The Great Britain VIII

Harsh words but probably the conclusion most reach based on what is emerging. In relation to this particular thread an honourable business would have offered to cover RTC for cancelling GB8 as soon as the suspension was imposed given that it covered the date of the tour. Instead RTC seems to have been strung along on the basis of over optimism or hubris depending on which way you look at it. The accounts of the various business ventures Mr Smith is involved suggest he could easily absorb the cost to RTC and it would have done him great credit in recognising that RTC had perhaps the biggest liabilities as victims of WCRCs mistakes outside of themselves.
In many ways it seems an odd industry for Mr Smith to want to be involved in. He appears quite publicity shy, doesn't welcome intrusion of regulators, authorities, media or enthusiasts and has little time for customer service yet heritage railway company is exactly the sort of business guaranteed to create interest of those sorts.
Psychoanalysis is beyond the realms of this forum though!

 

If there were shareholders i think they would have voted Mr Smith off the board by now, been done before in other businesses

 

David Smith may be a multi-millionaire, but he's also a Yorkshireman, and in the limited dealings I have had with him it has been clear that he nurtures every penny!

 

I fully understand the situation - just the choice of freight 66's when they must have passenger 67's available. For example, the week before last one was working Toton-Doncaster-Toton on the 'dbs executive' set for two days running, unlikely to be a revenue earner. I wouldn't have thought there's more than half the class in use at the best of times.

 

Been retained for the Fort William/Inverness/Aberdeen portions until the 73's are ready - I think that 47's were to have been used as a stopgap but this seems to have fallen through.

 

Hmm. I'd read on another forum that 47s were diagrammed but your post would indicate that not to be the case.

 

Assuming it actually goes that far, you won't be going beyoind Inverness with a 66/67 anyway as they are not cleared for Kyle/Far North, 47's can be used a limited number per year, otherwise it's 37's or smaller, neither of which DBS have in house.

 

Must admit, I'd love to hear the views of David Ward on all this now. Controversially maybe, he, Bernard Staite, and the much hated SLOA etc ensured the likes of Smith were kept well away from the main line steam business. Maybe now we're beginning to understand why ?

 

Just checked on Scot-rail.co.uk, yes it's the 67's on the sleepers. I think that what you may have seen is a couple of 47's have gone up to move empty stock at Glasgow - the Deltic may be down for that as well.

I notice that SRPS's trip to Kyle on Saturday is cancelled. I'd have thought that DRS could have done that easily - do I sense a "we want nothing to do with this" approach there?

 

Neither SLOA nor David Ward were TOCs so in the privatised era who would run the trains?

 

66's ok for the far north, they work the pipes to Georgemas. 67's ok certainly as far as the oil depot at Lairg, not sure about any further.

 

Both class 66s and 67s are routinely used north of Inverness - the Hartlepool to Georgemas pipe train is always a class 66.

[Edit] Beaten to it!

 

Apologies, must be solely Kyle then, certainly Scottish civils can't seem to make up their mind about whether 47's are barred or ok for limited use, having changed back and forth a couple of times.

 

I think David Ward still lives in the 1980's to be honest, back them people went to Newport because it was take it or leave it for mainline steam, your daytripper in 2015 will not tolerate such a destination because it's a secondary route and has a triangle, you won't fill a tour solely with enthusiasts anymore, places like Canterbury, York, Paignton etc have become regular destinations are they are places joe public want to go, no points having "selected routes" if they don't meet the criteria to fill the trains.

 

It’s a sad paradox that the very traits used to build the successful business may become the flaws which fatally undermine it – not uncommon in entrepreneurism though.

 

At least they are getting a bit of variety with different 66's hauling the train!

 

Well observed. The truly gifted ones recognise this and sell up at the optimum time. The others hold on and risk destroying the thing they love. Great material for tragedy, opera and social media, but not good business. But this discussion belongs elsewhere (not that there's much more to say about GB8...)

 

what beggars belief is RTC still have all the steam details on their website regarding GB8
http://www.railwaytouring.net/travel-tours/great-britain-viii
talk about a red rag......................

 

Can we possibly rein in the character assassination of Mr Smith a little, using the above as an example there is so much conjecture running riot on this thread its nigh impossible to split fact and fiction..

a) 'Instead RTC seems to have been strung along on the basis of over optimism or hubris depending on which way you look at it' - Unless I have missed it we have not seen note of the private communication between WCRC and RTC regarding this or any other tour - we have no idea who the 'optimism' came from so to suggest that RTC has been strung along cannot be substantiated in any way.

b) 'The accounts of the various business ventures Mr Smith is involved suggest he could easily absorb the cost to RTC' - once again none of us thow the contractual arrangemnt between WCRC as supplier and RTC as consumer.

Taken from earlier up the thread...

'If David Smith remains at the helm any return must count as a surprise - how can anyone have confidence in WCRC changing for the better if the attitude at the top exposed by last years access dispute remains the same? Sadly his response in Steam Railway suggests he still doesn't get it.' - Does anyone know what involvement Mr Smith has had in the present situation, my understanding is that he is not a railwayman and thus employs staff members with the necessary skills to maintain the paperwork etc. Yes the investigation illustrated a bombastic attitude last year, but correct me if I am wrong but we have seen nothing of his (or WCRC's as a whole) dealings with NR and ORR regarding the present scenario - so again any suggestion that their engagement has been anything other than professional is again pure conjecture.

Much has been made of the statement in SR, however does anyone have any idea when that was made, the magazine came out a week ago and it could have been made anytime prior to that - from recollection the involvement and consultation from ORR came somewhat after the NR investigation, therefore it is quite possibly the case that when SR spoke to him ORR were only at that stage shadowing the NR investigation prior to deciding what to do.

I am not for one minute denying that this is an almighty mess, a mess of WCRC's making which needs sorting with so many livelihoods dependent on the outcome, however in the last day or so this has veered more and more into attacks on a single party which I wonder whether relate to historical grievances rather than considering the bigger picture - ultimately the owner of the company is responsible but also I suspect he hasn't had a huge amount of involvement in the Companies safety case and management of technical matters.

MODS - Feel free to shunt this (observing all safety rules and your licence obviously) to the general thread as I suspect its more relevant there - I was just replying to posts on this thread and am not bright enough to quote from one thread to another.

 

Are you able to say what, if any, settlement they have had from RTC? Some of the people on this trip must have deep pockets,I can't believe that this debacle will not end up in court. Surely there must come a point where what RTC have offered cannot possibly be seen to be comparable to what passengers paid for. I can only think it is the prepaid hotels which are stopping them from aborting the tour even now.