Railmotor on the Liskeard-Looe branch?

Quite possibly, but the problem is once you start moving away from run of the mill 47's and 37's, the number of drivers passed to drive these classes gets smaller, I'd imagine everyone at WCRC is passed on 47's, but how many are passed on 33's or 50's ?.

 

Slightly more worrying is the lack of a contingency plan had the loco failed in service on the main line...

 

WCRC has a 33 I believe so they must have drivers passed for it.

 

The problem with privately owned diesels is they are not used enough and are left out in all weathers i am not surprised that the failure rate is high lets hope the trip goes ahead next week as i am booked on one of the trips.Will be interesting to see if they can rearrange the trip as i believe there is engineering works in the area during the latter half of November .How long is the Railmotor staying at Bodmin?

 

Morning all. Speaking as an 'industry insider', the cancellation of the trips on the 4th is clearly hugely regrettable, and the decision was definitely not taken lightly.

With regards to the need for a diesel to haul the steam rail motor up to Liskeard, this has to be a vacuum fitted loco, in other words, it has to have a compatible braking system. The requirement for loco-hauling the rail motor is clearly mentioned in the ORR document that permits the rail motor to run on NR tracks. Yes, there are probably one or two air braked loco possibilities, but with such a high profile event, to flout the ORR requirements would be tantamount to killing off any further opportunities for events of this nature in the forseeable future.

The ORR (and NR) permissions for the rail motor to run on the national network were only arrived at after a lot of consultation and much working of the detail, and it would be suicide and highly irresponsible not to observe its provisions to the letter.

Given the unfortunate short notice of this cancellation, I am sure there will be every effort made to substitute an alternative date for the lost days running, quite possibly Sunday 18th November (obviously everyone needs to keep an eye on the Great Western Soc website next week).

The rail motor is staying on the Bodmin and Wenford line until approx end January, and then will spend a few weeks on the South Devon line.

 

If anyone still has intentions of travelling to Cornwall, a visit to the Bodmin Railway may be worthwhile. <BJ>

Bodmin & Wenford Railway

 

What's the skinny on travel insurance? Trainline link with Columbus Direct at £2-3 each way, there or thereabouts, so assuming that peterofbrill insured the booking ( ), isn't it possible that that might help? Certainly in the future, it would worth investigating, to mitigate the risk of not being able to use expensive tickets.

Inevitably with old stuff, there's a large amount of 'buyer beware' and when the big railway is involved, the risk and complications increase.

You could argue that there's a lack of resilience in West Coast's plan - shipping the rail motor down south so close to the event seems risky. But presumably doing it early would have increased costs - ditto having spare 47s ready to roll.

Personally, I'd've gone anyway. It's not like Cornwall isn't a nice place to visit, after all.

Simon

 

I heard about this just in time - at Moor St today waiting for the pannier trip about to walk to New Street to embark on my journey to Liskeard! At least I suppose I could go to the Lickey tonight.

 

Has anyone who is booked on the Railmotor tomorrow been officially told it's cancelled? I've heard nothing and neither has another passenger who is sat near to me on the VT tour today. I'm not doubting it's cancelled, but it's rather poor form not to be told officially (I'm pretty sure they have my mobile no and e-mail address). (I've already cancelled my hotel and I hadn't booked any advance rail tickets, so I've not lost anything, but I'm sure others will.

 

I've heard nothing direct nor has a friend of mine who has also booked. Time for the booking agency to earn their booking fee?

 

Completely agree. I was told that the booking agency had been instructed to e-mail everyone who had booked. I took the precaution of telling a couple of local friends who are not on the internet.

 

WCRC's has 33 but only 3 of them and their use is very sporadic compared to the usual types so it's a fair bet only a certain number are passed on them, would there be a driver passed on 33's with the relevant route knowledge, who's nearby and not "out of hours" ?, not impossible, but certainly reduces your options.

 

The booking agent was the reason I refused to book on these trains as they are always rather useless and had a major dispute with me over some wsr gala tickets i purchased a few years back.

 

I thought that the booking fee was excessively high.

 

Is it charged per ticket rather than one price for a group booking? I only booked a single ticket and I don't think I paid half the booking fee quoted earlier in this thread. Still I've had no email from them - if it hadn't been for a conversation I overheard at Moor St I would be in Liskeard looking forward to my trip on the Looe branch at 8.30am tomorrow!

 

I looked at the price of one ticket - there was a 10% order fee and a delivery charge £1.85, which brought the cost up to £29.35.

I'm not sure how much other combinations would have costed.

 

It was transferred to Bodmin by road some time ago in time for their recent gala - there are video links etc around showing it running on the line. I suspect that the Liskeard branch has no road loading point for stock such as the SRM so its all a holistic plan - take it to Bodmin, stable it there securely and then drag it by rail to the branch ready for use.