The Easter Highlander railtour.

The Pathfinder 'Easter Highlander' 4 day railtour from Salisbury to Inverness and Thurso has run into difficulties before it has even set off. An early morning report suggests that the empty stock with 47.501 and 47.810 in charge has become derailed at Eastleigh. A further report mentions 'Caped on TOPS'. <BJ>

 

From WNXX the stock left Eastliegh at 0923 and tour is running.
Colin

 

Through Bath 250 mins late en route to Inverness. <BJ>

 

Blimey, derailed and still allowed to run?? No police cordon, huge investigation and form writing?? Horray, old fashioned railway operations. Hows it doing now??

 

It passed through Yorton at 1.50pm ie 150 minutes late, so they have made up some of the lost time. Poor sods still aren't in Inverness though!

 

Fantastic performance by DRS' heritage traction. Arrived Inverness 2302, only 15 late on the original schedule, so made up around 4 hours! Those tractors flew up Beattock.

 

Shows you what a slack schedule they had in the first place.

 

Gosh. I've never seen running reports on diesel railtours on National Preservation What Is Going On forum!

Is there anyay these interlopers can be stoppe! LOL

 

Must put my teeth in! Make that "Is there any way these interlopers can be stopped?" LOL

 

Indeed, but it also shows what can be done if signallers and crews pull out all the stops. As you know, most tours seem to be dealt with very conservatively to avoid any chance of accruing delay minutes. This showed how it could be done, and I suspect there was little delay to other services, but I'd be interested to know if this wasn't the case. I'm sure the participants appreciated arriving in Inverness comfortably before midnight, and IMHO it would be a small price to pay if a couple of pendolinos lost a few minutes.

 

Certainly the railtours I've dealt with, there has been on occasions, instructions from Control to regulate against the railtour if it is running late. But perhaps they hit the WCML when it was quiet, got round Glasgow post-peak hour and after the HST to Inverness has gone the HML isn't too busy - as you say, fair play to the crews and signallers.

 

I took it from Carlisle-Perth. Had a great run didn't knock a thing. Apart from being wrong routed at Motherwell, Net Rail/Pathfinder and DRS did a great job to get it somehwere close to time. A lot easier with a diesel charter though, than it would have been if steam had been involved. The railway can, when it wants to, still do great things!

 

But it still depends on the decision makers at the "coal face" having the route knowledge and experience to make the right calls. Sadly it seems that in too many cases that knowledge / experience is lacking or subject to H&S rules which get in the way. Congrats on this occasion to the team that had the skills to get things moving - literally.