If you register, you can do a lot more. And become an active part of our growing community. You'll have access to hidden forums, and enjoy the ability of replying and starting conversations.

North Yorkshire Moors Railway General Discussion

Discussion in 'Heritage Railways & Centres in the UK' started by The Black Hat, Feb 13, 2011.

  1. Cuckoo Line

    Cuckoo Line Member

    Joined:
    Aug 29, 2020
    Messages:
    358
    Likes Received:
    369
    Gender:
    Male
    Location:
    South West
    Heritage Railway Volunteer:
    No I do not currently volunteer
    Surely if paid staff don't want to come in at weekends you might as well give up opening and running trains at weekends, don't you need some mpd etc staff there to cover breakdowns, emergencies etc ?
     
  2. Steve

    Steve Resident of Nat Pres Friend

    Joined:
    Oct 7, 2006
    Messages:
    12,467
    Likes Received:
    11,201
    Occupation:
    Gentleman of leisure, nowadays
    Location:
    Near Leeds
    Heritage Railway Volunteer:
    Yes I am an active volunteer
    Jim, who I know of but don't know, has mentioned many of the concerns of volunteers. What is concerning is that the Trust board and others in control simply won't listen to these concerns. Jim has mentioned the debacle of the house magazine, Moors Line. Without any real warning, a re-vamped version of the magazine landed on peoples doormats at the end of 2023. Gone was the editor of many years, the well-known railway photographer John Hunt, to be replaced by a Communications Strategy Group consisting mainly of Board members from the Trust and PLC. It was met with horror by many with over 400 posts on Facebook, the vast majority condemning it. Strangely, all these posts were on non-NYMR Facebook sites, those on the NYMR controlled Staff & Volunteers site were all positive (all 8 of them). It would be churlish of me to think that there was some degree of censorship at play just because my negative post never appeared. The prime complaint was that it was no longer a house magazine but primarily a brochure extolling the virtues of the railway as a charity with the vast majority of it simply concerned with people Indeed, the first page after the contents simply said 'Heritage Powered by People.' In response to the outburst The Trust chairman told us that it was primarily to provide a sales brochure to give to our stakeholders, such as the HLF and needed to reflect what was considered to be important to them. Being a members magazine was of secondary importance and, despite the uproar it was not going to change. I endeavoured to talk about this and my other concerns to two board members who I knew and who knew me to be met by 'Don't go there' and 'I'm not allowed to talk about it.' Even with that silence, I got the impression that they weren't happy chappies.
     
    Hirn, MellishR, std tank and 3 others like this.
  3. Lineisclear

    Lineisclear Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    May 24, 2020
    Messages:
    1,023
    Likes Received:
    1,299
    Gender:
    Male
    Location:
    Worcestershire
    Heritage Railway Volunteer:
    Yes I am an active volunteer
    I should have said new ways of generating a surplus. The reference to income was sloppy. For instance I know it’s not accepted by some but after taking all the costs involved into weddings were generating income but not a worthwhile surplus. I don’t accept that new ways of generating a surplus are just variations on a theme. They almost certainly need to be the opposite. Simon Smith’s post is spot on. The underlying truth is that if heritage railways are just heritage railways they are no longer sustainable. That’s not just true of the NYMR but a number of others especially the larger ones. For instance the SVR’s survival appeal was aptly named. Its continuation was seriously in doubt. It’s in the process of a successful turn around because it’s been able to find new sources of profitable activity that don’t involve traditional heritage railway operation with or without volunteers.
    As to ensuring volunteer opportunities a key factor ( on which I’m sure we agree) is that volunteering should be enjoyable. As a volunteer signalman I know long gaps of up to three hours with nothing to do are pretty discouraging. However it’s long been apparent that optimum financial model for the NYMR is just two trains a day to Whitby. Three hour gaps would be unavoidable. That’s where the cut costs option hits the buffers. Take it to its logical conclusion and volunteering opportunities suffer. The argument that MPD staff should be paid to come in to supervise weekend volunteers is superficially attractive. They might/have to be paid extra to work anti social hours and of course they would not be in during the week to a corresponding amount. Where they need to work as part of a team that may be less efficient. It’s not as simple as is being suggested!
     
  4. 35B

    35B Nat Pres stalwart

    Joined:
    Jun 18, 2011
    Messages:
    28,099
    Likes Received:
    27,646
    Gender:
    Male
    Location:
    Grantham
    Heritage Railway Volunteer:
    No I do not currently volunteer
    I am well aware that there are unlikely to be simple answers. What concerns me is that the answers coming are consistently in one direction, and dig deeper into a turn that is undermining the value of a key asset - those who will pay to work.

    But the simplicity isn't just in the answers - it's also in the analysis. You raise the suggestion that the optimum financial model would involve 2 trains per day to Whitby - presumably 1 loco and stock making 2 round trips. I can see how that is superficially attractive to cover direct movement costs, and channel demand whence the highest prices can be levied (though I'm not sure that NYMR really ought to be following TicketMaster's pricing strategies!). In doing so, it focuses the fixed costs on a very narrow demand base, and also junks significant additional income and demand. That in turn removes a significant degree of word of mouth promotion, while reducing the flow of potential members and recruits. As Dr Beeching's successors found, such rationalisation frequently locks in poor economics for railways. As for the volunteers - why is a manned box at Levisham even required; it wouldn't be elsewhere?

    Instead, in a successful business, I'd be expecting to see a growth mindset, focusing on how to boost business around the margins. Some of it might be selling services at a premium*, but a lot of it would be persuading additional travellers to use surplus capacity. It's that sense that doesn't come across. It's easy to deride marketing led businesses, but I increasingly think they're onto something - by focusing on what they've got, they create a buzz. When my kids were small, kids activities were put on in the summer, one day a week. We paid a small amount on top of the round trip to travel on off peak trains, took responsibility for the kids' well being, and they were well entertained.

    * - I remain to be convinced about NYMR's real ability to generate the premiums. In the past, there have been discussions about reserving seats - but kyboshed because staff & volunteers aren't willing to do the work to ensure the reservations are available. The weddings may not have generated a "worthwhile" surplus, but in a loss making business, I'd question why any profitable activity can be junked. And if that premium service isn't viable, why are any others requiring up front investment to deliver higher prices per seat going to be?
     
    Hirn and Paul42 like this.
  5. 60044

    60044 Member

    Joined:
    Feb 24, 2016
    Messages:
    599
    Likes Received:
    952
    Gender:
    Male
    Location:
    Salisbury
    Heritage Railway Volunteer:
    Yes I am an active volunteer
    I don't have a problem with new ways of generating revenue, where I have a problem is that there don't seem to be anything new being introduced! Gift aid seems to be the only one, and if the reported results are true the corresponding increase in fares seems to have put more people of travelling, if anything. Abandoning weddings is old news, but suggests that whoever was responsible for pricing them didn't have much clue. Cancelling existing events is not about generating new revenue, that should have been dealt with by revamping the event to deal with the more troublesome elements. As to paid staff being asked to come in at weekends, I'm afraid that you (and, to be fair, the rest of the senior management team it would seem) are clearly demonstrating a lack of understanding and appreciation of the difference between a charitable organisation and a commercial one. In a charitable organisation that is, to be frank going downhill fast, it needs to be made clear that there needs to be an expectation of the fast going over and above their contracted hours to help encourage volunteering. Perhaps an annual staff appraisal system that takes account of that would not come amiss! (Though I now expect a prompt report o "it would be illegal!")
     
  6. jimbrettell

    jimbrettell New Member

    Joined:
    Mar 25, 2015
    Messages:
    18
    Likes Received:
    111
    Gender:
    Male
    Heritage Railway Volunteer:
    No I do not currently volunteer
    "what strikes me most is not the paean against managerialism, but the loss of soul." Exactly!
     
  7. 35B

    35B Nat Pres stalwart

    Joined:
    Jun 18, 2011
    Messages:
    28,099
    Likes Received:
    27,646
    Gender:
    Male
    Location:
    Grantham
    Heritage Railway Volunteer:
    No I do not currently volunteer
    I'll save @Lineisclear the bother - at lower wage levels, that could very easily become illegal.

    More to the point, and from experience with a payroll for a charity, the expectation of going over and above rapidly becomes oppressive and a source of conflict. If someone is hired for a 35 hour week, then it is reasonable for them to expect to work 35 hours. On the other hand it's possible to write and recruit for roles where the job description explicitly includes weekend working and encouragement of volunteers. My hunch is that NYMR missed that trick a very long time ago, and that a Mon-Fri 9-5 culture was allowed to develop that would now be hard to shift.
     
    Spitfire, ghost, Paul42 and 2 others like this.
  8. std tank

    std tank Part of the furniture

    Joined:
    Sep 20, 2005
    Messages:
    3,904
    Likes Received:
    1,032
    Gender:
    Male
    Occupation:
    Retired
    Location:
    Liverpool
    Heritage Railway Volunteer:
    Yes I am an active volunteer
    The first thing that the SVR did was to reduce the wage bill.
     
  9. Sidmouth4me

    Sidmouth4me Member

    Joined:
    May 26, 2011
    Messages:
    234
    Likes Received:
    341
    Gender:
    Male
    Occupation:
    Retired
    Location:
    Malton
    Heritage Railway Volunteer:
    Yes I am an active volunteer
    Re “Gift aid seems to be the only one, and if the reported results are true the corresponding increase in fares seems to have put more people of travelling, if anything.“
    As I understand it the full line day ticket / rover would have been £49.50 whether or not the 12 month annual pass (with or without gift aid) had been introduced: The complementary annual pass has only been offered so that the NYMR can recover gift aid on the £49.50 fare as per HMRC rules . However, I would accept there has been expectation from some that the a full line ticket should have been offered at less than £49.50 for those unable to visit again within 12 months and thus make use of the annual pass, not realising that the ticket price would have been £49.50 in any event with or without the annual pass being offered.
     
  10. Lineisclear

    Lineisclear Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    May 24, 2020
    Messages:
    1,023
    Likes Received:
    1,299
    Gender:
    Male
    Location:
    Worcestershire
    Heritage Railway Volunteer:
    Yes I am an active volunteer
    Indeed, but on its own it was nowhere near enough.
     
  11. Lineisclear

    Lineisclear Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    May 24, 2020
    Messages:
    1,023
    Likes Received:
    1,299
    Gender:
    Male
    Location:
    Worcestershire
    Heritage Railway Volunteer:
    Yes I am an active volunteer
    Or another way of looking at it.......without Gift Aid the one journey All Line far would need to be well in excess of £50.
     
  12. jimbrettell

    jimbrettell New Member

    Joined:
    Mar 25, 2015
    Messages:
    18
    Likes Received:
    111
    Gender:
    Male
    Heritage Railway Volunteer:
    No I do not currently volunteer
    Completely dismissive and entirely as expected!
     
  13. Jamessquared

    Jamessquared Nat Pres stalwart

    Joined:
    Mar 8, 2008
    Messages:
    27,351
    Likes Received:
    62,438
    Location:
    LBSC 215
    Heritage Railway Volunteer:
    Yes I am an active volunteer
    I think the issue is less over any discrepancy between gift aid or not gift aid prices, but in the absolute magnitude of the fare.

    Comparisons are always a bit invidious, but for example, a “freedom of the line” ticket on the Severn Valley is, when booked in advance, only £25 - half what the NYMR is charging. If you consider it from a parent’s point of view, a visit to either is going to fit in the “whole day out” bracket - but the NYMR is considerably more expensive.

    The SVR price does look good value to me, especially for an individual passenger, but with that comparison, the NYMR ticket looks pretty expensive. You can’t keep putting fares up before the additional price deters people faster than the additional revenue covers.

    Tom
     
    ghost, Paul42, 35B and 2 others like this.
  14. MellishR

    MellishR Resident of Nat Pres Friend

    Joined:
    Apr 16, 2009
    Messages:
    8,766
    Likes Received:
    5,744
    That seems paradoxical.

    Quite.
     
    ghost likes this.
  15. 60044

    60044 Member

    Joined:
    Feb 24, 2016
    Messages:
    599
    Likes Received:
    952
    Gender:
    Male
    Location:
    Salisbury
    Heritage Railway Volunteer:
    Yes I am an active volunteer
    .....and there's the root of the problem! The NYMR ist too expensive to operate. If it had no paid staff and could operate something akin to the present service it would be viable. The solution, therefore has to be to find a happy medium. By and large, aiui, most services are operated using voluteer train crews, and perhaps mostly signalmen.It should be the aim to reducethe paid operating staff to the absolute minimum to cover emergencies, reduce the Mk1 fleet to the absolute minimum to limit the maintence staff there, and encourage any interested volunteers to take on more. the LNER coaches should be embraced as being owner-maintained stock. The same principleul b applied to the mpd, S7t and pway departments, and also of course to the offices and commercial staff. The nymr does hold annuacruitm days,t in the past the Lnerca has been a big beneficiary of those, gainng volunteers who felt they were being "shoehorned" by the NYMR intno roles hatsuited the railway, but not the individuals. In the end, it all comes down to people management, and on the Nymr that seems to be uniformly atrocious.
     
  16. Steve

    Steve Resident of Nat Pres Friend

    Joined:
    Oct 7, 2006
    Messages:
    12,467
    Likes Received:
    11,201
    Occupation:
    Gentleman of leisure, nowadays
    Location:
    Near Leeds
    Heritage Railway Volunteer:
    Yes I am an active volunteer
    You keep saying that it's long been apparent that the optimum financial model is just two trains/day to Whitby. I really would like to see that model as, I suspect, would many others. A lot of overheads would remain unchanged, especially those needed to maintain the infrastructure, and I doubt that the reduction in operational costs would be less than the reduction in fares income from running less trains.
    I think that your ideas on people working as part of a team must be different from my ideas of working as part of a team. In my world the team is the whole department working for the whole good and not simply everyone coming in together, as if it was a football match. Most jobs in engineering of the type undertaken by the MPD are done either in ones or twos, not as a swarm. A fitter and a mate was almost universal in both the rail industry and elsewhere in engineering. At the end of the day, running the railway is a seven day business and needs to be staffed appropriately. Ever thought about four day week with either three or four days off? Most people seem to like these once they adjust to them.
     
    Paul42 and 35B like this.
  17. Kje7812

    Kje7812 Part of the furniture

    Joined:
    Nov 25, 2010
    Messages:
    2,795
    Likes Received:
    1,149
    Location:
    Kidderminster/ York
    Heritage Railway Volunteer:
    Yes I am an active volunteer
    And people still complain that the SVR prices are too high...
    (Of course a degree of 'horses for courses' applies)
     
  18. Jamessquared

    Jamessquared Nat Pres stalwart

    Joined:
    Mar 8, 2008
    Messages:
    27,351
    Likes Received:
    62,438
    Location:
    LBSC 215
    Heritage Railway Volunteer:
    Yes I am an active volunteer
    I must admit I'm finding there's a will-o-the-wisp character to @Lineisclear arguments - whenever you start to think you understand where he is coming from, the goalposts change! You could see that in the discussion about a Nominations Committee. The rationale was supposedly the requirement to ensure that board members had appropriate technical skills to discharge their role - yet when examples came forth of things that might disqualify a candidate, they were about characteristics such as discretion or safeguarding. While those may be important, they are of a different class to technical qualifications. So a process designed to ensure one thing (technical competence) is being justified by how it is used to ensure something else altogether (character).

    The discussion on weekend working and volunteering has a similar character. Leaving aside the fact that I am surprised the NYMR, being a 7-day operation, doesn't require 7-day coverage of shed fitters &c, there is a more substantive point. A rationale put forward for preferring paid staff over volunteers is that paid staff can be expected to work at a given time and place, which volunteers can't. And yet - that "expected time and place" seemingly doesn't include weekends! "They might/have to be paid extra to work anti social hours". So which is it - paid staff are necessary because it is the only way to guarantee the service can run when needed, weekends included - or paid staff are too expensive to employ at weekends?

    The whole argument just feels like trying to grasp a cloud: every time you close your arms on the answer, the justifications change.

    Tom
     
    Andy2857, Hirn, 21B and 12 others like this.
  19. 35B

    35B Nat Pres stalwart

    Joined:
    Jun 18, 2011
    Messages:
    28,099
    Likes Received:
    27,646
    Gender:
    Male
    Location:
    Grantham
    Heritage Railway Volunteer:
    No I do not currently volunteer
    That assertion begs an awful lot of questions. Off the top of my head:
    1. If the railway is loss making already, is the fare already too low?
    2. How much income is required to cover the costs of running the railway?
    3. How many passengers are required to generate that level of income require?
    4. What is the price elasticity of demand for NYMR travel?
    5. How much unused capacity is there on NYMR?
    6. What are the real fixed costs of NYMR?
    7. What are the true variable costs associated with running trains?

    Get those and you might just be able to work out what the necessary price per journey would look like at varying levels of demand, and therefore how you might cost and price the railway. I'm sure a lot of that work has been done, but what @Jamessquared describes as "a will-o-t-the-wisp character" applies to the numbers, where the price is somehow both loss-making and "right".

    The further we go round this loop, the more strongly I feel that the financial and commercial models for NYMR are broken and need to be fundamentally re-examined.

    As an aside, I'm with @Jamessquared in thinking that £49/head for a full line return is expensive, even if children then go free. In fact, that price deterred Mrs 35B from a day out to Whitby in the autumn, as it would have required paying for 3 adults. 80 miles drive each way, plus train, would have broken tolerances.
     
    alexl102, Hirn and ghost like this.
  20. Gladiator 5076

    Gladiator 5076 Resident of Nat Pres

    Joined:
    Oct 2, 2015
    Messages:
    7,586
    Likes Received:
    6,328
    Gender:
    Male
    Location:
    Swanage
    Heritage Railway Volunteer:
    No I do not currently volunteer
    Seems to be there is a very big railway in this country that almost has a similar issue.:confused:
     
    30567 likes this.

Share This Page