Tornado

That rather depends on how Belmond pay for their haulage. The traditional wisdom is that you pay per tour - if however an operator and an owner were to do a deal which effectively paid the owner their annual running costs in order to have the loco almost exclusively available to it then that arrangement could work for both sides. The limited running would reduce the maintenance costs which in turn makes such a deal affordable for the operator. Under such a deal 4 runs in 3 months might well be enough to pay the bills.

 

Pay for a resource you don't utilise? You don't run a business that way. Not for long anyway.

 

The flaw with that argument is that clearly Clan Line has made that sort of exclusive arrangement work for years (regardless of whether its pay per run or an annual contract)- so clearly Belmond and the loco owners can make that sort of arrangement work. Belmond charge nearly double the rate of other operators and some of that money could sensibly find its way to contracting a reliable loco that should always be ready to turn up and go.

 

I believe the contract with Belmond is quite unique, it's between Belmond and MNLPS for the provision of a steam locomotive. When 35028 is not available they have to provide an alternative and it was MNLPS who chose to subcontract to the A1 Trust. Perhaps someone can correct me if I've got this wrong.

 

Just check the number of runs that Clan Line made, and the number of runs Tornado has made. The next one has been cancelled in favour of diesel power, again.

In any argument, the "plenty of work" is clearly an overstatement.

 

Is that proven? Competitive tendering in government often led to contracted standards being met but at the expense of working staff and equipment harder for less wages and reduced long term maintenance. If the kit on a contract broke a year earlier than it should but on the next contract it didn't matter the client had to replace. Also lots of one-off extras paid at day rate. Lip-stick on a pig comes to mind, front end smartened up the rest still the same or worse as corners are cut to pay for the beauty makeover.

This doesn't strike me as an industry with lots of fat to be cut in a chance to win contracts by a lower fee but one bouncing along already on the minimum and with no great money in most tours to allow the operator to hire more expensive locos based on their reliability even if a new de-luxe TOC was to appear.

Our Society used to run special trains, no way would I even suggest as part of my Promotions Officer's remit that we resumed doing it now. Publicity yes, often the wrong kind! NR can't guarantee that dates/routes are available and only a handful of the locomotives seem reliable enough (& small enough for the LG) to be bookable with a certainty what was requested will actually be on the train the day you've booked it for.

If steam on the mainline is to continue as a reliable product someone or something needs to occur to change the current status-quo. Only those actually trying to run trains probably know what that something is/could be and they may well not be in a position to do it because of the classic catch-22.



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Which seems to be a sensible model for doing things viewed from both the hirer and contracting perspectives. Hirer pays enough for exclusivity of a reliable product and because they've paid enough to get that reliability and exclusivity of the locomotive they actually secure delivery of that with a back up planned into the system. Unfortunately it may only be a suitable business model for a handful of cases such as the MNLPs/Belmond tie up (and possibly Tyesley/VT?)


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Either way its trips not being done by Tornado. Either way its evidence of not plenty of work for Tornado.

 

I think the issue is the licence to operate steam hauled trains. That is at risk, not the rest of the operation

 

I think you are wrong here. At risk is their license to act as a train operating company, regardless of the motive power.

 

whatever

 

Correct when they had the license suspended they were barred from runninganything on NW Rail

 

The point may have already been made, but its worth recalling that "work for Tornado" isn't just about main line outings, since it has recently had two three-week spells of operation on the Nene Valley Railway (in August) and then on the Severn Valley Railway (in October) in between its main line commitments. Its pulling power - in terms of its attraction to the paying public on these occasions - appears to have been massive, particularly judging by the apparently huge success of the latter event (although other guest locomotives contributed too)

Now, I'm not going to presume that I have the faintest understanding of how the A1 SLT business model works, but I do think its reasonable to assume that these assignments were not operated on a charitable basis. So this type of work - however distant it may be from the main line capabilities for which Tornado is designed, must surely be factored in to any consideration/ guesswork about how compelling it might be for the Trust to seek additional work.

With the "Red Rose" and "Devon Belle" already on the horizon for the first few months of 2016, I hope we get to see more of the same throughout the year. Maybe something along the Marches route. Or even the Crewe-Shap-S&C-Crewe circular (so magnificently understudied by Britannia), that Tornado didn't quite make in May 2015. Or somewhere, anywhere, that a reasonable path can be made available. At least Tornado's reliability suggests that there's a decent chance that they will actually run in line with the published specification for the outings that the Trust do run. And better still, a decent chance that they will run without the increasingly prevalent tail-gunner in support.

 

Strange then that the A1ST had to cancel its last outing of the year due to lack of interest. Now its true it was a bad choice of date,. and possibly catchment area, but none the less it indicates that the Tornado effect may well have flattened out. (oh ho ho ho). In the eyes of the public and the publicity machine 2016 is only about three things next year. The Flying Scotsman, The Flying Scotsman and The Flying Scotsman.

 

It's not just a case of touting for work, I think some on here don't know anything about the logistics of running steam on the big railway. When a loco fails we see the comment, "why can't they substitute loco X" , firstly the loco owner has to arrange an FTR exam. and more difficult get a support crew together and then get the engine down to wherever the tour starts.
I'm sure this is why MNLPS are quite content to run, almost exclusively, with one operation. The last time they got involved in helping out during the WCRC suspension the working was vetoed by that company at the last minute as it involved hauling their stock which for some reason they objected to. Can anyone understand the working of Mr Smith's mind? 35028 was already in steam and I believe one of the support crew had made the long journey from Cornwall.

The other problem with Tornado, as I've alluded to before, is it cannot substitute on any WCRC train, ie most of what runs on the mainline. It may be that the A1 trust are pacing their exposure to mainline work in line with the resources they have at their disposal.

 

But not the introduction of genuine competition obviously, as you have shot down that idea earlier in your post.

We have the situation whereby Tornado is not operated by WCRC, seemingly due to a dreamt up contractor approval issue (see post 3818).

And then there was the incident mentioned in the previous post, which resulted in a ruined day for hundreds of passengers as a result, allegedly, of a decision at the whim of the owner of WCRC.

No need for genuine competition? Really???

Dave

 

It wasn't JohnB that argued against genuine competition, IIRC. If I may paraphrase the poster who did, we should be careful what we wish for.