North Yorkshire Moors Railway General Discussion

Do other Thomas events run for as long as eight days?
I can understand a weekend event of three days would concentrate custom nicely to fill the trains, but can it stretch to eight days?

Income per seat seems to be around £16.50 for a parent/child combination.

One morning departure to Whitby from Pickering with 200 passengers paying £48.50 (£9700) is equal to 587.8 Thomas passengers.

Will the hordes descend?

 

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Mid Hants dates (15 days in total across two events) although that has been well established for some years.
23 - 31 May & 4 - 9 August 2026

 

Thomas is an event that will utilise the whole of Pickering station and it is a closed space (see website for what’s going on.) If there were other trains running into Pickering it would effectively let people in to that event free of charge. I think other lines that put on Thomas events effectively use the whole railway for it, which isn’t really practical over 18 miles.
I can see the logic in doing the whole event on shorter lines where it would be possible for the loco to work throughout but that’s not realistic on the Moors where a round trip to Grosmont is going to be about three hours and Whitby is a non-starter for obvious reasons.

 

Thank Steve. I'm still struggling to believe its not possible though I do appreciate its definitely not easy to create total separation between the two different products. This feels like they have cut off their nose to spite their face. Its great they are trying something like this, but if its taking away the core market then it doesn't feel very sensible to run it that way.

My random thinking (if its successful and they want to try again)...

The KWVR did really well last year by making people use the train from Keighley in order to attend the Railway Children show at Oxenhope. The main car park at Oxenhope was shut off as was filled with various shipping containers that were dressed up into different catering stalls and gift shops. Initially I was a bit annoyed I couldn't park at Oxenhope which is the closer station to me, but it actually added to the experience. You got all the anticipation from others around you on the way in, and the excitement of the shared experience on the way out.

I wonder (assuming any relevant permissions could be sought) if there is a way to utilize that field at Levisham more, maybe with a big marquee. The NER Autocar or another short train becomes your shuttle so you have control of numbers. You can have Thomas running brake van trains in between other services. And you can still have your through trains for the regular customers. The obvious harder issue would be getting all the equipment in and out of the site but having seen Grosmont with the crane, and the heavy stuff in and out of Grosmont sheds (via Esk Valley) nothings impossible these days.

Whilst other Levisham passengers will no doubt see a little of whats going on they won't get the full package without tickets to the events area.

No doubt it wouldn't be easy to do but if you can physically run a festival pretty much anywhere these days (with permissions) then you must be able to run smaller scale events like this in that sort of space.

EDIT - apologies this pipedream may have got a bit carried away!

 

I think you could, but I’m not sure “Thomas” would be the right thing to do it for. Railway Children has the great advantage that the play is damn good, and doesn’t need a railway setting - I saw it with the kids in Keswick’s Theatre on the Lake 15 years ago and it worked brilliantly. Thomas is a bit more railway dependent…

 

Same again today.

 

As I understand it the licenses to hold Thomas Events are quite proscriptive especially with regards to child protection requirements. The NYMR may have only had the option of a one product site.

 

How much longer can the railway survive when the management haven't the sense to provide steam?

It's a preserved railway, not a self-serving, diesel infested milch cow to be drained dry by parasitic leeches. It isn't that against I'm paying people who earn their salaries but these PR prats need to be firmly shown the door and replaced by railway professionals..

Serious question time. Please can some person knowledgable about the NYMR legal structures actually tell us all how to get rid of this infestation once and for all and return the railway to it's supporters.

 

That is possibly true. And understandable to run it that way Bridge 42 were still closed. But if the bridge is open by then this event needs to be ultra successful to justify not running the Whitby through trains which must be 70%+ of general income at an estimate. If it isn't, which ticket sales so far raise the question of, then I can't see Thomas making a return again to this railway. Unless a better way of operating it is identified and authorized.

 

In answer to your question, "probably not" is the answer! It seems likely that most people on the Trust/Plc boards and SMT would be quaking in their "boots" (more likely to be of Gucci or Manolo Blahnik origin!)

 

I'd start with a competent and clued-in management team.

 

The answer is "with difficulty", because the Articles are written to make it difficult to campaign for Trustees, while the legal route through calling EGMs etc. is challenging (see previous discussions about NYMR, WSR and L&B for examples), takes time, and results can't be assured.

From outside, my observation is that there are a number of individuals who dislike the current management, but no organised grouping and no strategy to try to dislodge (and as an outsider, I'd not expect to know if such a group were forming). The deeply flawed articles were voted through by 90%+ of those who voted, which tells its own story about member interest in the political side of running a railway.

Two campaigns have shown signs of success, both equivocal. At the WSR, a number of people took a couple of years after some deeply wrong decisions to seize back control of the WSRA, following a highly organised campaign, which had a number of setbacks. At the L&B, frustration with the failure of projects led to some deep conflicts within the association, and what appear to be signs of green shoots of recovery and better relationships - but it's 2 years since I did a day trip from Lincolnshire to Lynton to attend an EGM, when things were at their worst.

I don't see those campaigns, and I've no idea whether NYMR has the time for such campaigns - or if there are the people around who could make them happen. They need to offer a positive vision too - it's all very well ditching the current lot, but there has to be something positive to put in their place.

The high risk alternative might be to allow the current plc and Trust to collapse, and hope to do a phoenix style resurrection as Llangollen appears to be achieving. But that's high risk, and comes at a very high cost, so is probably one to avoid.

 

The first thing to do is build a consensus. Frankly, the tone of your posts on here are probably the single biggest seing factor for the current board. A continuous stream of frankly aggresssive personal attacks do not inspire confidence.

 

Very valid points and unless there is an organised group with a workable alternative plan going forward, that is far more detailed than just reintroduce what we did in the past and run more steam, then it will be doomed to failure.
I suspect the "nuclear option" of letting it all collapse and have some miraculous phoenix like rebirth is a non starter on a line of this length with all its infrastructure issues before you get to the issue of running over those few miles of NR track. Where would all the money come from, cannot see the banks being very keen. Would the TOC die with the collapse? (I suspect so) which means as much as a few individuals do not like it, the Jewel in the Crown (Whitby) disappears at least for a few years or you end up with a Highly expensive Wareham solution of a third party TOC.