STEAM TOUR CANCELLATIONS‏ AND POSTPONEMENTS ETC.

Pleased to report money was paid back into my account on Monday.

 

Result !

 

The Dorset Coast Expresses on the 20th & 27th are no longer listed on the RTC website.
The Hadrian on the 22nd September Ditto.

 

The Hadrian of 22 September is certainly cancelled and has been so for a few weeks. Of the original three only The Hadrian of 27 October remains.

 

And yet the trains that run like clockwork (touch-wood) rarely get a mention.

We are about to run the last train of 11 in the 14th season of The Shakespeare Express. In 14 years, once has the steam loco been replaced by a diesel due to a steam ban. As far as I can tell, 1 (yes 1!) roundtrip has been cancelled due to the railway being closed.

Last year (or was it the year before?) there were two weekends when we were the only train running on the N.Warwick Line on the Sunday; we took not only our own, but quite a lot of London Midland passengers as well.

Just a rant - sorry!

 

Wasn't taken as a rant Ben. I for one think it's a record to be proud of. It's bad news that makes the headlines.

 

I've obviously been unlucky with the Shakespeare Express as I've had two loco failures - 5043 (second trip of the day diesel-hauled) and 6024 (second trip hauled by 4965 thanks to an impressive bit of operation). I was also booked (but dd not travel) on one where 4965 was to be assisted by diesel due to fire risk - 30th July 2006, I think, as I was also booked on the VT trip to York the previous day which was advertised as being double-headed by 4936 and 4953, then changed to 4936 only (without any real explanation), then was going to be diesel-assisted due to fire-risk, but actually ran with no steam at all. So instead of 3 Halls that weekend we had none (but we did receive a full refund). Having said that, the record of the Shakespare Express is very good, although as a failry self-contained operation, I would expect that to be the case.

 

Here at Compass also all our Steam operations ran on the day as expected. Bad news appears to be the only thing worth discussing??

 

Ben. In an industry with a poor track record you stand out. If there was a published log of ALL tour reliability like TOCs have to do I doubt anyone would ever book a tour. Over the year I spend a fair bit on my railway enthusiasm but none goes on rail tours as to get to most tours needs overnight hotels and my wife to book time off work. With the track record of most tour operators* it is too risky to book. Result is yes I support operating steam traction but our money goes to Pullman lunches and weekends etc., at a preserved line where in general you get what you expect on the day expected.

* Edit - I appreciate often due to Network Rail changes outside their control, or failures of hired in traction, but still impacting on to the tour they have advertised.

 

Looks like a cut back with trips over the Xmas period for VSOE as against other years..things must be bad.
Ah,well,remains in shed for Clan-Line and more polishing.

 

Good to have another post from the sharp end of things.

 

Follow up to the post earlier. Just done an analysis based on June's log in UK Steam Tours (excluding Jacobite and NYMR for which no data) and obviously excluding lateness data as I've no idea whether the timings were met.

Tours listed = 37.
ran apparently unchanged = 13.
Cancelled = 6
Dieselised/part dieselised = 2.5
Listed amendments of varying significance (including diesels) in the 18 changed trains that did run or are postponed = 35

So only 35% reliability against the published list. 16% cancellation rate.

I picked June as it is after the fact data so no speculation and it was before the Olympic restriction changes kicked in, so it should have been an average month. The stats show why this is a topic for discussion. I add that of the tours that ran unchanged from the advert most were the standard route tours with a pool of loco's to run them. I know a lot of people like the one-off tours but practicality suggests they may be doing the tour industry harm with the average punter market. I deliberately avoided assessing by operator, I will leave that for someone else.

Hope this helps.

 

Obviously it depends on your definitions like is Shap southbound rather than northbound a 'change'? Is a postponement from 14 Aug to 21 Aug a 'change'? But looking at the north ie Crewe, Carnforth and York from 1 July to today and counting events like 46115 replaced by diesel at Carlisle as 0.5, 58.5 trains ran with steam, 3.5 ran all or part with diesel, 13 were cancelled, something close to an 80% success rate. Some of the cancellations like the SSEs this week were announced a long way in advance. However of the four one-offs, only one ran. One offs in the season are quite rare now and quite tricky. I thought two months ago the loco availability could have been a problem but 61994 helped a lot and they got through even with the route availability problems. And only one loco booted off for lineside fires (48151). Note--I counted the SSE as one train per day.

 

From the MNLPS Website : -

17) Wednesday October 24 Bath/Bristol
18) Saturday November 4 Surrey Hills Lunch
19) Friday November 16 Surrey Hills Lunch
20) Tuesday December 4 Surrey Hills Lunch
21) Saturday December 8 Surrey Hills Lunch
22) Wednesday December 12 Surrey Hills Lunch
23) Friday December 14 UK RailTours Christmas Special to Oxford
24) Saturday December 22 Surrey Hills Lunch

Note : All VSOE except 14/12.

 

Thanks for that,Paul.
UK Steam hasn't been brought up to date yet.
I retract my comment first made.Cheque books out once again.

 

A full 7 day change in tour date is a very big change and highly significant when you book ahead for it with shifts changed or a hotel booked or even as simple as you have something else booked on the reset day. Some of the changes i flagged were minor but several were not. I merely posted the data as a sample month's reliability data and why for me/my wife tours are a non-starter as a rider.

 

Figures can be made to prove whatever you want. From a personal standpoint I've booked two tours so far this year and both gave run exactly as advertised so a 100% success rate for me and I will be booking again on this basis. The fact that other tours have had problems is of no real concern to me - although of concern to those booked on them - and doesn't put me off planning the occasional main line steam trip.

 

Capital Christmas Express

The above will not be happening as advertised