Railmotor on the Liskeard-Looe branch?

I think there are two issues here preventing the railmotor moving to Liskeard under it's own power in the wee small hours as there is only one mainline driver passed to drive it coming down and he would seriously be out of hours if he were to do this task and unless any of the B&W volunteer drivers are registered to drive on the mainline this would'nt be possible either

 

Those travelling down by train may not be so lucky as advance tickets are non refundable unless FGW takes pity on the ticket holders.

 

Yeah thats £75 down the drain, still FGW will enjoy it even if I cannot get my trip on the railmotor. NOT HAPPY.

 

IIRC they are changeable, but this has to be done before the original booked departure (which may be a problem if there isn't room for everyone on the other already-planned date) and there is a charge for this.

 

When I booked on 9466 to Looe a couple of years ago I went by train. When I found out that the ecs to Plymouth was being turned into a passenger train I needed to change my FGW return booking to accommodate 9466's run to Plymouth. Enquired of FGW if I could do this and was told that all I could do was to forfeit my first ticket and book another one for my revised journey times. Also, even if they are changeable, to what date will passengers booked on this weekend's bash change them? There is no revised date announced as of yet?

 

There isn't any spare space on next week's trips. All seats are already sold. I hope the GWS can announce a new date quickly. (My party is going down there to video and photograph the event, so can change date fairly easily.)

 

The disgraced 47 is at Westbury this morning. <BJ>

 

Let's not start dragging First Group into this mess. We know who is to blame. <BJ>

 

Surely there has been time to investigate the fault on the Class 47 and repair it in the time since it failed?

It really does beggar belief that in a nation of this size and with a big rail infrastructure to boot, nothing can be done. Yes, privatisation has segmented much of what was possible many years ago but how will the disappointed and "out of pocket" passengers feel if it is found that the diesel failure causing all of these problems, was so minor that a simple fix was possible? Anyone heard of fitters?

That I suspect is when the muck will hit the fan.

Baton down the hatches West Coast!

 

Mainline ticket holders who booked with FGW themselves could try writing to FGW customer services explaining the situation. If you have advance tickets while you are not entitled to a refund they may consider it out of good will given that you were booked on a very special steam operation and they have over recent years been very supportive of steam.

A long shot but it probably is worth a shot.

 

Probably would have in the 1970's and early 1980's... Rainhill spun off an era of all kinds of interesting things..

 

You're not going to believe it! 47854 has been given a VSTP path to Westbury to rescue to 47!

James at SVN

 

Wow! Referring to my earlier contribution, the muck really WILL hit the fan now. Can West Coast explain why the rescue diesel could not have been used to take the steam rail motor to Cornwall in plenty of time for Sunday's tours? Even if they tagged the failed Class 47 in the formation, at least the tour could have gone ahead without the massive problems for passengers on the tour, many of whom may be oblivious to the cancellation.

We are talking Westbury, not WAKEFIELD to Liskeard. It is a journey of just 148 miles and on a Saturday too where surely a new path will have been found.

 

Recruitment Opportunity at Westcoast Railways

Looks like a case of shutting the stable door etc! Obviously "heritage" diesels are going to be more fragile than new kit, but WCRC do seem to be having a serious run of failures at the moment. I guess the issue with sending the rescue loco forward to move the SRM is that Didcot took the sensible option yesterday of using as much time as they had to start warning people it was off which means there is now no point in putting it back on. Presumably there was no guarantee of anything getting to Liskeard to do the transfer so they had no real choice - hanging on just in case would have made things worse if they then had to cancel this morning because nothing could get through.

 

Easily explained - 47 854 is not vacuum braked and so would be unable to shift the rail motor. It would appear that the problem relates to the very few vacuum braked diesel locos available on the network. Better to take 47 245 back to base and try to sort it out asap for next week.

Peter James

 

Probably a daft question but would it have been possible to tow the rail motor as an unbraked load?

 

No, it needs an hour at gas mark 7 first , with load 1 the extra unbraked forces would be minimal, but I guess it's the same red tape with unbraked moves whether it's load 1 or 21.

I was going to say in reposnse to WCRC only have so many vac braked Diesels that 47773 is sitting on Tyseley, but thinking about it, that's probably needed where it is incase there are any issues with todays Pannier tour.

 

That's the big issue with these things and one which could eventually kill the charter market, yes you may be able to run at another date and the passengers may be able to make that date, but what about those who have booked accomodation and travel to get to your tour that is non refundable ?, it's bad enough to lose £75 like Peter at any time, but in a recession, that kind of loss for no return cannot be risked and will no doubt hit repeat bookings, I've been burned like that too in the past.

Yes I understand the operational issues that took place, but the customer at the moment is lucky to have enough spare cash to book a tour at all, they certainly don't have enough to chuck away on things that can't be used.

 

Is there a definitive list of how many vac fitted diesels that West Coast has and where these locomotives are stabled?

Is it too simple to suggest that West Coast should have had some contingency plans in view of the poor reliability of their fleet. I guess the answer is probably yes!

 

Isn't there any mainline approved vac brake diesels at Swanage or Dartmoor ?
I fear this unique engine / coach/train ? Could face more bizarre rationale decisions in its future.
The articles published suggest this was a very much break even project, only if it was a near sell out, so I guess it's all in the red now, in spades.
Perhaps it's time for Didcot to trade in its mainline approved 08 for something a little more worldly to tow it about ?