North Yorkshire Moors Railway General Discussion

Every day is a schoolday!

 

There seems some uncertainty as to what steam locos were available for traffic and therefore how much steam operation there might have been in the absence of fire risk; but anyway in some periods there was hardly any apart from Tornado. Insofar as the absence of steam operation was because of the fire risk, we have seen two arguments about the use of Tornado: that the higher-profile operation, and the associated loss of revenue if it were cancelled, justified a greater risk of starting a fire, or that it didn't.

Some risks are so trivial that they are mostly ignored. Some are serious enough that they are unacceptable without appropriate mitigations, so they need to be appropriately assessed and managed. Can we believe that the NYMR's management carried out that process for steam operation in general and, separately, for Tornado, arriving at different decisions? Was it, perhaps, feasible to adopt additional mitigations for Tornado (such as means for rapid deployment of fire-extinguishing equipment if required) that would have been impracticable the rest of the time? Was there a rigorous and fully documented risk management process?

Some railway managements are open and honest about such things. Others are not.

 

That's a very thought provoking posts and I welcome its approach of shooting the message not the messenger. It's not surprising that morale is low because the obvious scale of the challenge is so huge. There's an understandable desire to hark back to the way things used to be (particularly for the community at Grosmont) but I'm far from convinced that's the way forward. The market has changed and so have demographics and the financial/ regulatory environment. I suspect Kirk Oswald and I might agree that what is needed is not change so much as the capacity to adapt to such external changes . For organisations focussed on preserving the past that can be especially challenging. Although, like Kirk Oswald and others, I'm no longer directly involved I'm sure that what may be popular isn't necessarily right. Sometimes leadership involves taking decisions that may be deeply unpopular, even with a majority.
Where it seems we would disagree is his suggestion that the railway should prioritise families and the middle aged. Of course they should not be ignored, or taken for granted, but there's considerable market data to confirm that the greatest discretionary spending power is in the triple lock protected baby boomer generation of which I, and I suspect he, are part. (And before anyone points to the plight of those struggling on the state pension alone that's understood but overall the spare money tends to be with those with grey or silver hair). Targeting that cohort may be part of the adaptation required.

 

At the moment, I don't think the NYMR has the luxury of being able to target any particular group of passengers - it really needs to learn how to attract the maximum number of passengers, whatever their socioeconomic group. That is what the core service should do along with with special events to appeal to smaller subgroups. There is still room in the core service to add better returns via premium add-ons, but one group of customers (e.g. those with silver or grey hair, because life moves on those younger children will have grown up and their parent's hair will have gone grey (or fallen out!).

I suggest that at present the NYMR needs to work on improving the advertising and attractiveness of its core service, and increasing the number and variety of its special events. At the moment, it seems to me that there are too many aimed at very young children and not enough aimed at older ones. Of course, providing a reliable steam service would help!

 

My apologies for pulling this sentence out of a longer post, but I think it's absolutely at the heart of the current issues.

It's a truism hat leadership does sometimes require taking unpopular decisions. Like most truisms, it's also a half truth.

What that half truth doesn't admit is that for those decisions to be effective, the leaders have to have authority. Some of that authority is about position. But more of it, especially in a volunteer organisation, is about respect. If the respect goes, then so does the authority, like air out of a balloon.

Once that happens, the ability to enact difficult decisions is drastically undermined. The linkages that leaders rely upon are weakened, meaning that more and more energy needs to be expended to get any traction; a situation that often causes a doom loop.

It also follows that relatively small changes in the organisation can release significant energy as confidence transfers to the "new" people, possibly even to do the things that their predecessors were unable to do. We saw this in politics earlier this year, with Kier Starmer. And, like the Labour Party after Starmer's exit, significant energy remains to be released if the trust can just be rebuilt.

 

That's all very smooth but it does precisely nothing towards solving the problems. External changes there have been, but not fundamental ones since operations were extended to Whitby. The changes which have left us where we are have been almost entirely internal, more than that they are gaping wounds which are completely self inflicted by so-called management.

Leadership isn't just about taking decisions, What it should be about is taking responsibility and respecting the views of those who know rather more about heritage railway operations than those who come from totally different commercial companies. I'm not saying there is anything wrong with a businesslike approach but that isn't what we are saddled with. We don't follow a business plan, we follow a suicide note.

The point I made in reference to families and middle aged couples was categorically not to limit our appeal to those markets. I was praising the excellence of the video currently used on the railway webpage. It targets those two demographics and does so extremely well, but what has been routinely provided this summer is nothing like the video presents. Revenue has been so low we should encourage passengers from any and all market sectors and often when volunteering I would gladly have sold tickets to one-legged lion tamers, Martians or even followers of Class 37s. Nothing wrong in targeting the silver haired which is absolutely sensible but we then must provide what we advertise, not resort to diesel substitution to a generation because it's convenient and Lineisclear thinks it acceptable if they haven't paid a premium fare.

I absolutely condemn Lineisclear's dismissal of the effect on Grosmont, though here I must declare a personal bias because I have local connections outwith the railway. Grosmont isn't harking back to the way things used to be, unless he means just three or four years ago. Certainly it is strongly dependant on tourism but for Grosmont that essentially means the railway. There are no other significant attractions. Because the falling number of passengers impacts Grosmont in particular (as well as Pickering ang Goathland) local business's are struggling to survive. That isn't harking back to anything, it's endangering existing and current real jobs and the viability of local communities. If Co-Op, tea rooms, B and Bs plus two pubs don't have railway custom then Grosmont will become a souless dormitory. Are Pickering's business leaders looking to oust the CEO from Park Street all wrong in their judgement?

For me the current outlook has taken me beyong frustration, it is reaching downright anger. Lineisclear chooses to wander down any alley that diverts attention from the fundamentals. The Trustees (of whom he was the most prominent until recently) have let the PLC run away with policies so disasterous, so inept, so unthinking, so financially ruinous that to climb out of what he simply calls a "challenge" will be nigh on impossible.

What does he advocate? Carry on regardless and more of the same. A railway that used to belong to the Trust, to it's members, to its supporters now belongs to the bank.

 

I do find references to the impact on the businesses that are not part of the railway as a uniquely NYMR thing, at least on here.
I have never for example heard that the Bluebell should do x or y for the benefit of East Grinstead or my local line at Swanage should do the same for Swanage or Corfe Castle. For the latter there were a few vocals who claimed the line was not competing enough with local establishments on the catering front.
Grosmont may have been the end of the line once, but that is now Whitby, and from what has been said on here from both sides of this civil war is that is profitable.

As an aside my wife once described Grosmont as the place she hated most in the country.

 

I advocate a radical change which, as suggested, may not be universally popular so would need to be explained and justified as 35B suggests. However since I'm no longer in a postion to influence that choice it's academic.

The claim that the railway belongs to its members is an appealing one, and there's no doubt they "own" its heart and soul. However, actual ownership of the physical railway and its assets hasn't belonged to the members since it became a charity in 1973. Unlike shareholders in a limited company members of a charity limited by guarantee have no claim to its property or assets which are held for public benefit. Part of the change I advocate would be a change to a structure in which its supporters have a financial stake in the entity that owns and operates the railway.

 

What radical change?
The basic problem is for those that are worried about the future of the line is that there is nothing forthcoming from those in charge about how they are going to escape the current doom loop, other than carrying on as is in the hope something turns up.
No strategy has been announced for stakeholders to consider, nor has it been indicated that one is being drawn up. It is this void which is the cause of the fractiousness, not any disagreement with a plan.
*Shaking the magic money tree isn't a plan and even if successful won't solve the underlying problems that have led to these challenges.

Sawdust.

 

This isn't quite true though is it? Or not that relevant. "End" of the line is true on a technicality only. Grosmont is the operational hub. I don't know if your wife disliking it is a good enough case for the railway not having a responsibility to the community.

 

Pleased to hear you advocate a radical change, but you don't explain what that is. If you amplified maybe you would find it supported and possibly adopted, but keeping it under wraps isn't helpful. It is also far from academic. At this stage I think all positive suggestions should be welcomed especially as most of your previous posts have sought to play down any proposed change to current policies despite their damaging consequences.

When it comes to ownership you correctly interpret my meaning as being of the heart ansd soul persuasion. I wouldn't necessarily be against changing to supporters having a financial stake as you suggest, but there would need to be safeguards of the type that Trusteeship was supposed to offer but which the PLC have progressively overcome.

References to the basis of Limited liability companies and charities are of course correct, but again an issue not solving the debt and difficulties we are now in.

 

There is another way. 80135 was originally bought by the NYMR from Barry scrapyard, after 60044 of this parish started a fund to purchase for the railway. I'm not quite sure on which occasion it was that the railway was strapped for cash but the end result was they sold it to Jos de Crau, who not only kept it on the railway, he paid them to work on it. He then started buying other items, starting with the 3 ex Derwent Valley mk1s, then Pullmans and so and so on.
All those rolling assets sell them to people that will keep them on the railway through whatever means can be achieved

 

I might be wrong, but I think that is the sort of future that @jnc has been mooting.

It does presuppose that there is a meaningful amount of money available from supporters who have the best interests of the railway at heart, but who are currently sitting on their hands because of the direction the railway is currently taking. Whether that is true or not I don't know, but by "meaningful amount" I guess you are probably talking north of several million pounds available over a period of months, not years. And I suspect at lest some of those putative donors would want it linked to some kind of turnaround plan so that they were confident they were safeguarding the long-term future of the railway, rather than just injecting sufficient funds to keep the patient breathing for another couple of years.

Tom

 

You’re not wrong in anything you have said. I visited for the first time this year and the disenchantment with how the railway is being run increases the further away you get from Park Street. I didn’t get to Grosmont but I expect it would have become universal there. There are people who don’t post on her but do read it and I’ve been commended on what I post - ‘keep up the good work.’ It’s not just confined to volunteers, either, with many paid staff being of the same opinion. Even some on the PLC board are and I understand is the reason why the previous Chairman resigned earlier this year.
Change has to come and come quickly..

 

Erm.... aren't you advocating a modified version of the Plc, with greater ownership, and little accountability? I think you have already recounted earlier in the thread just ow little real power shareholders have over the directors of a company, and we are seeing that already. Not something I think I would vote with the present Plc directors and management in place, I feel!

 

Given my advice to the SVR and other heritage railways it will be no surprise that I recommend converting the PLC into a charitable community benefit society in which members really are stakeholders with a vote and with the opportunity for the wider community to invest.
So far as any responsibility to local communities is concerned it would be OK for the charity to use its funds for that purpose but only doing so is of demonstrable benefit to the charity. Without that it would be misuse of charitable funds.

 

I don't think either Grosmont or Pickering are looking for handouts or railway funding, just action to restore confidence and a resurgence in passenger numbers. If that could be achieved consequential benefit to local business would automatically follow.

 

In a normal limited company, PLC or otherwise, its Directors are under a duty to run it in the shareholders' best interest so they have more clout than members of a charity limited by guarantee which is run for public benefit. Shareholders in a charitable commnuity benefit society also have greater potential influence because its raison de etre is to serve the interests of the investing community they are part of. It's the closest you can get to the preservation society origins of many heritage railways while still retaining the benefits of incorporation.

 

As you'd expect given my views of governance at other railways, I think this is an excellent idea, and should be regarded as a high priority.

But. But.

All the modifications in the world will only equate to moving the deckchairs on the Titanic if the fundamental issues are left unaddressed. And in my view, informed by a range of posters on here including you, that has to include the question of leadership culture. None of the issues that have been discussed on this thread are insoluble under the existing structure; all are in significant part (at least) the consequence of choices at a leadership level - whether that be management, PLC Board, Trust Board or any permutation of these.

The Bluebell is undergoing such a change, but from a position of strength in which the leadership have realised that they have issues, corrected their course, and sought to engage their members - whether active or armchair.