46233 PMR Tours

Just this week PMR announced their 2016 tours. 2 trips to Scarborough, 2 days on the West Coast Mainline, Newcastle. 2016 is looking to be another busy year for Sutherland.


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Also a run to Chester.


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Might book the 2 day Perth trip with electric Euston to Crewe and 46233 Crewe to Perth.

 

And to Sutherland's PMR tours you can add the (currently provisional) Vintage Trains "Whistling Ghost 4 " Tyseley-Minehead trip on 18th June and 2nd July Cotswold Explorer circular trip - both good enough, I would suggest, and IMHO, to be a worthy complement to anything so far posted by PMR tours. And both, I would guess, likely to be "box-on-the-back-less".

So, a busy year for Sutherland!! Good stuff indeed, and just at the right time, given the current dearth of 8P traction

 

Will make a change from 5043 on whistling ghost

 

Are the tours ran by DBS or WCRC?

 

Got my eyes set on the two-day jaunt to Perth, having missed her 75th birthday runs.

 

Disappeared from the tours page seemingly without comment as to why or whether they will try again on another weekend.

 

In mid February this notice was on their website, but now seems to have disappeared:

2016 tours with
46233 'Duchess of Sutherland'

Unfortunately we are not taking
any bookings until the
West Coast Railways Company / ORR
situation is resolved
Please accept our apologies.

Dave B

 

Yes thanks, I was aware of that, but just curious as to whether this one had been dropped altogether.

 

The website now shows some of their trips as bookable, but doesn't show the Perth trip at all. That one also doesn't appear on UKSteam, which usually continues to show cancelled trips as such. Maybe it was cancelled so soon after being announced that it never had time to appear.

 

A few days ago 46233 was announced as the visiting loco at the ELR's Gala 11-13 March, I have asked the question on another thread to establish how is it getting there, the reply is "working on it".

 

Makes sense- a potential positioning move for the 19 March trip.

 

When looking at PMR Tours website today I saw this notice:



THE YORKSHIRE CORONATION

to Scarborough

Train Ref: YC12

Unfortunately, due to reasons beyond our control,

this tour cannot run on 11th June as previously advertised.

The rearranged date will be announced on this page

when the new date is confirmed to us.

Those customers who have booked on this tour will be contacted

as soon as possible to advise. Please accept our sincere apologies.



Wonder what the reason is.

Dave B

 

The two day Royal Scot, 15/16 July has gone now too.

We are extremely sorry to inform you that due to an issue with the availability of coaching stock, this trip has been CANCELLED.

As you may be aware, ‘PMR Tours’ hires all coaching stock from our Train Operating Company ‘West Coast Railways’. Although this trip has been booked with WCR for several months, we have now been told that the coaching stock is no longer available for that date and therefore we have no option but to cancel the trip. Unfortunately we are not able to reschedule the date due to an ongoing lack of WCR stock availability, in addition to our existing commitments with 46233 ‘Duchess of Sutherland’.

 

It's very disappointing that 46233 is losing all of this work. I wonder if she could go out on hire to some of the longer Heritage Lines. A bit of a "caged tiger"scenario for 46233 but I know she would be very popular wherever she went and she would be earning some money. I guess it depends on how far those who look after her want to travel and how much available time they have. The prickly subject of gauging also causes some movement problems on the National Network.
Also, some of the repeat itinerary ML trips down South rely on a pool of locomotives. Is there any chance she could be allocated to these pools for some regular work to get some funds in? Gauging probably rules this out though.

 

And the origins of the volunteer support crew tends to favour northern operation. It would probably be ok for the odd one-off, but a whole season would probably stretch them a bit.

 

I may be way off the beam here, but previously at the height of the Summer season, didn't WCR supplement their coaching stock by hiring the SRPS rake ?

 

I wonder if some of the WCRC coaches have been taken to an area near Scarborough to be used as holiday homes maybe forming a new Butlins style operation