Railway200: The Greatest Gathering. Derby Litchurch Lane. 1-3 August.

Quote from the Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/thegreatestgathering

 

Tickets go on sale tomorrow at 9am. Tickets are:

• Adult £30
• Child £15
• Family (2 Adults + 2 Chidren) £65

Plus booking fee

More info https://www.alstom.com/greatest-gathering

According to the Alstom press release the following were at todays press event and are expected at the event (or another member of the class will be).

• LNER A4 Class 60007 ‘Sir Nigel Gresley’
• SR Merchant Navy Class 35018 ‘British India Line’
• Class 37 37800 ‘Cassiopeia’
• Class 50 50049 ‘Defiance’
• Class 57 57307 ‘Lady Penelope’
• Class 66 66315
• Class 69 69004
• Class 507 507001
• Class 390 Pendolino 390200 'Railway 200'
• Class 701 Aventra 701003
• Class 720 Aventra 720503

 

That's the "greatest gathering"...?

 

Yesterday was simply the launch day for the press. They spent a lot of money getting all the locos there for a free photo call. There'll be a lot more for the actual event in August.

 

No, a press shoot to announce the event in August. They could quite easily have sent an email instead and put adverts out, but no, they actually put on an event with a dozen or so locos, all at their own expense.

Look at the costs of moving a steam loco light engine. It's a few dozen members of the press, Alstom aren't going to pay thousands of pounds to move more than a couple of steam locos there.

 

Is it me or is NatPres getting increasingly grumpy at the moment?
Complaining that there were not enough steam engines at a press event for an event 7 months away takes the biscuit..
Anyway, tickets booked for me, last open day I went to was about 20 years ago, this looks to be the event of the year to me.

 

looks like site crashed

 

Is everyone else getting the '502 Bad Gateway' errors?

 

yes they have taken my money, then nothing

Now cleared and gone through

 

The line
"According to the Alstom press release the following were at todays press event and are expected at the event (or another member of the class will be)", is missing anything about others being there. Apologies if there's more in the main release.

But the self-congratulatory tone does still stick a bit. At the current list, it's neck-and-neck with Woking 150, way behind the Rainhill cavalcade, and arguably some way behind the Great Gathering.

I hope it does do better

 

Same for me when I tried a couple of minutes ago.

 

Got the receipt e-mail and kept refreshing the completion page after payment to get an order number, but don't appear to have a confirmation e-mail. Anyone else similar?

Regards,

Dan

 

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Last updated 10:29:53 AM

 

No YOU'RE getting increasingly grumpy at the moment.

 

The August lineup will definitely include many more locomotives (steam and diesel) and units (new and old); as cited, yesterday was a publicity day with an Azuma (I think) renamed Railway 200 also taking place.

There's no denying demand for tickets has been popular; some of the comments made on other platforms about the situation have been rather unsavoury to say the least. One wonders if the modern technological world has given people the false impression that computers are faultless and service instant, and therefore don't consider the effect 10000 people all descending on one site for tickets has on the servers (which I'd wager are not intergalactic supercomputers). I'd certainly like to see some of these critics attempt to serve that same number of people in a shop all at the same time...

Alstom have said there are 10,000 tickets available for each of the three days, so plenty of capacity. It's just a case of join the queue now with thousands of others and wait, or hold off until later on when the initial rush has passed.

 

It was a pendolino

 

Did anyone else actually receive a ticket? As website saying tickets now being sent out next week?
I actually received one this morning from then with my email confirmation

 

Haven't even had a booking confirmation only a payment receipt.

It's a ridiculous ticket Provider