Lancashire Circular 8th September 2012

Saw this advertised at Barton Grange Garden Centre the other day and managed to track it down on the web:

Lancaster Canal Boats | Canal Boat Hire Lancaster | Canal trip Lancaster | Canal Cruises Lancaster. screen 48 , barton grange

One slightly strange thing is that the advert at the garden centre suggested that motive power will be 6201, dut doesn't her ticket expire in the spring?

Anyway looks an interesting idea and interesting to see the pricing structures?

 

Re: Lancashire Circular 21 July 2012

Cheers for this, it's gone straight to the top of my Christmas list. A very good price for a reasonable length tour, especially like the enthusiast coach option.

 

Re: Lancashire Circular 21 July 2012

Don't Steam Dreams offer this already for £10 a head?

 

Re: Lancashire Circular 21 July 2012

No idea as they do not run much up here, but seems to be a new thing for up here - as it is 1/2 day tour on a circuit which whilst widely used for test runs normally only tends to form part of longer tours.

To be honest I was more interested in the principle and motive power.

 

Re: Lancashire Circular 21 July 2012

I think it's a great idea and deserves to be successful - I'll certainly be on one!

 

Re: Lancashire Circular 21 July 2012

Nice one Ralph.....not sure about the 'enthusiasts coach' though !

 

Re: Lancashire Circular 21 July 2012

No. SD don't run in that part of the world, indeed these days very few passenge carrying steam trains take the route from Carnforth to Settle Jn via Giggleswick.

 

Re: Lancashire Circular 21 July 2012

Re-dated already: Lancaster Canal Boats | Canal Boat Hire Lancaster | Canal trip Lancaster | Canal Cruises Lancaster. screen 48 , barton grange

Presuming they are doing it Saturday 8th September, although their page shows it as Saturday 7th Sept.

LR/Budgie must be one of the most jinxed/unluckiest promoters in the North with the last train being a Carnforth-Ffestiniog in 2005 which was load 7 due to lack of takers, and the trip a few months later to Bournemouth then being called off for reasons I can't re-call - then every single attempt to run a train since then either knocked back at the planning stages, not getting suitable acceptance by Network Rail or getting cancelled due to lack of interest as per the Stockport to Minehead in 2010 (via the unusual route of Lancaster before heading south rather than picking up Manchester en route with supplement payable to travel in a mk3 sleeper durring the daytime)! For 6 years now several trains have been attempted but all run into bad luck of some description. I'd have given up by now!

The 2 Lancashire circle trips were based on 1 of the last successful trains by the promoter several years ago so I'm hoping these get off the ground and not become just a statistic.

When I was younger I did a few tours run by these chaps as back in the 90s they were doing rather better with destinations such as Clacton on Sea and Inverness featuring on the ones I went on :alien:

 

The date has been changed to coincide with Preston Guild Week, maybe based on past experiences but nothing more sinister than that. The loco requested is 6201 provided it gets an extension to its boiler certificate. If it doesn't then we will just have to wait and see.

 

Re: Lancashire Circular 21 July 2012

I hope it goes OK "6:05 special" as nobody wants to see these things fail. There may have been a struggle finding a mk1 set/non air con set on the specific date in July though looking at the projected steam diary currently for weekends (and even most weekdays) over the high season, although perhaps not impossible + in September some of the North West jobs will be tailing off/finished so hopefully it'll fair better on the new Saturday date and be umpteenth time lucky for the persons involved after 6 years of knock backs and false starts.

 

Re: Lancashire Circular 21 July 2012

Sadly cancelled:

Budgie Transport | Lancaster Railtours

 

Re: Lancashire Circular 21 July 2012

Shame.

My brother has just been on to them to get our refund & this is what they said:

"It turns out they booked the engine ages ago (they thought that was going to be the hard bit, well hhmm!)

Actually the problem is the rolling stock. They've had many conversations with the stock company in Birmingham, but there was numerous issues getting the stock up here, and as a result the company kept on increasing the loan costs.

So the Budgie people realised that they were going to be running the whole thing as a fun ride, making no money whatsoever. And they didn't want to put our prices up.
So hence they had no option but to cancel !!!"