Saphos Trains

@RalphW this thread has now been hijacked by a certain no-diesels-on-the-back spokesman, like so many others. There's no point in arguing, as it just seems to be the same old rant over and over again, ignoring all the quoted reasons, facts and explanations.

 

@richards I can't agree that anything has been "hijacked" - if those of us who care about such things can't discuss them here, then where can we? If you're fed up with anyone's posts then why not just use the "ignore" function?

 

60007 'English Riviera Express' on 22nd July. Postponed until 18th October due to industrial action. <BJ>

 

There's discussing and then there's just repetitively posting the same old rant which achieves nothing in terms of changing to rail tours. Attempts have been made to explain why some operators choose to operate in the way they do, but some don't seem to accept this.

 

Might not be much "Riviera" about it on October, unless we have an Indian Summer.

 

Yes SWR couldn't open the stations for them so they can't run. Same problem for RTC with Reading but they can stop at Reading West to solve that problem.

Andrew

 

It shows the advantages of having passenger pickup/set downs at un-manned stations. As there's never any staff member working at them anyway, the strike wouldn't affect the stations.

 

Nice to see a bit of solidarity with the TOC workers there. Striking for their livelihood but steam comes first

 

How would postponing the trip and thus at best inconveniencing your passengers actually help the striking railway workers?

 

A4 60007 + support coach + 37.521 arr Bristol SPM 12:17 from Bishops Lydeard.

Possibly a test run and / or use of the wheel lathe. [BJ]

 

I was more looking at the comment “The strike wouldn’t affect the trains”. The idea is the strike does affect trains! Gets the message accross

 

I would have thought a postponement would make it even less likely that those people would support the strikers.

 

I think the point was that the original post was somewhat tactless in pointing out "the advantages of having passenger pickup/set downs at un-manned stations" in this particular instance, when station staff are threatened by a crass government scheme to close massive numbers of booking offices. This obviously undermines the quality of the rail services, deters travel, costs jobs and is a factor leading to the strike action. The convenience to some users of a special train is trivial in comparison.

 

Test run after bearing repairs.

 

Spot on.

 

My personal thoughts are yes. I’m striking to attempt to protect my job, my terms and conditions and my pension. So to me the railway should be shutdown. But that’s just me. I suppose if I lose my job I’ll have all the time in the world to go see the steam trains at least!

 

That may all be true but it still doesn't answer my question how postponing the trip would actually help the striking railway workers.