The Jacobite 2018

That's true Henry,no doubt you will be going up specially for that !!

 

From Ian Riley on the Works Forum:

"Fort William must be one of the warmest and driest places in the UK at the moment and this is affecting the 'Jacobite' service.

The fire risk is evaluated on a daily basis by the local NR officials and tomorrow, Monday 28th May the early service will be 45407 assisted by 37518 and the afternoon service hauled by a class 47 loco, it is hoped to put steam back on the afternoon service as soon as enough drivers with traction and route knowledge can be transferred up here."

 

I have just looked at the weather forecast for a friend who will be up there next week.

40% chance of rain on Friday otherwise wall to wall try weather with only a 10% chance of rain. A couple of hours ago about 50% chance of rain forecast for today, Thursday & Friday. Even less chance of rain at Arisaig and Mallaig. (And I was telling them that it normally rained up there....)

Cheers, Neil

 

Some Barry Trotter fans are going to be gutted.

 

To look at trends from previous years, May has always seemed the summer month for us in Scotland. Indeed the Great Britain 2017 suffered from fire risk restrictions, as did the Jacobite.

A prolonged period of 4 weeks wall to wall sunshine is indeed strange, no doubt about that. But the eventuality of a fire risk isn't. It's length of duration is what will be most telling to how severe it will be in comparison to previous years.

 

When you have been up there a few times you get to know to ignore the weather forecast, it normally bears no resemblance to reality.

 

Sure there must be one of these somewhere in the West Highlands - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weather_rock

 

I've heard an old Yorkshire saying that in the Pennines you can get all four seasons in a day. In the West Highlands you can get the same in 10 minutes

 

Although I'm slightly drifiting off topic here, It amuses and amazes me just how wrong the weather forecast can be, even for just a few hours ahead. Yesterday, down here in Sussex, many hundreds of miles away from the West Highland Extension, Lancashire & Yorkshire No. 52322 was rostered on the Spa Valley and I fancied going over to take a picture. The weather down here was lovely at 9AM. I checked with the met office forecast, which suggested that in the Tunbridge Wells area, the sun would start to disappear at 10AM and be completely gone by 11AM. By 10AM, still wall-to-wall sunshine so I decided to ignore the weather forecast and head off to Groombridge. At 11.10, there was just one small patch of high cloud visible, which thankfully kept away from the sun. 52322 passed me in lovely late spring sunshine, kicking out a decent amount of steam considering how warm it was. I went home a very happy bunny and glad I had ignored the Met Office, but even if I was using a digital camera, I wouldn't spoil this thread by posting up my image as not only is it nothing to do with the subject of the thread but also, even on a day like yesterday, we don't get that incredible light down here that make pictures of the Jacobite so stunning. Keep them coming, Jonathon and others!

 

You are right about the light,it's noticeably more pure up there and it's the same for the dark. Sometimes for my October trip I go up overnight and if the sky is clear I will stop in the big layby near Bridge of Orchy and look at the stars, thousands of them that we never get in the light polluted skies of Buckinghamshire,
.

 

So I'm a bit confused by Ian Riley's post. Is steam off because of the weather or that they are short of crew or both?

 

The way I read it is that if steam is allowed with a bit of shovage, they need extra crews with traction (37 + 47) and route knowledge.

 

Brings into question how an extended afternoon train (due to inclusion of diesel) could pass the morning service at Glenfinnan, given the length of the loop. However, all has no doubt been looked at by WCRC and a plan in place should the opportunity occur.

 

Looking at photos on WNXX, the afternoon train was just a 47

 

Wouldn't get many passengers in that then.

Dave B

 

Wouldn't get many Cranks either!

 

The majority of passengers are prebooked so I don't know if they are due a refund or not. You can travel on the normal self shunting coaches for about half the cost of the Jacobite so the premium fare is for the steam.

 

Think that was a joke about the previous post.

Most (all?) other steam trips have in small print that if substituted for diesel haulage, there is no refund, but I can’t see that anywhere on the WCR site for the Jacobite.

 

Covered in the WCRC terms and conditions part of their website. Can substitute diesel in times of fire risk, failure of steam loco etc
https://www.westcoastrailways.co.uk/terms.cfm