The Great Britain IX

Chicken and egg situation. You have to advertise what you plan to be available to raise people's interest and to know that you have enough people going. If you wait for confirmation mechanically and also NR clearance, it will be too close to the event, and you'll run with empty seats and at a loss.

I suggest that we should cut RTC some slack.

John

 

Good point. I wonder how many "experts" on here who criticise RTC have ever organised a rail tour or even run a business?

 

There is an interview with Nigel Dobbing on a dvd that I think was recorded on The North Briton railtour in which he says that the UK is the hardest place to organise railtours in, organising tours abroad is far more straightforward.

I would imagine that in the time since that interview that in the UK at least things haven't got any easier. Given all the problems of the past year or so I'm surprised he hasn't just concentrated on his overseas trips,
but give him his due he has doggedly carried on organising UK trips even if they don't always go to plan.

It would be nice to see a rerun of the North Briton sometime.

Dave B

 

I think you'll find it's already been explained that this is due to the shorter lead time for getting a diesel tour past NR, rather than any unavailability of VT steam traction...

 

46115 is in steam today apparently, so with 45407 GB9 was so close to having six loco's available.

 

How many people book on this tour based upon the proposed steam loco allocation per leg of the journey?

Would it drastically affect bookings if the tour was advertised only as steam hauled from point x to y on day z?

 

His comments on EU officials were hardly respectful. Seems like a general approach to me.

 

To me, Scotland was the draw, so I would have been happy to get to Newcastle or Carnforth by other traction.

I'm also attracted to the idea of regional railtours which use the mainline only as a means of getting to interesting branchlines/sections of track. The West Highlander was a good example of what I mean, but this was probably done too often.

If it is possible to arrange itineraries in the south west, East Anglia, Wales etc., then you have scope for doing something different each year for several years, by which time the market should have recovered enough to do a repeat.

 

German pacific leaving Hamburg last Sat.12 coach train no rear assistance. Football spec passed at the same time going the other way with flags ,scarfs, two /three heads out of each window and trumpets blowing. Loosen up Brit,s please.

 

You might at least have shown us the Pacific too .

Continental loading gauges and probably therefore track separation are more generous than in the UK and thus the probability of someone at an open window coming into contact with an external solid object should be lower and in any case those are much bigger windows than on a Mk1 or Mk2 door and allow much greater ease of movement.

Much as there are many in the UK who love to moan about the restrictions placed on the UK by Europe, we in this country too easily allowed the freedom to think for ourselves to be eroded either by being too lazy to think for ourselves or too unwilling to accept responsibility for our own actions.

I'd love the self appointed arbiters of our thought processes to lighten up but I just don't see it happening.

 

Can you blame them, the natural approach of the average Briton these days is to randomly do stuff then seek someone to blame and sue if it goes wrong, these rules where they appear will be passed down from the insurers looking to reduce risk.

If there is anyone to blame, its sadly the majority of the British public who like to constantly blame H&S until they have the opportunity to make a few quid, having in a previous life been lucky enough to have all regional claims to a government corporation pass across my desk, rest assured the complete lack of shame for being a complete idiot and the eagerness to seek compensation for such actions was beyond belief!

 

Photo of pacific coming soon ,just back .Didn't there was a lot of interest in foreign .

 

I've finally sorted through some more of my photos from the GB9, thanks to everyone involved in the planning and running of the tour!

James

 

You say that, but in the home of the law suit.. The USA you can still ride behind steam, sometimes there's not even a window to open, as it's a wagon, with seats and a roof !

It's also the home of the veranda car etc etc... I believe there's one millionaire with an open air swimming pool as part of his carriage.

It's not about law suits it's about a power trip over riding common sense, hidden behind the HSE..and it's not just on railways, it's any industry where low paid, less skilled government employees with a hysteria culture exists, endemic to the UK and laughed at by the world.

 

Shame you missed GB V - there was a rather excellent Castle leading on the last day.

 

I didn't know that 5051 had been involved in one of the GB tours?

 

Not Tyseley's fine machine but this one.

 

Nunney was on GB4, I think Ben was referring to 5043 Earl of Mount Edgcumbe that took GB5 back to Paddington from Bristol on a very wet day.

Dave B

 

oops you're right . One Gb headboard looks much like another ! Had forgotten 5043 on GB5.

 

Ah yes, I remember that. 5043 was a late-notice replacement. She was in Bristol on the Saturday night having worked a VT train to Plymouth and back. 70013 & 34067 worked GBV down to Penzance on Saturday but stayed down there - it was DL-hauled back to Bristol. Looking at UKsteam.info, I see the other locos suggested for day 9 were 6023, 5029 and 4936...

It's quite rare to see 5043 on anything other than the VT coaches. IIRC, she came up Sapperton in fine style. Just a shame Sunday was such a filthy wet day...