Cumbrian Coast Express 9/4/16

Yes, you are allowed your say. Like you, I was not there, and like you, I'm unlikely to spend much money with RTC given my other time and financial commitments. Like you, I also find the treatment of RTC's paying customers completely abhorrent, regardless of whether it was RTC or Virgin who screwed up at Preston on the day, or why the issue arose in the first place.

As it happens, my personal reaction is also that RTC committed a fundamental breach of their customers' contract. Given that, had I been affected, I would expect that any recompense should therefore include not just the ticket price but at a minimum my full costs incurred in getting to Preston - in cash, not vouchers. The conversation about recompense would be in the context of a court claim against RTC for breach of contract if I didn't receive full satisfaction in very short order.

However, neither of us were there, or were affected. It ill behoves us to rant about what did or did not happen, why it should or shouldn't have happened, or what other solutions might or might not have been found. They weren't. For us to rant helps no one understand what did happen, and puts those who do put their head above the parapet in an impossible position.

Whatever else I think about what's been said, I absolutely accept @RalphW's when he says how much work went into dealing with the situation, and that what was done was done in good faith. Likewise, I would hope that those who have supported RTC & WCRC on this would acknowledge that the outcome was unacceptable, and that something robust needs to be done to ensure that if a future such issue arises, it can be dealt with by the tour promoter and not by relying on employees of another company to front up to things. A simple suggestion has been made for a way to handle this in future - that should not just be dismissed out of hand.

 

Pretty difficult when people can be several hundred miles apart.
Before people misinterpret that, it is NOT an invite for violence!

 

Perhaps the punters might prefer a spirited run with 10 than a longer train where fingers and everything else is crossed going up Shap.

 

Yes Ralph

 

I believe that it is time for the brakes to be applied on this thread until such information becomes available so as to end the speculation and worse that serves no one any good purpose.

 

Please don't make assumptions Ralph. I chartered my first train in 1978 and now a mere 38 years later am still an active member of an organisation sponsoring it's own trains and hiring it's loco to others for mainline use.

As far as accepting reason is concerned I'm sure many contributors to this thread would be delighted to accept any valid reason proffered for what, so far, seems an inexplicable decision.

I have encountered Ralph "face to face" on several occasions over the years and since my criticisms are of what he says rather than of the man himself I am more than happy to give credit where it is due. Firstly he is a man committed to the railtour industry and, most recently the RTC/West Coast partnership. He gives his time to supporting this forum and (in case anyone missed my earlier comment) he provides valuable inside information to it's readers.

Secondly (and I hope he will forgive me here as I wasn't there personally and my information is on this occasion secondhand) he tries to help other railtour operators where he can. I am informed he was sighted at Crewe Station late on Saturday assisting in organising road coaches to Newport & the Welsh Marches following the termination (at Crewe) of Statesman Rail's ill-fated return train from Carlisle (due to another defective coach). I gather that it was well after midnight when the last customers departed Crewe & such dedication deserves acknowledgment.

Where Ralph & I differ is that where West Coast are concerned his admirable loyalty increasingly seems to involve digging a hole & then having to defend it.

A most sensible point of view.

 

Even you?

Ralph is a long standing and senior member of this forum. He should know that trying to provide a defence of the WCRC and the RTC, in circumstances when he is unable to add anything enlightening but introduces an obfuscation, will irritate those who have lost patience with the apparent contempt that these companies have for their passengers. The muted criticism from some in this thread is a result of Ralph adopting a role of unofficial publicity manager and claiming access to inside information. He does not have to.

 

Could that simply be because the answers he is able to give are unacceptable to the questioner ?

 

We are guilty of going around in circles here. Until such time as either disappointed passengers such and Mr and Mrs W tell us what compensation they have received and RTC/WR let us know why a coach wasn't able to be commandeered, ity is time to move on. That said, what surely must happen is for there to be a contingency in place to avoid the debacle of last weekend. Unlike the old BR days when spare coaches were available all over the land, but I accept that we are in different territory now. As a booking lad at Taunton, I recall a few occasions when the wheel tapper detected a problem and the station pilot removed the offending coach and within 15 minutes, a replacement was embedded in the rake. Oh for those days!

If we are to learn lessons from Saturday's situation, trains must not pass through stations where they are booked to stop. If this cannot be done, then stewards should be available at pick up points to explain any issues that may affect them. Time now to draw a line in the sand?

 

Were brakes not the problem in the first place - are we sure that the brakes are operational on this thread?

 

And there will always be another thread along in a minute....

 

Not quite a fair comparator. A service bus does not have pre-booked passengers who have a reserved seat on a specific service. On Saturday. 30people had a pre-booked seat on a non-service train and a defined contract with the organiser. And still the operating company was changing the loco at it's own HQ where stock is abundant.

Waiting for Mr W to enlighten us on his discussions with RTC later today.

 

This is the key point - RTC decided to breach their contract with the customers by running the train non-stop through Preston. What matters is how RTC propose to try to put this right for those customers, especially if they had incurred significant costs getting to Preston in the first place.

All the discussion about the whys & wherefores of what happened on the day is irrelevant to that, although nonetheless interesting.

 

Dear Oswald. I, like most others on this forum, wish you and Mrs. W the very best of outcomes when you speak with RTC over compensastion for the Preston saga. No doubt you will let us know what they offer and of equal interest, they explanation of the events which led to the train not stopping for you and others.

 

I believe that RTC contracts have a clause covering changes incurred by "operational needs" and a full train will almost certainly be covered by that condition. It recalls an incident on a 1977 Peaks Railtour which was returning from Manchester to London via a photographic stop at Bamford. Some of the tour passengers had elected to go there by local service to photograph the steam charter due to pass some 30 minutes before the planned photographic stop expecting to catch the diesel charter during its brief stop. The diesel charter, however, was delayed by the local signalman at Chinley who refused to accept the train until the smoke had cleared from Chinley Tunnel thus making the train late and the driver was concerned about further delays at Dore & Totley when joining the main line south to Toton. As a representative of the charter organiser I was asked what should be done and I told the driver that the decision was his to make and mine to accept - he was aware of operational consequences and it was his task as a driver to minimise them. The consequence was that the train did NOT stop and the handful of passengers who had thought to re-join the tour then had to make their own way back to London - whether at their own expense I never discovered.

But - as 35B notes - the question of causation and compensation is one for discussion between the aggrieved parties and RTC / WCRC; whilst the result will be of interest to many of us as potential future passengers there s no value in discussing this further until a result is known.

 

Fred, that is an interesting parallel, but I don't think especially relevant. If I read you rightly, the 1977 tour involved participants who'd travelled to a photo stop at their own expense, for whom the train could not then stop. Every tour I've ever done has always had words about photo stops not being guaranteed. On Saturday, Preston was an advertised pick-up location that RTC had advised people to travel to to join the train before, on the day, making the decision to miss that stop.

Consumer law has moved on significantly since 1977, the applicable railway clauses have not. As the basis for consumer law has shifted - rightly - so that the consumer is sovereign, I very much doubt that if one of the affected customers took action, that application of RTC's terms and conditions would stand examination in court given those changes in law as they relate to events at Preston on Saturday. At some point, I suspect the charter industry is going to get a very painful kick in the backside when it tries to rely on these clauses for something that it has previously regarded as normal, but where someone is sufficiently aggrieved to take legal action.