North Yorkshire Moors Railway General Discussion

Perhaps the lack of information about when Bridge 42 is going to be repaired is because they haven't yet found a suitable contractor to carry out the work. We dont want a repeat of the Bridge 24/25 renewal debacle all over again. For those who don't know 24/25 were the two bridges immediately south of Goathland which were replaced in 2022. Now subject to a permanent 5mph speed restriction both bridges are out of alignment and we are stuck with them like that as the contractor has since gone bust.

The last thing we need is a botched solution to the Bridge 42 issue. Give management time to find the best fix for this and don't pressure them into panic solutions. I would rather see a Pickering - Goathland service for the duration of 2026 and the right permanent solution to 42 found, however long that takes. A rushed job is, I feel, likely to end in tears sooner rather than later.

Peter

 

Did the previous GM/CEO leave the railway in a damned mess?

 

I have zero direct information but from what I can gather reading around. It would seem he could see the writing on the wall and got out before it came back at him. It is also possible in fairness that as an ex RAF person, he moved to running a tank museum as it was closer to his military interests / knowledge.

If you watch the documentary that aired post-covid they did a whole episode on replacing a bridge, so it's not like he wasn't on top of keeping infrastructure in good condition. It was pre-planned work that was handled in the off season.

A lot of that documentary also centred around the fact that the railway needs to generate 7 million pounds a year to run. That's not a small number, and it's probably higher now.

Covid, Brexit, the subsequent high inflation and cost of living crisis. Also in part the war in Ukraine means there is a lot less disposable income around. That disposable income is what keeps heritage railways running.

It is also telling, in my opinion, that they gave the current CEO the job, as opposed to getting someone with more experience in. I can see why they would let her be interim CEO when he left though.

I want to see the railway thrive, however a lot of the things I have seen and heard regarding the way the railway is currently run raises some eyebrows.

But without further information it is difficult to apportion blame. Equally I would much rather see the problems solved than blame people for not solving them.

 

Another question to ask would be, what is the state of the other 41 bridges?

 

I’d have said there’s more risk of being accused of misrepresentation for selling something that they know can’t be delivered.

 

Costs & timescales were mentioned on a radio appeal I heard yesterday morning. It said £800,000 was required for the bridge to be ready at Easter.

It did actually refer to a bridge 'near Goathland', but I presume it's the same one!

 

Absolutely, the railway needs to get the job done properly, but that does not stop them communicating properly as suggested by @cksteam in post 9280

 

It may be that the previous GM had become worn down by the demands of running the railway, but I believe there were domestic factors involved, too, that were perhaps more powerful. If it was the pressure of running the railway that got him down, then appointing a deputy with no virtually no managerial experience at a high level just shows how poor the selection committee's thinking was, but of course there may have been other unrelated thinking behind it. I suspect there was!

 

Of course you have to have people who actually want to undertake the role to have a worthwhile recruitment process. Even some of the more profitable lines seem to have a revolving door policy forced upon them when it comes to the top team.

 

Of course you have to have people who actually want to undertake the role to have a worthwhile recruitment process. Even some of the more profitable lines seem to have a revolving door policy forced upon them when it comes to the top team.
I would regard running a Heritage Line as on a par with becoming a headmaster at a failing school. Why would you want to do it?

 

I have been following the thread since the bridge 42 crisis became public and have done a little digging. This is what I have found -
There was a plan in place to sort the bridge next year in closed season. There is a report to say the bridge is fit. A contractor with a lot of rail bridge experience has queried why the line is closed. A group of current and former staff who are qualified examiners have examined the bridge and the report and deemed the bridge as fit for traffic.

The new civils man who is not a qualified civil engineer nor has any experience of this level of work has condemned the bridge in December then gone to Spain and still hasn’t returned to the railway but is working on this remotely.

The design work has been given out without any tendering process to a company linked to the new civils director and never previously used by the NYMR.

The contractors who had attended previous to the new civils man coming in had given prices between 259k and 380k for repair work.
The new civils man has estimated that the repair will actually be around 800k.

It is not possible to prop the bridge without major in river work and a cost of nearly 300k but this has not stopped the new civils man taking a month to explore this option.

It is the end of January with a proposed opening date of late March and the design has not yet been agreed nor the option to prop or repair.

The total lack of communication is probably down to a total lack of understanding rather than a deliberate attempt to hide the facts.

Nobody seems worried.

 

Having done the job myself for a couple of years and having also run other businesses and now running a hard tech startup company:

- Heritage railways are the most complex businesses. They are engineering, civil engineering, regulated transport, shop and catering. The breadth of knowledge needed is extraordinary

- You have to be in part an empresario or promoter/producer. You must constantly innovate the offering and make sure it is sold to the audience you want to attract

- You will manage a small business (turnover wise) but a large business people wise (500 to 1000 for bigger lines)

- You have to be a great communicator. You need to mix with donors, grant bodies, councils, MPs, local people, contractors and volunteers.

- IMHO it is a massive advantage if you have undertaken a few jobs done by the people under your charge. Having been a loco volunteer and a signalman, laid track and done loco maintenance was an enormous benefit when trying to sort through the myriad of conflicting advice and prioritising different jobs for the money

- You must be a very strong cash manager. Forget profit and loss these businesses thrive (or otherwise) on how they manage cashflow

- You must recognise that you cannot afford to have sufficient management (either in numbers or competence/experience) you will be covering for the shortcomings that result….as a result the team performance is way more important than individual performance

- You must not pay for someone to do something that you can get done for free

- You need to rely on your volunteers and use the creatively - you must be able to work out who gives you good advice…. There will be no shortage of opinions, respect all of them, but be prepared not to action all of them

- The interplay between the (usually two) boards can be uncomfortable.

- Also the tendency for volunteers especially to appeal direct to the board rather than through the management chain can be unhelpful.

- Boards tend to behave executively and get too involved in managing the business - a consequence often of not being able to afford to employ enough managers. This tends to confuse the proper management chain leading to managers getting second guessed or micromanaged by the board rather than the GM/CEO

- Emotionally it is exhausting. If you care about the line. If you don’t, you will fail. Getting any sense of balance is incredibly hard. One fellow GM reckoned that there wasn’t job couldn’t be done in less than 80hrs a week. I personally worked 110 hour weeks a few times.

- It isn’t well paid. I took a 30% pay cut to work on the railway. It made me one of the biggest donors based on foregone income. I won’t have been alone, and incidentally it’s true of many other grades in heritage railways too.

- As a lifestyle choice it can be a lot of fun. Working a lot outdoors, the variety of tasks,
The volunteers are generally fantastic.

It is a very challenging job. It is near impossible to be do, because no one can be good at all the different areas. Success depends on being good enough in enough areas, and having a strong supportive and understanding board(s)

 

Without knowing the engineering specification it is difficult to comment, but neither 259 or 380k seems a particularly high number to me.
The current appeal for embankment stabilisation at Harmans Cross on the Swanage Railway (currently ongoing) puts the cost at £180k, I would imagine a Grade II listed structure over a watercourse that the EA will have some input, to cost a lot more.
Still after 41 years in Procurement it would be far from the first time I have seen two totally differing specs being quoted (or ROM'd) on.

 

Clearly this is information from someone with more privileged information than most of us, and if nothing else it shows how dysfunctional the NYMR's management has become. In the case of civil engineering it rather suggests that no-one knows much about anything. It's a story that really merits further dissemination, so that people get to understand what a bunch of, probably well meaning but incompetetent, bunch of clowns are in charge and thrashing around in the dark. It's not true that no-one is worried, but the Bailey "reforms" have effectively shut everyone out from doing anything about it. Many of us are very, very worried!

 

That's pretty much how I understand the situation to be. The only thing that I would take issue with is your last sentence. A large number of volunteers and staff are worried and concerned for the railway they love and that concern was there long before the bridge 42 debacle came on the scene. I gave up volunteering in March 2024 citing my concerns at the way the railway was being run and saying that I would return when it changed for the better. I had hoped others would follow but people said that to do so would be to stop doing something that they enjoyed and they would carry on and hope for the better. Bridge 42 was actually well-known about some while ago. Last February (2025) I was told in an anonymous e-mail (but obviously from a member of staff) that there was a £500k relay, £120k on bridge 42, £80k on bridge 18 and £260k on S&C all planned by the civil engineering team for 24/25 which were all pulled to reduce the likely losses. You don't need a degree to realise that these are the very items that are now at the forefront of the current shambles.

 

If this is accurate, it is an appalling indictment of management failure and very possibly shows cause for regulatory intervention.

If it is not accurate, it is a dreadful indictment of the railway as an organisation that stories like this could get believed.

For the avoidance of doubt, I accept the corroboration that's been offered as suggesting that it probably is accurate, and believe that it is provided in absolute good faith

 

Why regulator intervention? There may not have been any impact to public safety which would be the main concern.

The situation though is familiar and common. Infrastructure is wearing out and few railways have kept pace well with the dilapidations.

 

I wasn't thinking ORR - I've no particular problem with the idea that a reasonable decision was made based on judgement, and then reality bit earlier than expected. So long as good judgment was being used at all times, that seems reasonable - and the closure decision if anything errs on the side of caution.

What I was thinking about was the Charity Commission - and trustees' legal duties to demonstrate that they've secured value for money. The governance geek in me is wincing at the suggested combination of circumstances in the context of a direct contract award; they don't obviously lend themselves to being able to demonstrate that the work done is value for money.

I say "very possibly" because I'm not sure which entity is involved, and therefore what the reach of the CC would be. However, if the plc is able to benefit from charity advantages (e.g. Gift Aid) because owned by the charity, I would expect a similar level of regulatory interest the other way round.

 

I can’t say that I’m surprised by any of these revelations, the member of staff I spoke to when I was last at Grosmont definitely had more to say on the subject but said as much as he could (probably too much) then said he couldn’t say any more or he would lose his job then walked away pretty sharpish.
I do wonder if the CC needs to get involved with this railway. It has clearly benefited from some large grants and donations (some of which were mine) and as a donor I am now very worried that money I have given is being wasted. I have always been concerned about the number of staff and some of the roles (digital content creator and all of the ‘heads of’ as some examples) but have also heard tales of understaffing in some departments and it’s is pretty obvious that some staff do more unpaid hours than a lot of volunteers so I have let this go. This is different. If this organisation is appointing friends of and can’t prove that they are getting value for money then this needs looking into. If it is true and problems have been ignored and heritage structures and buildings are not being maintained then this goes against the grain of HLF funded projects and shows that the railway (and its trustees) are failing in their charitable objectives. A charity that is losing a lot of money is reportable and there is clear evidence that this is a charity that is losing huge sums of money and I for one put this down to total mismanagement.
I hope there is someone out there who does go on forums like this who can tell us exactly what is wrong and what needs to change. We all have our opinions and a lot of them differ but it is clearly time for this railway to change direction and get back to where it used to be and if the only way for this to happen is for an external investigation / action then I think the time for this to happen is now.
The NYMR is too big and too good a railway to lose and to think of the blood, sweat and tears (and a lot of cash) of so many volunteers that is being squandered by incompetence makes me as angry as it makes me sad.