North Yorkshire Moors Railway General Discussion

Because not everyone will want to go straight back as they will want more than just a "ride"

That of course is the model for many lines, and from memory was when the NYMR only went to Grosmont. But it appears they have (rightly?) built themselves a strategy around Whitby so how much of what has become the main customer base just want "a ride" is unclear. From what has been said about lightly loaded trains in the middle of the day perhaps not many.

So would the strategy be to just try to "up" the have a ride portion, which may include other offerings like afternoon tea or fish and chips, or turn Goathland into some sort of marketable “Whitby on the Moor”?

 

Is the water crane at Goathland fit for use?
I recall one day a few years back when 3 of the Loco crew tried for about 30 minutes to move the arm.
Is any treatment required for the water?

These points also apply to Pickering.

 

Goathland is a destination, although the "Aidensfield"/"Heartbeat" pull is now a lot weaker than it was. It should be reasonably possible to sell it as a destination, rather than just assume people will want to stay aboard.

 

It's not as if you could do the rail walk to Grosmont. It a fair pull back up the hill to do it the other way.

 

Whilst I don’t think the businesses of Grosmont have any come back at the railway for negligence I do agree with the villagers who are frustrated by a lack of comminication. They do put up with a lot of inconvenience caused by the railway and they do in turn benefit from the visitors but it must be a worry to those who rely on this trade. The railway also needs to realise that it relies on the guest houses and hotels that bring in people who visit the moors and as part of that stay do travel on the railway. It’s a symbiotic relationship. If listed building or any form of planning consent is required anyone can object and it’s up to the railway to build relationships and garner support. The village will be inconvenienced by construction traffic and could benefit from workers staying there and spending there but there needs to be some communication. According to a lady in the shop the parish council has power in the planning process and they have not been involved yet and they are getting complaints from villagers about a lack of communication. I for one may not visit this year if the offering is limited and not value for money (no sign of fares or timetable yet) and the people who need the trade must be worried that a lot of people will be the same as me. In order to be able to enjoy our hobby we need everyone on side and a village that turns against a railway could make that railway more difficult to run. I know others will disagree but we are a sector in trouble and we need all of the support we can get.

 

The Parish Council has very limited power.

Your right though that maintaining local good will is very important. However, we are talking about a railway that doesn’t seem to want to communicate with its own volunteers and members most of the time, expecting them to think about any form of dialogue with the locals is probably wishful thinking.

They seem to have a bunker mentality and not to realise that people would appreciate even a simple update even if it was “still no news, but we are getting quotes and trying to figure out what to do”. This is not an organisation that is well set up to face this kind of emergency either from a financial or any other perspective.

 

I don't know the present situation of the Goathland water columns, though I have personally used the one in the Down platform about 15 years ago and recall at that time it was necessary to turn on a valve under some boards just outside the water tank building first - until quite recently a large 'T' shaped key hung on the outside of the building for that purpose. As far as I know there's no treatment available there, even if water is available at all. If an element of top-and-tailing is involved, even if it's only for the Goathland-Levisham section, then all locos (except perhaps very small tank locos) would be able to manage Pickering - Goathland - Pickering on a single tank. Even without top-and-tailing, I think all current NYMR locos would be ok.

Treated water is available at Pickering, in both platforms. The 'bag' on the Platform 1 column was very leaky at one point, I can't remember if it has been replaced yet, but the column was just about usable in any case, the fireman just got a bit wet!

 

A lack of communication from the NYMR? Say it ain't so.

Exactly.

Noel

 

Although Parish Councils are statutory consultees for planning applications and the planning authority will need to give at least some consideration to their views.

 

I assume this may need planning approval unless covered by a railway exemption.
And from a quick look on their website, a few issues there as well.

"Temporary delay in responding
We have recently changed our planning system. As a result of the impacts of this we are currently working through a validation backlog. This means applications are taking approximately five weeks from receipt to be validated. This is also impacting on our ability to respond to permitted development and other general enquiries.

We apologise for any inconvenience and thank you for your patience while we work through this change."

 

I don't really understand why you'd need planning permission to do maintenance on a bridge unless you were going to alter it permanently. Most of the network rail disputes on bridges are because they are altering it eg to accommodate electrification.

 

You might need planning permission to put a structure in the river (propping the bridge), and you would certainly need some approval from the the EA to put something in the water. Beyond that there is the question of listed building consent, which might be required and uses the planning system and is managed by the planning authority?

 

What has happened so far? Is the bridge scaffolded and the track removed? Until you do that your not going to come up with a repair proposal. I'm not sure that you can successfully prop up what looks like a stone arch bridge. You certainly wouldn't want to jack up a stone bridge I'd have thought.

 

The bridge is a Grade 2 listed structure.

 

If it's a like for like repair that doesn't need listed structure permission as I understand it. It would be normal to discuss it with the planning authority but this would be with the authorities officers on a technical basis and wouldn't involve a parish council. Maybe it's different in a national park, I don't know.

 

Putting your temporary works up before you've any idea what your permanent design is would be a novel approach... Might not even need to remove the track depending on what the issue is and what the design repair scheme is.
You can certainly prop masonry arch bridges, although you do have to be a bit careful how you do it, and I wouldn't want it to be anything other than a rather short term solution.

 

If the businesses of Grosmont are suffering because of a loss of footfall. Rather than a negligence claim, it might be better to use this argument as a way of maybe getting any permissions required hurried through for the benefit of the railway AND local businesses. Assuming of course than permission is neccessary, whether planning, or technical consultancy due to its Grade II listed status. I'm not sure, because this is not my area of expertise.

Could the railway have been more proactive about getting this fixed before it became a problem, it does sound like it. Is moaning about that now going to fix it? No.

 

I see last weeks appeal email still made no mention of likely costs, but mentioned "restoration costs" are at their highest.
I would have thought some sort of ROM (or WAG as we renamed it at work = Wild Arsed Guess) would at least give potential donators some idea. I get there is a balance between drumming up donations and putting folks off, but personally" we do not yet have full costs, but it is expected to be at least £x" gives folks some idea of the scale of the task, and a little more explanation around restoration costs (material costs, skills shortage or just pure difficulty of the site or task) may make folks more inclined to get out their cards.

 

They are not the best communicators.

 

There are a few railways that the NYMR could learn a lot from about communication and running appeals. Its unfortunate that the current CEO (with her past life in marketing) and the wider NYMR team that seem to spend so much time running different adverts across multiple platforms are the ones that really need to realise they need to learn how to communicate with different people. They really need to remember that the adverts they run pull in one time visitors, but its members and people more heavily into preservation that tend to give to appeals. They seem to spend a lot of time pulling visitors in but very little time at all thinking about how to get member buy in. A lot more information and a lot earlier would be my direct thoughts. Why wasn't there any mention in the steam gala book for example. They knew before then work was going to be required.

As others have said, it doesn't all have to be 100% accurate, but at least be honest that you have a problem and you know its going to cost anywhere from x to x. Tell us the options that are still on the table and what you are doing to narrow it down. They could be using the youtube channel to show surveys going on (eg GCR) and what the ideas are. Even just tell us the different parties that need consulting would be something. Too much information is better than none when you are trying to prise money out of people. Giving money to people is as much about having confidence in that person/team/company/charity as it is about the particular job or appeal. The SVR and the GCR have done lots or work to earn confidence in recent times, the first in a crisis and the latter in a more long running prospect. The NYMR seems to be at the other end of the spectrum

On a sidenote I also notice they are still taking Dining bookings for March departing from Grosmont. They are either a lot more confident than I am about that bridge being open by then, or despite all the employees and the fact its close season, they couldn't find someone to keep the website up to date. Assuming the bridge does remain closed that's a fair few emails and phone calls to customers that will be required to inform all those people that the departure point will be Pickering. There's nothing like creating a lot more work for yourselves when a simple update to the website could have been done a lot earlier.