NORTH YORKSHIRE MOORS
We cannot continue to allow blind optimism and endless expansion to dictate how we run preserved railways, argues North Yorkshire Moors Railway general manager CHRIS PRICE.
Why railways must change to survive
We are changing, but do we want to? A vague question to ask, I hear you say, but nobody can miss the financial headlines from the preserved railway world at the moment. Seemingly high-profile and secure railways are posting financial results that are not pretty reading, and a few general managers are leaving posts as well!
While I am sure this is not indicative that these railways are imminently about to fail, it does beg the question, why?
When I took over at the North Yorkshire Moors Railway, I was confronted by the phrase (not by my predecessor, I wish to point out) “we are here to preserve a railway, not a bank account” which I found compelling but at the same time slightly worrying. It is true that the steam railway world has been built on preservation, and you will never find me questioning the value of that.
However, as costs such as coal, insurance (the second biggest
service bill after coal here), fuel, oil and so on have risen, and projects have become more ambitious, we have found ourselves needing ever greater funds just to keep the wheels turning. Add to this the extra resources (such as staff) required to dance through the ever-increasing complexity of legislation, and we quickly find our railways are now not quite as sustainable as they once were.
GROWING PAINS
Most railways have ambitions to grow (and yes, you can always write that business case), but we must also be careful and keep our eye on the finances to make sure that we can maintain the potential financial monster we are creating. If you have a railway that’s comfortable in its skin and sustainable, do you really need to be longer and have more locomotives? Shouldn’t we consolidate and just get better at what we do? Have we been guilty of steadfastly sticking to the preservation ethos just a little too much? In short, be careful what you wish for.
By simply asking the question above, I’m aware that there will be more than a few people wondering where they can get voodoo dolls in my image.
However, I am not about to launch into an anti-preservation rant. I do, however, ask: is that now the required focus, and are we struggling with the change?.
In the beginning, it was right to preserve, and had we not done so, we would not have the great movement we have now.
However, all movements will someday be forced to consolidate and re-evaluate to make sure their future is sustainable. Is what we are seeing, on a few railways, the effect of not wanting to address that? This then forces the question: is the governance fit for purpose?
Railways that have their heads stuck in the past, still purely preserving and growing without considering the implications, will do so until the changes required are extreme and painful. I would suggest that is possibly what we are seeing now.
I would also venture that the railways that are seriously asking “could it be us next?” are the sensible ones.
I truly believe that now is the time to double-check our preservation and expansion plans; it’s time to consider whether consolidation is the more sensible option. If we don’t, I fear the headlines will continue and the heads will continue to roll. Lovely new carriage shed – but what a shame we can’t pay the wage bill!
Of course, I could be wrong and I will probably be branded a doom merchant. People will say: ‘it’s easy for him, he works at the ‘Moors’ that has loads of passengers and they have been given a massive lottery grant’. But it hasn’t been plain sailing here either. We have had to consolidate and cut our cloth, but it has been a close-run thing.
We are in reasonably good financial health, but it hasn’t
happened by accident. We do have boards that have a reasonably pragmatic view of the railway and they have shown they can make the difficult and sometimes unpopular decisions to keep the railway safe. We have a tightly controlled budget to which we largely adhere, and we do not have a complacent attitude of ‘it will be alright’. We have to be a dynamic business as well as a preserved railway, and that is often a painful reality for some.
As an enthusiast, I will always be envious of the railway with the engine I so dearly wish could be in our fleet, but as a businessman I am looking harder at what lies behind the veneer. Yes, we are largely not-for-profit organisations and, indeed, if we do turn a surplus (which it’s nice to say we do at the NYMR), then it is right that it is ploughed back into the operation.
But when railways are underinvesting in the infrastructure to keep the cash flow in control, then quite simply they are mortgaging the railway.
Yet, they are trying to continue to expand in the process when they should be maintaining; it’s just the same issue.
THE ‘M’ WORD
The locomotives, carriages, stations and track are what we are about and the reason you have bought this magazine. Behind that is a whole business working on the mundane and necessary to keep it going. Steam locomotives don’t run on coal, they run on money. And if you don’t have the money…
In short, we are in the hands of the governance behind the movement. Boards consisting of members who try to pull us back to our heritage roots are missing the fact that railways operate in a different world to the one they did as little as ten years ago.
The man in the bowler hat doesn’t visit every few years to give us the nod so we can keep going until his next visit. When he did, the concept of a Safety Management System was not even considered, competence management was an alien concept and nobody ever mentioned cash flow. This is not the case now and the governance has to be up to the job of running the steam railway of today.
I hope that the change required is done before the painful reality bites, which it seems to be doing with more regularity.
Keeping steam engines on the front of our well-maintained trains, running on our fully invested-in trackbed, is now a business necessity, and the positive outcome of this necessity is that they will remain preserved and secure.
Business is not a dirty word, and neither is preservation, but if we prioritise one over the other there will be a difficult path ahead.
We must accept that the pioneering days are behind us. We can be guided by the lessons of the past, but we should look the future square in the face. To do that we need to ensure that the people behind the scenes, the ones sitting in the boardrooms, are in tune with the business needs of this movement and not locked in a purist preservation mindset that distracts them from the stark realities.
I love this industry and am humbled by the people who have gone before me, but times have changed in a relatively short period of time. Have we kept pace? Only time will tell.
Before people get the impression that I have no soul,
I can reassure you that when
I heard the chime whistle of newly overhauled Lambton tank No. 29, a few minutes ago, I jumped up and walked across the platform to watch it, and a fine sight it was too. I do this from time to time to remind myself why I have spent the day in front of a computer, and while I may not wear overalls as often as I would like, I do still call myself a preservationist.
WE CAN BE GUIDED BY THE LESSONS OF THE PAST, BUT WE SHOULD LOOK THE FUTURE SQUARE IN THE FACE