Saphos Trains 2026

I see the 60007 group have just published that Gresley will be on the front for this Saturdays tour to Kingswear, does anyone know if the diesel will be tucked in behind the loco?

 

I thought the fire risk was black down south, i.e. no steam at all.

 

Well it clearly can't be!

 

60007 Sir Nigel Gresley at Bradford-on-Tone with the English Riviera Express to Kingswear

 

Fingers very firmly crossed it all goes well today.

Bryan

 

Well, it was Saphos . 12 coaches, fully booked.

A nice touch today was the fact that 1960s built loco D400 hauled the train from Westbury to Taunton and, I presume, from Taunton to Westbury. <BJ>

 

A few clips featuring Goliath on service trains and 60007 on its return to Dartmouth following the steam ban



hope you enjoy

all the best
Matt

 

Could be wrong, but as 61306 went on a turning move today to face London are we to assume it’s standing in for 71000 on tomorrows Golden Arrow?

 

Having seen Mayflower at Denmark Hill a short while ago, the answer would appear to be yes. A shame as I was quite looking forward to seeing the DoG main line for the first time (for me that is).

 

Record shot at Bickley this morning. On red fire risk and yellow signals so didn't expect much, but was good to see the B1 again at least:

 

Just arriving at Canterbury 27 minutes late! Given that it was only due to have a 2 hour layover in Canterbury that barely gives the crew time to service the loco (especially as various shunt moves have to happen before and after) and hardly gives the passengers time to do anything in Canterbury. You have to wonder what the point is, especially if you started from Norwich at 0640 and get back after midnight. I did 4 trips to Canterbury in the days of the old Steam Dreams and we always got at least 3 hours to look around.

 

Modern tours rarely seem to have much time at the destination these days, or very rarely way too much such as the 11 hours or so at Bristol on the FS tour recently.
Saphos/SD/Statesman appear to sell out most of their tours, maybe in part due to the large number of pickup points, (yet strangely on tours transiting London like this one, with no pick up at all) so the model must be working which tells me it is more about a day out than the destination for most. Then chuck in a busier network of faster service trains and it becomes what we have now.
Like @The Gricing Owl we are all dinosaurs where tours are concerned.

 

I'm beginning to feel like one too and I'm only just over 60!!!

 

Standing in for 71000, 61306 Mayflower gets an assisted climb up to Bickley station with today’s Golden Arrow