Great Britain XVIII: 18/4 -25/4/26

I wouldn’t bet against a Par layover (Royal Duchy style) and the last bit Par-Penzance be tender first on day 1

 

Have you seen the price of some of the coach tours in this country?
Yes it is expensive, but there is a lot more to this than many holidays.

 

But @simon I think it would be fair to say that the GB is not a land cruise in the sense of day one -- two hours to visit Exeter Cathedral, day two two hours to wander round old Shrewsbury etc etc. Unfortunately there isn't really the platform space for that type of thing. These are ten hour days on the train with one or two leg stretches. Looks like they are planning a decent stop at Glasgow.

It is a unique tour of its kind, I don't think there's anything like it in the UK. Suppose I had £5k to spend, I would compare it with the Emerald Isle Express, or a sea cruise around the British Isles stopping at Dublin, Ullapool, Stornoway, Orkney, Jersey etc, or even possibly a week with a first class all line rail rover( £630 for seniors plus say £1k for hotels) visiting places and lines I really wanted to go to. Plus perhaps some days out with RTC or VT or Saphos or the Midland Pullman. Depends what floats your boat, I did a superb minibus tour this year of the North Coast 500 in the Highlands five days, four nights from Leeds by train to/from Inverness for £800 all in.

Having said that, the four days I spent on the GB in 2019 was one of the highlights of my rail tour career.

 

I've only had a quick glance, but I can't see any UK based coach tours getting anywhere close to these sort of prices. Anyway, they're chalk and cheese - no one travels on a coach for the experience of being on a coach, it's simply a mode of transport to get them to wherever they're visiting.

GB is different. Vary rarely do the days deviate from hotel - train - hotel, it's about the journey. @simon asked about time off the train. There isn't really any, except in the evenings and maybe once or twice during the day. A 40 minute water stop at Arlesey on a Sunday evening when you're 40 miles from your destination doesn't really count!

 

Stowmarket, Perth and Salisbury without checking were 1 to 2 hours this year I recall without actually checking

 

40 minutes in Arlesey is 40 minutes too long.

 

Thanks for the responses. I think the absence of stops might not go down well with Mrs Simon. I think I will look elsewhere.

 

For UK based trips if you want a holiday with time at a destination traveling throughout on a charter with some of the trip behind mainline steam you are probably looking at a shorter trip like Steam Dreams trip to Cornwall, occasionally Vintage Trains and others do similar things or if you don't mind travel on service trains and coaches for some of it some of RTCs other holidays like The West Country Explorer have a some mainline steam on a charter train with a bit more time in places but still tend to be full on itineraries. If private train travel does not matter there are normally lots of offerings which use service trains from the likes of Great Railway Journeys and Ffestiniog Travel.

For what it sounds like you are looking for a longer holiday with time in each location to explore and travel by private charter train with steam haulage. If those are the important elements the best fit is actually probably Belle Trains Alpine Belle. The trip is in Europe not the UK but they are advertising an option to do an escorted transfer by Eurostar to and from London and it is run by a British company started by the original owner and founder of Steam Dreams. Pricing looks similar to the GB (edit: actually less, significantly so for the basic option) with £2,995 for the equivalent of First Class (no dining, first class seats and 3-star hotels) and £4,595 for the equivalent of Premier Class (inclusive dining service and 4 star hotels) there also seems to be a more high-end option. All on private train and mainly hauled by steam with a day or 2 in each stopover location.

Bolded and coloured text are links to the web page each trip or operator I have mentioned to make them easy to find if any are of interest.

edit for typo

 

As you say the GB is all about the journey and hence mainly, we hope, steam every day.
Price wise I would say it stacks up well against this shorter SD trip which only has steam two days and then only for part of the journey.

https://steamdreams.co.uk/journey/the-cornish-riviera-2026/

The coach tour comment should have really said UK originating. My wife and her friend paid about £3k each for a holiday to Italy, yes it was twice the length of the GB, and they chose the executive coach option, but some days were as long as the GB days and it did not even use the Shuttle, so in September/October very much in the hands of weather in the Channel. I thought that was a lot of money.

 

Thanks for posting this. I will take a look.

 

You must have divided the total (without single supplement) by nine to get £580 per day, but it's only eight days, so £652.50 per day.
Without the Kyle trip it's almost £700 per day of steam, as it still includes the two nights in Fort William.

And all probably in aircon Mk IIs.

I've been playing with some of the numbers. Considering that hotels generally charge per room whether for one or two occupants, and that hotel breakfasts are included on only two mornings, the £495 single supplement suggests an average room price of around £140, so a total for 7 nights of around £1000 or £500 per person sharing.

That makes the price for the train about £4400. Deducting the £325 for the Kyle day that's about £4075 for the other seven days or around £580 per day for those days on the train. Those are considerably longer distances than Kyle and back, but it still seems very high compared to single-day trips.

Feel free to try alternative assumptions for the calculation. A lower daily figure for the train would imply a higher figure for the hotels.

 

Good point, I assumed it was Saturday to Sunday like most years, not Saturday to Saturday. I was also wrong about dining costing 20% more than 2 years ago, it's actually 25%. So one day less makes it even more of an increase per day.

Anything available other than three Bulleids and a Black Five? Assuming the other 5 is working the usual Jacobite services, or will 45212 be overhauled and back with Ian Riley or heading back to KWVR?

 

Plus support vehicles.

 

Plus there's the load factor. RTC Premier Class on a day trip is £325. The budgetted load on the GB is going to be half that on the day trip? Certainly no more than two thirds.

 

The luggage taken by vans to the next hotel, except for first and last days.Transport to take the food for the day to the various start locations, particularly Penzance, Fort William and Aberdeen.
They are probably expecting less people than previous due to the Mk2's , so the the cost to run is spread across fewer people.