First of New UK Railtours series of all dining trips

Thats a welcome revelation, but reinforces my concern that presumably extra kitchen staff facilities would be required obove say 4 fo's
If its only 4 plus kitchen plus brake/generator plus support = 7, Well you may as well stick a TSO on for the ' window hangers - its still a short train. but for say 7 coaches of diners youll need two kitchens ? plus the above and you are already upto 11...

 

How many MK1/2/Pullman kitchen cars are there around that are mainline certified ?, I think that may answer why there are only a few all dining mainline tours if you require more than one over a certain number of coaches.

 

It will be interesting to see how popular the UK Railtours dining trains will be over the next year (and the similar Steam Dreams Sunday lunch trains), and whether they remain dining-only or start to sprout a second class coach or 2 to make up the load. I wish them luck. There's room in the market for more regular steam operations, especially if it keep DBS in the game. Although we have many reasons to be grateful for the work WCRC do, I slightly worry about them having no competition.

 

Why should we be making tours to keep DBS in work ?, they lost most of theirs through incompetence.

 

Never said competition was a bad thing, but it's worth remembering if we didn't have competition we'd all be stuck with DBS wreaking havoc across across the charter game and giving NR ammunition to question it's future, if DBS wish to continue in the charter market and win back customers, they need to up their game, not be fed work on a plate to refinforce some managers view their current methods are acceptable.

 

Er, who says DBS are being "fed work on a plate", for any reason? Do you have some inside information about their "pitch" to UK Railtours? IIRC, UK Railtours are no push-over when it comes to TOCs and have walked away, in the past, when DBS didn't come up to scratch. Do you think they are likely to have entered into a new contract with DBS without reassuring themselves about the quality of the product they're likely to get? Surely this is an encouraging sign?

 

DBS probably had too much work, when they had all Steams Dreams' business, and the long trips that went across London seemed a particular problem.They are best at trips that start in London and Bristol.

 

So killing the market by cancelling trains at less than 24 hours notice regularly through lack of crews is acceptable ?, you'll find it is locomotives that cause fire risk issues rather than those operating them, suggestions otherwise hint at an agenda, I don't claim a certain other TOC are perfect, but if you are going to criticise them, DBS must take theirs too, DBS probably care very little if charters go wrong seeing as it makes a such a small percentage of their work, the other TOC live or die by charter work as their primary income.

It's not just steam either, plenty in the diesel and daytripper market have been caught out by DBS's late notice shenanigans in the past 18 months.

 

It was that line "if it helps keep DBS in the game" in your previous post, as if DBS should be helped to stay in charters rather than making the effort themselves.

 

Without straying too far off topic...

DB (and EWS before) were always going to struggle with this side of the business.

At privatisation charter train operation lay with Mail, a large part of the business with lots of loco hauled trains and both scheduled and ad hoc working. RM pulling out was the first problem affecting our area.

The next problem was the rise in open access operators. I personally have reservations about these operators for a number of reasons. The Stafford SPAD raises questions about an open access operator with no regular routes or work. With some charters I don’t see how the operators have managed to maintain route and traction competency.

Then there is the question of zero hours contracts and secondary employment. By allowing these practices, the need for full time staff to be employed by regular operators has dropped and so it has cost jobs in the industry.

DB may have been badly managed at times, but they have lost staff because their business cannot sustain “spare capacity” for charter train staff now that other work, from mail to engineering and On track plant route conducting has been lost to cheaper bidders. Driving down price does not always offer a better product.