Railway Touring Company

Ralph, as you know i have the greatest possible respect for you and your views, however I think that you are perhaps a little influenced here by your ties to the RTC as a steward.

The only thing cynical is the RTC, who have used every trick in the book in the past to enhance bookings, including advertising tours with locos,they had already been told were not available to them on that date, and routes they knew were unlikely to have authorised.

The more interesting point would be to look back over the past say 4 years and see how many tours they have run on the original route, date and with the originally advertised motive power and see what percentage ran as planned.

Please don't forget that in PMs i have discussed with you specifics which, to save an awful lot of embarrassment all around,
are not really for a public forum.

More to the point with bookings being down , in a period of severe depression and restrictions in personal spending power what I hear is also the sound of chickens coming home to roost.

 

Cynical it may be but my first hand experience of RTC has been poor at all levels in which the customer has an interface with a railtour operator so if I am cynical on this topic I would have to cite that as the likely explanation, and happy to accept I may be wrong about this being the reason for offering the same itinerary on so many different dates.

However, I can remember when their 2012 schedule of tours was first made public, and a number of people were astonished at the sheer number of tours they were proposing to run on the same itineraries. Naturally there was concern on a number of different levels such as locomotive availability, and whether there would be sufficient interest to warrant the running of that many trains on the same routes.

To use a battlefield analogy, theirs appears to be a scatter gun approach to planning business, with hopefully some winners and losers. Compare that to the careful marketing and targeting employed by the much more professional people at Guildford and Birmingham, one of whom has also now moved their business to a proper grown up TOC as well, making their tours even more attractive. Punters have been voting with their feet this year I suspect, and with the competing number of tours running these days, along with the escalating cost, they are booking with whom they know they'll get something decent in return, rather than risk no steam, uninvited guests (boxes on the back), reduced steam mileage, a mystery tour, an unexpected all nighter, oh and lets not forget that old classic, and bonus prize, the grovelling apology letter with no offer of compensation.

 

My goodness,you've really got it in for RTC!

Seriously though,I can't disagree with a lot of what you say. However I am a bit mystified by your last paragraph,presumably you are referring to SD moving from West Coast to DBS. Can you really be serious that WC,with their massive operational experience, are not a "grown up" TOC? And, as has been debated endlessly elsewhere on this board, the "box on the back" scenario is nothing to do with RTC,it is down to a whole host of possible operational reasons. I do not think you are any more likely to get one on a West Coast operated tour compared with DBS.

 

Yes, I suppose it does appear like I've got it in for them but without going into detail I had a very bad experience with them last year when a railtour went badly wrong. As it was to celebrate an 80th Birthday and there were a number of guests present I was naturally embarrassed by the events, finding myself having to try and defend the indefensible to people who are used to the more normal standards of customer service found outside the world of Railtours !

The "grown up" comment was meant in a humorous way really though it's undoubtedly true that the traincrew part of WCRC have "massive operational experience", I rather feel the opposite must apply to their Managers and other "white collar" figures in the organisation. Why else would a rake of coaches be allowed to run on railtours for month after month without a working PA system ? A matter I brought to the attention of RTC staff to which I received merely a sheepish look of deep shame followed by this rather a unhelpful comment, "Well we've been telling them about that for months"

In my view DBS are simply in a different class and are possibly taken more seriously by NR than WCRC. Wasn't it reported in Steam Railway a while back that NR had reached an agreement with DBS regarding weekday steam on the ECML while WCRC were yet to get in touch ? I have to say that touched a nerve with me after my experience of the RTC tour and the attitudes shown that day and a picture began to form in my mind of the kind of organisation WCRC might be. My main issue here is with RTC though and while I don't think they are particularly helped by WCRC at times, a lot of their failings are nothing to do with the TOC. I hope future outings with RTC turn out differently, and I certainly will give them further opportunities to redeem themselves, just not where the success of a high profile occasion is at stake.

I accept that a "box on the back" can occur on any railtour, irrespective of the Promoter but going by comments on here and elsewhere, it does seem to occur more often on RTC organised outings than others. As with everything else however, I do stand to be corrected by anyone with the exact figures.

 

The stock used by Steam Dreams isn't any better externally - the set used to Weymouth last Monday was very scruffy. They seem to get the worst of Riviera Trains' stock at the moment. However, what is more important is that internally it's not too bad internally and things like lights and the PA system do generally seem to work. In any case I understand that it's only a temporary measure until their own stock appears (next year?).

This discussion is supposed to be about RTC, not WCRC but an important point is that to the large number of non-enthusiasts who book on tours there is no difference between the two. People will remember that they booked a tour with RTC and that they got a grotty train - they will not know or care who the rolling stock provider is. If you buy a product from any company you will expect them to deliver and excuses about their supplier letting them down won't wash - not with me anyway.

 

............... then blamed the mod team for allowing the comments to be posted in the first place!

 

From my perspective the stock generally, regardless of owner, is no different to what ran around the UK in the 1980's.

The only difference is the coat of paint.

I'm interested to understand what people expect ? Is it livery, or a virgin trains interior Or VSOE experience ?

 

So i must be the reason why we get nothing from NE England then!!!!!

On a serious note, the last trip i did, a £200 galvin green golfing jacket was permanently marked from crud that came from the surround of a permanently steamed up window, it was with the famous combo mentioned above.

Did i make a big deal about it, no, because i know what the answer would have been from the PR disaster that joins them together. Maybe i should.

 

Can't ever recall saying nobody was allowed to defend. Ralph, Please let me know where I said that.

 

Many thanks for the advice.

 

I find that astonishing.

They would not pull out of a core part of their business because of adverse comments on a forum. If they felt it may impact their business they could look into how they could improve their public relations and image. They may pull out if the tours fail to sell but that is a different matter.