The Midland Pullman

Not least I suspect because Mr H is involved with the P&DSR

 

A second Midland Pullman set is in the process of being assembled and will be used on the three day weekend tours to Fort William and Mallaig in the second half of this year. It will be a shorter set than the main one, being 5 +2 rather than 8 +2. The three day tours went on their website today and you can see there will be days when both sets are in use eg Friday 18th October.

One of my favourite trains, as you can probably tell from my profile pic. I did two of those three day tours last year, so will definitely be going on one of the ones on this new shorter set.

 

There are restrictions on HST vehicles over 3rd rail lines - perhaps LSL's Midland Pullman uses power cars subject to restriction.

 

The issue is with the carriages, and specifically the swing links - only carriages fitted with short swing links are allowed on 3rd rail lines.


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Not sure if this is the right place, but I see LSL have launched the West Highland Pullman as a branding, HST on the Jacobite lawn perchance?

 

Good news, I reckon. Partly because it's nice to see more HST stock preserved, partly because despite my initial reservations, I think the Pullman livery suits the HST shape. I saw it totally unexpectedly as I was driving on the M60) crossing Stockport Viaduct and it looked spectacular.

 

Possibly, although I think they're broadly catering to different markets - the Jacobite to families who want to have a ride on the Harry Potter steam train, the LSL set up to the luxury dining market. Broad strokes here obviously, but I suspect they may be able to co-exist.

While I'm the first to criticise Jeremy Hosking for his political activities, I think his railway heritage operations are quite smart, he (or someone in his operation) seems to have a knack for spotting opportunities for repeat operations that don't really tread on the toes of existing operators - thinking here of the S&C daily shuttles, they're not taking business from the regular S&C steam trips.

 

Jeremy Hosking has successfully identified a market for people with money to spend and provides the appropriate level of service whether it be steam-hauled or diesel hauled tours. Whilst Jeremy serviced the S&C shuttles for a couple of seasons, WCRC also serviced the Windermere Branch on a couple of occasions when striking rail staff left the branch without a service. As a commercial case of "horses for courses" LSL has certainly found quite a few gaps in the market especially in the provision of start points and destinations; the new West Highland Pullman will be of interest to see where maintenance is undertaken - at the new Carlisle facility perchance ?

 

Not sure the S&C operation can be held up as that much of a success, after the cost of refurbing and painting an entire HST set it didn't last very long and I suspect possibly lost money in the end, although that's possibly less of an issue to LSL compared with the other charter operators?

 

The S&C operation displayed a welcome policy of innovation in the market whereby if at first it doesn't succeed try again after learning from the mistakes / experience. Once the Carlisle base is ready there could be a market for a North East "Hadrian" circuit - Carlisle - Newcastle - York - Leeds - Carlisle or the "Reiver" circuit Carlisle - Edinburgh - Newcastle - Carlisle using HST trainsets or diesel-hauled tours.

 

Some of those trips look really good---Oban for example. But they are long days, sixteen hours on the train on the day trips. I wonder if the target market wants that. You need to live right on the route or you can add on hotel costs. The timings on the weekend trips look better though.

I guess it's in the nature of gaps in the market that some are winners and others are not. Once we got past staycations, Skipton to Appleby wasn't a winner.

edit--- seeing Fred's second post, does Carlisle have enough catchment for that? Maybe base the train there but start/finish in Leeds, Newcastle or Edinburgh?

 

I don't think they took business from anyone - some of the services reportedly only had a dozen or so passengers on them.

The way LSL operate puzzles be a bit. Some of the stuff is really professionally done, but then you get amateurish occurrences like advertising a tour in three months time on a date when there's a complete engineering block, moving it to a Friday, then cancelling it due to lack of bookings. Or advertising tours with locos that are still being overhauled two years after the tour was meant to run.

It's great that they're running all these tours but as @30567 says, 16-18 hour day trips are a bit of a mission. Is there that much of a gap in the market if you need a dozen pick up points to be able to fill the train? Yes I know a lot of them are more about the journey rather than the destination, but if you're getting on a train at 5.30 in the morning and not getting back until nearly midnight, surely you'd want a bit more than 90 minutes at the destination?

 

That does seem rather odd, missing a possession, although I suspect every TOC and FOC has done it at onetime or another. LSL like every other operator on the national network has access to the Engineering Access Statement andthey are meant to consult it before making a special traffic bid. If they miss a possession and there is no practical diversionary route, Network Rail have every right to reject the bid.
Three months before operation? That means Milton Keynes Train Planning were looking at the bids at the 14 week deadline for charter trains.

Cheers, Neil

 

Know its a pretty minor thing in the grand scheme of things, buy they should put some buffers on it...

 

Having had my first ride recently I am reviving this thread to make one comment. Although we all know that the present Midland Pullman trains are HSTs, disguised only in their livery, their operator tries hard to maintain the connection with the original Blue Pullmans. The booklet handed out to passengers and the crockery have pictures of the original version.

 

My wife and I did the Pullman in July. 05:40 from Bangor, back at 22:00. Neither of us cared about the destination (Paignton) and really just wanted to be back on the train again,

 

I assume there is a fair chance that many passengers will have had too much to drink to be able to drive home. So close to abode pick up points mean collection by friends or not an eye watering priced taxi.
Like Saphos tours I assume they flood the areas with mailshots through doors local to the pick up points.
Seems like a workable strategy to me.

 

Today's marathon - Potters Bar to Edinburgh.

https://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/service/gb-nr:U37557/2024-12-20/detailed

Yes, it's going via Cambridge, but three hours Potters Bar to Peterborough is incredible. An hour of that is pathing stops! There was no need to leave PBR that early and sit at Welwyn for 16 minutes, nothing overtakes it. At least the return is timed a lot faster and takes less than 6 hours, rather than 7 1/4 for the outward.

With only 3 hours in Edinburgh there's less than an hour for servicing at Slateford depot too. That's not very long for tanking all the toilets. The train left Crewe before midnight on Thursday and gets back at 4am on Saturday, about 1100 miles in total.

 

I see the return was delayed 2 hrs at Newcastle and is now 125L at Cambridge, now not due back to Potters Bar till 0015! An 8 hr journey in darkness all the way, not great.

 

Passenger requiring medical attention.