GCR WINTER GALA - FRIDAY 27 JANUARY 2012 TO SUNDAY 29 JANUARY 2012

Hmm. So if I drive 150 miles setting off at stupid o'clock to arrive in time for the first or second train, and stay until the end, I should have the opportunity (barring failures) to sample Ollie and the O4 on passenger trains without too much difficulty?

 

Eventually as with diesel galas railways may realise that rosters in advance are an important advertising tool to entice fare paying pasengers.
A bit like rosters for normal running days.In recent weeks GCR newsletter hasn't mentioned the weekends rostered locos so I haven't been,choosing ELR and KWVR instead-who's weekend roster was on their websites.

Had I been in the country next weekend then 30053 on a couple of full line returns would have enticed me into buying a rover-a couple of top and tail runs with it to Rothley wouldn't.No information would have the same effect as the latter.

The freeloading camera weilding parasites will attend anyway-there will be a train around every twenty minutes freight or passenger and after around three hours they will have their photo of each loco and leave(or moan the railway hasn't booked the weather for them).Rosters on the day they generally won't purchase anyway.

 

does anyone know if there will be shed tours , similar to those arranged by the boscastle team last year???

 

I don't know if the GCR have picked up on this, but there is nothing on their website, in adverts posted in railway magazines, or in 'MainLine', their house magazine, that indicates there will only be 3 engines in steam on Friday. To quote their advert: "Winter Gala Friday 27th - Sunday 29th Jan 2012. Probably Great Central Railway's biggest ever gala with 10 locos in action!"

If this is not the case on Friday, I really do think that is misleading. Surely it's not too much to ask for the railway to say which locomotives they expect will be running on each day of the gala?

Having said that, I am looking forward to attending this gala; it's just I feel that the advance publicity could potentially be as good at deterring people from attending in the future as attracting people!

 

I agree entirely with D7076. From past 'form' there's every possibility that the M7 could either play with freights and mail trains all day (as per 63395 in 2009) or be limited to Loughborough - Rothley trains all day (as 47406 was on its first gala back in steam in 2010). Either way not much good for those who want to attend and travel all day behind a particular machine.

I would be very interested to know after the gala how many rosters are sold as opposed to given away with tickets, and therefore how many intending passengers have to not turn up due to the non information policy in order to make such policy a financial detriment to the railway, bearing in mind that said photographers will want to buy a roster anyway in order to know what locos are on the freights, and now that there is a turntable installed, which way locos are facing.

In my opinion this is a backwards step for the railway and will alienate a core of people who regularly visit the railways galas to travel behind particular locos. An adult rover is £22, a photographer visiting once pays more than a passenger, assuming £25 for a lineside pass and £3 for the roster. However the pass is available for the full year, so the second visit (I visited the railway on six separate occasions last year) puts the traveller at £44, whilst the photographer is at just £31, £34 for the second visit etc. This of course ignores the vast tracts of photographers on the public side of the fence, who may contribute, but just as easily might be freeloading, vs the trains passengers, who by definition will have paid to be there.

For the sake of this and future galas, Great Central please re-consider your policy.

Jonathan

 

On Friday M7 does 3 rounds trips, starting with the 1130 ex Loughborough. I don't know about anything else.
On Sat & Sun it does at least one full round trip each day, plus locals, 1 freight run and one TPO run each day. I

 

Evening All,

To answer a few questions and following on from Alex's post earlier as I've now seen a WTT for Friday...

The locos diagrammed for use on Friday are 30053, 63601 and 70013.

All 10 locomotives should be in use on Saturday and all are diagrammed for some passenger turns as well as a variety of other workings.

On Sunday again all 10 locomotives should be running. The only loco not diagrammed for passenger trains on this day is 63601.

To those of you who have commented on the amount of information available prior to the event in regards to what's running when and on what turns thank you. Some important points have been raised and I will do my best to bring these to the attention of the people who decide how to publicise our steam galas. It just remains for me to say that the WTT for this gala looks pretty immense with the volume and frequency of trains that are planned to run and I hope many of you will be able to come along next weekend!

Phil

 

Just to add my bit to the debate about WTT's and knowing what loco is going to be on whch train...

For some of us (and I know I'm not the only one), half the fun is just NOT knowing what's going to turn up next, and whether it's a freight, passenger, local, TPO or whatever. Me and some friends have spent many happy hours at Quorn during Galas just enjoying the sights and sounds whatever turns up next. It almost gives it a 'big railway' feel.

Still, each to there own I suppose and the only thing we can be certain of is that, even if we have 10 steam locos, an intesive timetable and great weather, there will still be people moaning!

Good luck to all concerned with the GCR for this weekend.

 

In past the GCR have been pretty good at providing the loco roster for passenger trains in advance of galas, which as has been said by others, is great for planning one's moves in advance. It's a great shame if they're not doing it this time, especialy with 10 locos in use it may taking quite a bit of planning to try to ride behind as many locos as possible. Let's hope somebody is reading thread and they can have a re-think in the next few days.

 

That's fair enough, if you don't want to know you don't have to buy the WTT (or better still, you buy the WTT, but don't look at it), but as is evidenced by this forum, there are a lot of us who do like to know.

 

Looking forward to this, hopeing to attend 2 days, ride one and bringing several friends.

 

Whilst I agree with D7076 that the true 'freeloading camera wielding parasite' probably won't bother to pay for a platform ticket, never mind a copy of the WTT, as a FoGCML member and lineside permit holder, I feel that I have paid for the basic authority to go lineside with my camera - on top of which I ALWAYS purchase rover tickets for any event that I attend, regardless of whether or not I travel on any of the trains of just hang about waiting to photograph them. The GCR is, in my experience, quite rightly rather more proactive than other railways in carrying out checks of lineside photographers within its boundaries, but though I have been asked to show my lineside permit at least once at every gala I've been to, I do not recall being asked to show that I was also in possession of a valid ticket. Perhaps that's where they should focus their attention when it comes to maximising revenue - though it would not address the problem of extracting financial support from 'freeloaders' who loiter outside the boundary.

As for the advance availability of WTT's, I have certainly relied upon them in the past to plan my visits, and I have to say that the timetable information that has been published so far for the 2012 Winter Gala has not been particularly helpful in that regard. I would certainly appreciate sight of a fully annotated event timetable (It needn't be more than two sides of A4.) within 48 hours of the start of the event, and I wouldn't mind in the least if I had to pay the GCR a pound or two in order to have it emailed to me in PDF format.

 

Just been looking at the website regarding this gala - The problem I have is that the only day I can make is Friday ( working sat/sunday)
Only 3 engines running (30045, 70013 & 63601) at 45 min intervals - no freight - no tpo - stopping for a lunch hour and a rover ticket @ £17 - plus I would be traveling a distance of over 120 miles each way.
I would have loved to see 46521 running also which is another let down
It certainly isnt good value for me, and with the wife present also, this would double the cost to £34 for tickets,, and getting her to do more than one journey; well near impossible!
I think the friday part of the gala needs a radical rethink at these prices.
John

 

I have written directly to the GC via their website contact form as per my post from last night. I urge all of you who like me are regularly attending paying passengers to do the same. To lose such useful advance information for the sake of attracting a few £3 donations from photographers seems like a retrograde step and can only result in disenfranchising certain members of their enthusiast market.

If you feel strongly about this as I do, please write to the railway with your concerns. Hopefully it will force a re-think, if not in time for this gala, then in time for future events.

Regards

Jonathan

 

There's no need to lose faithin the GCR just because you can't see the WTT in advance. As said in an earlier post someone involved with the railway will carry our message to the people who need to hear it and it is a simple matter next time of putting the PDF for sale online where it can then be downloaded.

At the end of the day (literally) you can work out the pattern anyway so know roughly what will happen, although the old rule that whatever comes out of Loughborough it will be smokebox first no longer applies.

 

To me it's more fundamental than that. If the loco diagrams interest me then I will attend, if they don't then I won't. I don't want to pay for a roster that tells me not to bother attending, and as I am paying £22 for a ticket, I don't see why I should have to pay to find out whats pulling the trains when I do.

 

I don't know-30045 is a very rare loco these days,and NELPG deserve our support for sorting out the Q6's axlebox issues so quickly-atleast it will be on a pasenger train this time after incurring transport costs for a second visit.

 

The WTT is not the only issue here; the very fact that the railway have clearly advertised Friday's operations as a 'gala' with ten locomotives, when it is merely a very ordinary two train service, using only three locomotives, at an inflated price is a big disappointment to me, and I suspect many others, especially those who will turn up at the railway on Friday unaware that this is the case.

In fact, I could go to the railway on an ordinary Saturday from April to October and ride behind two steam locomotives, a diesel locomotive and on a DMU at standard fares, with nine round trips during the day (the same as Friday), excluding any dining trains and driver experience trips that may also be running! In other words, there will probably be more train movements to watch than this Friday!

The use of the word 'gala' implies that there will be something special worth paying extra for; as I see it, other than the use of the M7 instead of a class 47, there is nothing really different to an ordinary day at the GCR. Certainly not worthy of the accolade 'gala', or the increased fares in my opinion.

A number of other larger heritage railways manage to run a full blown gala on a Friday and seem to do quite well (for example, the WSR, MHR and the SVR); I think it could be worth the GCR giving it a try!

 

I will be there on Saturday and will buy a day rover and spend money in shops and sales stands etc. But I am only really interested in riding behind the M7 (whatever number it is!) and 46521. Freights and TPOs are not in my sphere of interest and to plan my parking and day generally a roster would be invaluable. I admit that it would also save me a journey if I found the M7 and 46521 working at the wrong times - or on freight only etc. The roster also enables me to see if it is possible to squeeze in a visit to another local site if there are gaps when the engines I am interested in are not working.

I have spent several days at galas at the GCR in recent years simply because the roster was available and I know how to plan my day (and keep the rest of the family happy too...) It is a retrograde step not providing the information in advance in my view - particularly when 10 engines are involved! I accept that a printed and paid for roster only works up to the first failure, loco late off shed etc but I'll take that risk!

On a different note, I have waited in queues at both Rothley and Loughborough booking offices with train departures looming at past galas, is some form of 'fast track' system for a rover for one day available? A TTI with an excess book taking £22 cash would probably work?

 

IIRC at a recent diesel gala there was a cash only counter at Loughborough, this was a very good idea and well worth repeating imo!