Midland Pullman HST Tours 2026

Anybody know what happened with the St. Albans Inverness trip today?
It was holding up the GB from reports on that thread and has now according to RTT made up 200 minutes in the 42 mile between Dalgetty Bay and Stanley.
Did they fix the set, send something else from Crewe and cannot see from my Track Atlas what they have cut out to grab so much time back.

 

RTT shows it taking minus one hour between those points, which I hope we can discount.

 

It looks like an incorrect manual entry. The HST has not got to Perth yet.

 

Just passed me at Kirkcaldy 15 minutes ago.

 

Thanks to you and @mattspencer

 

Today's trip to Kyle of Lochalsh cancelled due to problems with the traction equipment

 

That’s very disappointing for the punters, it was very much the highlight of our trip on this tour.

 

RTT shows it's currently at the platform for today's journey home, so presumably the cancellation of yesterday's outing gave them time to fix the broken power car. Quite lucky really that Inverness depot is one of the few on the network that still actively works on HST power cars, so there would have been plenty of help available I would have thought. A disappointing day for the passengers. I wonder how many of them went over to Kyle anyway on a ScotRail DMU? I'm on the next Inverness/Kyle tour in a couple of weeks, so hopefully there will be no issues on that one. It's already had to have the first day extended by 2 hours due to engineering work on the Marches, so it's having to go from Hereford to Shrewsbury via Worcester, Kidderminster, Wolverhampton and Telford.

 

Surely LSL would have laid on coaches in lieu?

 

I wouldn't have thought so. They will probably do a partial refund back to passengers. Trip Advisor reviews over the coming days will tell us! I'll also get the full story from the staff when I'm on it myself in a couple of weeks.

 

As I'm on the HST tomorrow I thought I'd post the timings. Swansea to Inverness, changing headcode at Penrith. Looks like leg stretches at Penrith and Perth. It is the only train tomorrow travelling between Hereford and Shrewsbury. The northern half of the Marches is closed so it's taking the Malvern line and going round via Birmingham.

https://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/service/gb-nr:U83127/2026-05-09/detailed
https://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/service/gb-nr:U83128/2026-05-09/detailed

 

And it follows a further "scenic" route from the Glasgow area to Perth via the Forth Bridge.

 

Kyle of Lochalsh

 

Just done the Rose Street Curve to reverse back into platform 1. Nice bit of rare track. Didn't do it this morning as we left from 7.

 

https://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/service/gb-nr:U83798/2026-05-30/detailed

Today's Chelmsford to Inverness didn't get far

Forget that new schedule

https://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/service/gb-nr:79259/2026-05-30/detailed