge 42 exemplifies the latter point - I don't think the need for major work on it wasn't known about and work to organise it was underway, but the person in charge of it was not a civil engineer; had the previous long-standing civil engineer still been in post I think there would be far less of a problem, and the scope of the necessary works would have been understood much sooner and the likely costs known and circulated. The work has been known to be coming, but has been ignored, and now it has come back to bite hard. As it is, we still have no idea of the likely scope of work, the costs needed or the likely timescale. Given that the NYMR has always been very late in publishing its timetable for the coming season, who would want to bet on it being any earlier this year? If the work does go ahead - and if it does, where will the money going to come from? - is there any reasonable likelihood of the bridge being back in use by the end of the peak season?

To all those of you who don't like to see criticism, I'd only say that when one sees a railway that was doing well and is now falling on ever-harder times due to mismanagement it is almost impossible to bite one's tongue, and even harder when, however loud and strong the criticism may be, it appears to have no effect, at least none that results in any improvement.

 

I'm not so sure it's not them out of the blue. @60044 posted on the NYMR Forum back in March that there were concerns about the bridge. The Facebook post from December states the bridge had a thorough inspection in May. There are reports elsewhere that problems have occurred with the bridge over the last decade. The railway had already planned to do work this winter on it. So yes, maybe they have been taken by surprise just how bad the bridge is, but they certainly were planning to do something about it.