Saphos 2027

Thought The Edinburgh Summer Explorer had potential, until i looked and no standard class available, chance it could be 60007 as well.
First Class £245) fully booked.
Pullman Dining (495) yeah right oh....

 

I think that's got to be a mistake on the website. I can't believe the whole of First Class for a tour nine months away has sold out within 24 hours of being made available. On the prices by the way, although it is the Saphos premium, at least they haven't gone up next year. They're still the same as they were this year. So that's something.

 

The lack of standard is what surprises me, thought there might have been space for the cattle, like me!!

 

They only tend to offer Standard Class on the Fellsman - that's their "budget" tour. The buffet coach that provides the 32 Standard Class seats is part of the Statesman rake now.

 

That is to be hoped for everyone's sake, on and off the railways.

 

I have to say I agree. I have done a number of Saphos tours and the onboard service is excellent, but there is only so much excitement you can get from diesel haulage when you booked for steam. So unless it is in the October-March window I think I am done booking with mainline steam now… at least in the UK.

 

I agree that March, April and sometimes May can be bad for fire risk. If it has been dry, there is all the dead leaf and grass debris before any new green growth has covered the trackside. Certainly the Belmond Golden Age of Travel to Dover on 2nd May 2026 was diesel assisted.

Cheers, Neil

 

I'm tempted by the Plymouth trips with King and Castle. The risk of more hot dry weather should be lower for the September trip than in June but still significant even then. We could hope that Saphos will do like Vintage Trains and reschedule if they can't run double-headed steam as planned.

 

I'd say it's more likely they'd run the trip(s) with two class 57s over postponing if this summer was anything to go by!

 

Have Saphos quietly dropped The Cumbrian Mountaineer trips after Britannia's failure earlier this year?, there was talk of Braunton doing one this Autumn

 

Probably a bit risky trying to organise one at the moment due to all the fire risk issues. If I was them I would be waiting for things to settle down again before trying to organise a pure steam tour.

 

You would expect them to do something in the north west, especially as they can't run the Lakelanders due to the block at Corkickle, they are presently spending what appears to be a pretty large fortune on a spanking new dept in Carlisle and one assumes will need to get their money back for it somewhere, it can't just be for stabling the Bubble Car/Pacer and 37's when the Chairmans Train comes up the S&C?

 

Cumbria has been back to average rainfall in August and September, so I'd say the fire risk has been dialled down somewhat up here.

The main shed is for rolling stock storage, to free up space at Crewe.