1st July 2010 CATHEDRALS EXPRESS with 5029 NUNNEY CASTLE

No moans from me, looked great through Taplow this morning:

http://simon71.fotopic.net/p65679320.html

 

Deliberate mistake of the day. Well spotted. Glad to see that you're paying attention. <BJ>

 

Agree, in B.R. days the diesel was always on the front

 

I would imagine that quite a few of the passengers are disgruntled as well. When booking a railtour there will always be a risk of disappointment. There are so many things that can
go wrong on the day ie. the non availability of the locomotive, an alteration to the route or simply sitting all day in the 12th coach. It's a chance we unfortunately have to take. <BJ>

 

well I guess some would rather a cancellation and others would rather a diesel 1 back from the front and still have their day out. Given the choice, I'd take the second option.

PS Can I also thank the person texting from the train, saved me a twenty minute wait. Many thanks

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M1aQCR7o7gY

My video of the 37 tour!
The second clip was a bit more like it

 

just back off this one,would agree 37 was doing most of the work,but quite hard to tell 8 coaches back.

In Steam Dreams own words Network Rail's performance is now at "crisis point",its hard to disagree with that. On this tour,they firstly rerouted it at very short notice via Slough instead of Staines,leading to the bemused punters from Staines having to be bussed to Slough(complete with the inevitable traffic problems). Surely this should have been picked up as soon as 5029 was rostered for the train.Secondly they issued a set of timimgs a only couple of days before travel,which were almost immediateley found to be wrong(the outward ones should have been an hour later!),and thirdly subjected us to an interesting bit of fun at Kenny O,where the signalbox forgot to route us into the platform road,eventually made us wait on the through road while the following local train picked up our passengers,went ahead of us,dropping them off at Shepherds Bush where we later called to pick them up! After that we seemed to lose time and then waited 20 mins for the Swindon/Kemble section to clear,meaning we were an hour late(or 2 hours on the original timings!)ar Worcester.

In my coach were 2 first time travellers on a steam trip. Sadly their verdict was "never again",they simply could not understand the Staines/Slough re-routing and then the timimg shenanigans. This is really bad for Steam Dreams and frustrating as its totally outside their control,although the non-enthusiast won't understand that.

 

Sounded good to me - a 37 on the eqiv of about load 13 I suppose....

 

I'm too just home, though did post a bit from the train and text the railtour live too.

It was a tough one to call. We were in dining, 7 coaches from the front on the outward, 5 from the front on the return. On the outbound after every stop the diesel could be heard to be pushing from a stand, but quietened down and we could hear the steam shortly after. The exception being Sapperton where we couldn't hear either, just wind/rail noise. On the return it was different, the 37 definitely was the more vocal, except from the departure from Worcester, and between Acton ML & Kenny O.

Does Dad want a refund, no. We still had a good day out to somewhere we would not have been to, but there is a sense of disappointment also. The people I feel the most sorry for are the 5029 lads. I get the feeling they worked so hard to get the loco ready, and working to have the thunder stolen by the diesel. 5029 did look cracking today and when we heard her, sounded awesome. Dad and myself understand the reasons behind today's restrictions and hope that they are the exception rather than the norm for this summer.

 

Hear Hear, I couldn't agree more.

 

Thanks for your texts much appreciated

 

What would have upset them more? Having the 37 along or getting the loco ready only to have the job cancelled at the last minute and possible loss of hire fee?

 

Oh dear!

I did like the footnote you put on the first track. Well, you've got to keep your sense of humour at times like these!

 

Yes, many thanks, much appreciated, they were very helpful. It's great when the text alerts work like that.