The Atlantic Coast Express 28/10

Is there any gen on this trip? No times yet and it seems to have been pulled from the RTC booking system, looks like I am to be dissapointed again.

 

Confirmation from RTC that the ACE has been cancelled due to engineering work. When will I get my trip up Honiton behind a Bulleid?

 

What about SD's massive ACE trip?

 

Just the small problem of funding the Steam Dreams ACE..........

 

I was about to book on this tour but it is not to be.

If there is engineering works booked at both ends of the line, or even just at one end causing the cancellation of this tour, surely this must have been known for some weeks. It is clearly not emergency works (flooding etc) so how long did the Railway Touring Company know about this. I checked on line on Wednesday and the tour was still booked to go ahead. Is it just possible that these works have been booked for months?

It really does leave a bad taste.

 

OUR SPEC FOR THIS JOB WAS SENT TO NR 3 MONTHS BEFORE THE THE TOUR
THEY ONLY REJECTED IT THIS WEEK
WE HAVE WASTED 2K IN ADVERTISING IT
WHO WILL COMPENSATE RTC answer NO BODY
and comments like this from a person not even booked on the tour leave a very bad taste in our mouth

 

Sorry to hear that slightly off topic but if this one got rejected how confident are you about the Xmas Devonian getting accepted I only ask as I'm looking to book on it.

 

The vast majority of tours go through without any problem
Sundays can be more difficult
we can see no problems looming with the Christmas Devonian,
and it is on a Saturday

 

I am staggered by this response. I not only was planning to make an on line booking on Thursday but I had persuaded by brother to join me too. I know not who you are, but in terms of public relations for RTC you have rather shot yourself in the foot.

Let me remind you of my point. A family member of mine deals with NR daily as his company provides track maintenance for NR. Being a contractor he must be advised by NR weeks and often months in advance of any engineering works so that plant and machinery can be hired in and delivered to site in good time and manpower resourced.

I am sure that you are right that running specials on Sundays is much more difficult that other days, but that does not give NR the right at such short notice to suddenly tell you that there is engineering works that prevents the train from running.

No doubt you will be seeking an explanation from NR and compensation from NR for the costs involved with cancellation. And when you do, can you please share it with us because otherwise, any tours planned for Sunday by any promoter in the future could be cancelled at short notice like the ACE. That will destroy confidence amongst passengers for any tours planned on a Sunday.

 

I am not sure who you are,but you imply that you are connected with RTC? If so you display a very strange attitude if you wish to encourage future business. After a couple of "unfortunate" experiences with RTC in the past,I would never book until a few days before,so that I have more chance of getting what I have paid for. I was actually about to book on this one when it was cancelled.

I would suggest that if you want people to have confidence to book with RTC in the future,rather than your rather petulant capital letter fulminations,why not answer the questions. How long in advance were these engineering works planned? Was RTC really planning to run this train right up to the cancellation date?

I am afraid it is the sneaking suspicion that RTC are not always straight with their customers that make me think very long and hard before booking with them.

 

We were planning to run this tour right up to the cancelation date and we took a half page in the Evening Standard to try to move the last few seats.
We advised our customers the day we were told it could not run
It was very disapointing both for us and our customers who had booked
Fortunatly this does not happen very often but realy should never happen

 

Orient Express normaly run on a WTT path giving them priority over one off charters
A WTT path is in the timetable unlike one offs which are bid for any white space remaining in the time table

 

The train in question you mention only had a few weeks notice that there was a likely problem looming, but even that was only definite last minute when the final ammended version of times appeared days after the tickets had already been sent out. To save the trip from being culled and salvage something substantial discount vouchers were offered to those who still decided to travel (with just 4 parties choosing to not bother).

Nobody is entirely safe from these issues but unfortunately if no prospective passengers continued booking charters "in case" they were cancelled they will all eventually be cancelled or simply not organised. Whilst £2k is an unpleasant amount to lose NR and the like rarely compensate for stuff such as we have to just accept that under the terms offered which we all have to choose to accept (or not bother organising anything) + insurance companies can't offer a cost-effective pay-out in these scenarios in case anyone is curious. The sad thing is that far greater sums are often forgone for various reasons when organising the trains and much greater costs in marketing them are sometimes endured than the train referred to in this thread. Its a miracle there are still people willing to take the risk on running these things looking at the the necessary outlay + list of constraints (luckily there is no TBFrank now to tell me there's millions of pounds being made and that's the real reason several large promoters still exist).

 

I never cease to admire people who run railtours in this environment of NR being able to pull the plug at a late stage without anyone having redress. typically British - might is right and the little guy has no rights.

I've been on seven main line tours so far this year, and have no complaints about any of the promoters. Let's support them, and if we do find ourselves losing out on non-refundable advance tickets to reach the start point and hotels I suppose we can only adapt with a Plan B of some sort - preserved lines, cultural visits or similar to make a decent weekend out of it.

 

A very sensible thing to do. The silver lining of a London-start trip being cancelled from my point of view is the number of pubs one can frequent instead...

 

I think that in future, and this would have helped in the case of the ACE, if tours are running on a Sunday, the tour promoters MUST seek assurances weeks in advance that the tour can go ahead. Possibly as long as three months in advance, NR would likely know of the engineering works likely to scupper any rail tour. This would saved the cancelled overnight hotels, for which refunds are seldom available and avoid the last minute disappointment of hundreds who would have travelled, me included.

Final point, we do not know if Meltonnorth is anything to do with Railway Touring Company, and so, in the words of the host of "Take Me Out", come on Meltonnorth, REVEAL YOURSELF! No lighty, no likey!

Lol