SRPS Railtours 2025

Does anyone know if the S.R.P.S. festive Aberdonian tour on 23rd Aug 2025 if the tickets have been issued for sale on S.R.P.S. website page?
Or has the festive aberdonian seats sold out for Aug 23rd 2025 anyone?

 

All tours with 60007 removed from the website. Not even sure if the Aberdeen ones went on sale.

 

Gresley isn't having much luck this year with railtours! Two Saphos ones cancelled already this year, the one next week potentially going diesel hauled and now it could be it's Scotland ones cancelled.

 

Desperately disappointing if true! I was hoping to go on the Aberdeen trip.

 

Customers have been contacted in the last 24hrs to confirm cancellation of these trips. Unfortunately ticket sales did not reach the required level to run the trains.

To price the Aberdeen trip at a marketable price it was dependent on the Forth Circles running. When ticket sales for the latter were slower than anticipated, we held out on advertising Aberdeen so as not to dilute the offering so we could try to run 2 of the 3 days (which unfortunately did not work!).

 

I sort of understand the logic but really the Aberdonian was always likely to be the more popular of the trips given the length of run, decent steam haulage, etc so surely it should have been that which went out first?

Really do have to feel for the SNG group who are having a rough year for trips being cancelled

 

Even if the Aberdeen train ran at close to 100% capacity, it would have required both circles to run to allow the Aberdeen trip to go ahead, hence the focus was on the Forth Circles over Aberdeen given that, had we sold all the tickets for Aberdeen but the Forth Circles did not reach breakeven, the Aberdeen train still would likely have had to be cancelled.

Andrew

 

There is still, what, 6/7 weeks to go before they would have run? Plenty of time for more bookings to have come in.

 

The first tour was 5 weeks away (tomorrow). To achieve breakeven point on the Forth Circles would have required an increase in the sales rate per week of 100%, despite a reasonable quantity of paid advertising incl. on the Edinburgh Fringe website as well as our normal advertising sources. We would have had to start to commit to costs next week, so the decision was taken now that potential significant losses were best avoided.

 

I couldn't agree more, the SNG group have had a really rough year for cancellations. I do hope all it's Christmas railtours booked into York all happen.

 

As one who had delayed booking until I saw fares and times I feel cheated out of an opportunity that I was keen to sample; I had even booked accommodation with family in order to chase the Forth Circle on the Monday and travel on the Saturday. My last steam trip on this portion of the ECML was in August 1966 when I travelled behind 60532 working the final SO 10:35 Edinburgh - Aberdeen as far as Dundee hence my interest (as a member of the A4 Locomotive Society) in travelling on this train.

As far as custom is concerned what publicity was arranged to attract the many visitors to Edinburgh during the Fringe and Festival which will be taking place at the same time; an opportunity lost perchance ?

 

Where were you intending to travel to on the Saturday? The proposed date for the Aberdonian, as noted on the 'Save the Date' page of the SRPS railtours website, was Sunday 23 August, a week after the last Forth Circle train. Might have been a long wait had you been intending to do the two in one trip.

As I have written in a previous post, we've had adverts on the Edinburgh Fringe website, in local news (paid and unpaid), social media. We're desperately short on volunteers so would (genuinely) welcome any thoughts on how to advertise future tours.

 

Someone has a wrong date here !! According to my Diary August 23rd is a SATURDAY so which date is correct ? Your SUNDAY 24th August or SATURDAY 23rd August. Has this date error affected the operation of 4498 to Aberdeen as I had hoped to be travelling behind 4498 on the Saturday and returning home to England on the Sunday ??

A further point of concern is that despite checking weekly I have never found any details of the Aberdeen trip, especially times and fares, despite the Forth Circle tours details being uploaded 2 weeks ago. If the Aberdeen run was so dependent on the Forth Circle tours then why weren't the 3 trips advertised at the same time on the web site. As far as website information is concerned the Aberdeen trip has never existed, despite it being the main interest of the 3 tours programme.

 

Maybe if the thought about a journey up the ECML from York to Edinburgh, to thank all of the supporters of her in the East, that may help.
It has been promised for ages, and never delivered on, or maybe start something by Diesel, and go to Carlisle, and the LSL base to pick her up.

 

You need to read post #66 which explains the background behind this.

 

As much as I like a trip the prices of the forth circle were an instant no for me and I guess others. I appreciate that’s just how much it costs these days but over £100 for 3ish hours I’d rather and have gone down to the NYMR for £30 to get a return trip on it, behind Gresley.

 

Or indeed popping over to Dublin where an afternoon mainline excursion willl give you change from a twenty euro note. Mainline steam in Britain is just pricing itselt out of a market these days sadly.

 

It may explain the background but doesn't explain why in post §73 the date of August 23 was noted as SUNDAY when it is actually SATURDAY - the day and date I have had in my diary for the last couple of months waiting for details to appear on the SRPS website. See note ::

S 23/8/2025


60007

1Z** : Edinburgh – Inverkeithing – Kirkaldy – Thornton Jn – Ladybank – Perth – Dundee – Montrose – Stonehaven - Aberdeen.

1Z** : Aberdeen – Stonehaven -Montrose – Dundee – Perth – Ladybank – Thornton Jn – Kirkaldy – Inverkeithing - Edinburgh

▓▓▓

SRPS

LSL

Hence my concern asto whether the incorrect date has had some consequence on the trip being cancelled apart from the consequence of poor loadings for the Forth Circle trips

 

As an air-braked class 8 loco, I wonder whether 60007 would have had more work were it available to other operators?