Cath Ex Southend to Salisbury 3rd December

Now Salisbury instead of Winchester, and 44871 and 45407 instead of 6201. Steam hauled Hanwell to Hanwell and no diesel on this section according to Ian Riley on the Works, which I checked after reading it on UK Steam.

 

So once again the customers are not getting what was sold to them....... Why is the change always at the last moment. If I book a trip thats been sold and marketed to me as steam from A to B then what's what I expect. Are the passengers who shelled out some considerable money to book seats I supposed to feel better that there is no diesel in the train on the steam part....

That's it with Steam Dreams for me now......I will spend my money elsewhere and I don't think that will be with mainline steam.

Stan

 

Now I am a long way from being Steam Dreams greatest fan and a lot of their past actions have been unacceptable to me BUT..........The failure of Lizzie is in no way their fault. I still wonder how a newly overhauled loco can experience such problems.

They sourced replacement motive power, there is no way that the Black 5's could be gauged from Southend in the short time available...so they have lengthened the steam section from West London to compensate. In the circumstances I do not see what more they could be reasonably expected to do, and I applaud them for the actions they have taken.

 

Tough luck if you've made arrangements to meet people or do something specific in Winchester though.

 

Seems to me there are two separate issues.

Failure of 6201 and replacement with two Black 5s feels like it is just one of those things, certainly outside SD's control.

But why the change of destination from Winchester to Salisbury? Being familiar with both stations, I can appreciate that Salisbury presents fewer operational issues for loading and unloading large numbers of passengers - the platform occupancy and frequency of service is such that a charter can be parked in Platform 4 for twenty or thirty minutes without undue impact on the regular service, whereas there is a train every few minutes through Winchester (including a lot of freight trains), making rapid loading / unloading of a complete train difficult. (I assume the train would have gone on to Eastleigh for turning / servicing). But surely that operational constraint should have been obvious before the service was advertised?

Tom

 

Rumour has it that Eastleigh is no longer available for steam servicing.

 

Here we go again with the steam dreams kicking,
Yes its not as advertised but they are well within rights to change the terms and have done so,

 

But the other SD Winchester train on 14th December is still advertised as going to the original destination. Interesting....

 

maybe they can't service two locos

 

That's quite right but the same applies to the passengers who are well within their rights not to travel with Steam Dreams again. <BJ>

 

Hardly bashing.....just a case of not getting what you paid for or even going to the destination you wanted to go to.
Stan

 

Why couldn't a black five be gauged in such a short time? surely if Lizzie fits so will a black 5....

Or am I missing something....

 

Agreed, totally reasonable alternative and provided SD play fair by those that simply wish to cancel with refund then there is nothing to grumble about.

 

Exactly, they've made the best of a situation,
there can be no moaning about a diesel, everything should be so happy, your getting your day out stop whining, SD are just protecting ttheir interests, like everyone would do,
They have bills to pay families to feed etc, said it before don't like it charter your own train and see how hard it really is.

 

Then they can do so, but if they chose to they have no right in future to complain about what steam dreams do which they feel is good for business,

 

Why not ? I no longer travel with Steam Dreams because I prefer not to have a diesel in the consist .....but I still have a right to have an opinion about the company.

I'm not a citizen of the United States but I certainly have a strong opinion about Donald Trump. <BJ>

 

From Steam Dreams referring to Saturday 3rd and Wednesday 14th trips

The difficulty with the 3rd December is that we have to turn the locomotive at Eastleigh depot which is not usually open at the weekends and having agreed initially to allow us to turn the engine there on Saturday a new management team have now unfortunately said it will not be possible due to lack of staff. As your trip is mid-week and the depot will be open this is not expected to present a problem.

 

If you have shelled out then up to a point, cause if you have booked you have automatically accepted the terms which are pretty water tight,
if you don't like it don't book simples.
Shouldn't go round bashing someones business, good job SD and the like have thick skins and can ignore the petty,