Sussex Belle 21st Dec

Email from RTC this morning saying 70013 is now on the tour rather than 34067.

 

Well that's a pleasant change. 34067 is down on to run on the 22nd as well. Perhaps it is to give save 34067's support crew the extra workload.

 

Looks like this one is cancelled now - that's all 3 of the proposed Sussex Belle runs for December. Is this down to a lack of bookings or what?

 

That's 4 of the 8 total this year that haven't run. No wonder RTC are trying something different next year with The Thanet Belle.

 

Yes I guess sadly it's probably down to lack of bookings for the cancellations. A damn shame because we get so little steam down in the south east of England. I think it was said a while ago that the problem with the Sussex Belle is that there's no stop-off point where the passengers can take a couple of hours touring and looking around a town before heading back to London. A couple of other factors might also be that the route has been the same for every excursion of the Sussex Belle so maybe the novelty has worn off and that the tours have always been during a working day of the week rather than a Saturday or Sunday. Hopefully RTC will still persist with this tour but they need to start having some variety in the destinations with a mid-point stop-off, why not my hometown of Eastbourne of course:smile:. For example Victoria to Eastbourne then stay at Ebrne for a couple of hours as a stop-off for passengers to have a look around the town, the diesel at the rear would then have to tow to Hastings as there's no turning facilities at or near Ebrne and then from Hastings steam back to Victoria via Robertsbridge.