Tin Bath Feb 14th 2016

Stranger things have happened in the past. Third loco on the Lowlander springs to mind, but can't see lightning striking twice in this instance.

 

I think there will only be one Jub + possibly the 8f,last year on the CME we ended up with a black five and a 47 instead of 2 Jubs.

 

If it's the 8f and red Jub cue meltdown of this forum!
Whilst any steam is great, it gets very wearisome advertising one thing which causes people to book then late changes happening. Occurs too often to be accidental.
Last year it emerged that everyone but RTC seemed to know two jubs wasn't happening. But we'll see. Any inside comment welcome.

 

Wouldn't surprise me if it is the 8F. Luckily for me I didn't book it for the motive power, but going by what has been suggested, my reason for booking has already gone west.

 

It's all speculation really but the timing of the 8f test run will obviously set some hares running I guess. Maybe both Jubs will have a trundle soon too.
One just has to believe there is always a genuine intention to provide the advertised product and events beyond the control of the promoters cause the changes. Last year it was said 45699 had never been requested for the tour it was advertised to be paired with 45690 and it was known more than two months beforehand it wouldn't be available anyhow. But still the advert ran right up to virtually the day of the trip with 2 Jubs.

 

Does one?

 

You think not?

 

Just had a long conversation with Nigel who is on an Austrian safari . A former Bosnian 73 is next!
We were mostly talking about CME today and 60103/46100. All good.
However,I asked about the Tin B due to the NP thread.

2 Jubs still booked. Never the plan for the 8F.......
He didn't know about the loco change at Bolton on the return(and maybe the Guide B direct route- I cannot remember!) as he has been extremely busy with many other matters including flying out to Austria and meetings......It is obvious how late notice changes are required. IMO it was always like this at weekends . I remember many instances of v v late changes in the 1960's generally between19.00 on Sats and Sunday night. Frustrating and as 4090 says it might change again....may or may not be work in progress!
The train is hugely full with a wait list .......
In fact most RTC tours are full at the moment.......
Most of the conversation was intended to be private but feel it necessary to scotch this 8F story

Whilst I rarely post ,there is a LOT of v v positive news just now,DEFINATELY

PLEASE try to make reading this thread perhaps a 'little' more positive IF only to encourage Nigel to plan more tours like this. It's far far easier to plan standard itineries.........far!

 

I don't know. If the intentions are always genuine then the outcomes are too often other than advertised. As has been regularly pointed out, the management of the RTC website is incompetent. Perhaps, incompetence also explains the disappointments.

 

Excellent bit of communication, more of the same regularly please. It will do RTCs standing a great deal of good if actual and potential customers know good faith etc is the order of the day.

 

Quite, but the same hope has been expressed before and the updates trickle out from RTC only rarely and the available information from their website and from their office cannot be relied upon. Credit to Ray that he has put the record straight in the past as well as now.

 

I am on this one ,the 2 Jubs may be booked but we will see who is right on the 14th.

 

A problem with all "planned" turs is the fact that NR do not make the track available until 12 weeks before any journey. Try to book and Advance Ticket with Virgin and 12 weeks is about as far forward as you can get. Sometimes the timeline is even shorter. So planning a route many months in advance is problematic. No-one is sure what engineering work will be going on, how paths will be used up catering for reasonable diversions etc. Add to that gauging issues for some planned locos and route changes, it has the capacity to be a perfect storm.

Strikes me that if the journey, motive power etc are worth it, selling tickets when everything is confirmed would be good practice not when there are so many variables.

 

The problem with that is confirmation from NR can be so late in the day that there would be insufficient time to get tickets advertised plus deal with the myriad of other items involved in running a rail tour.

 

Sorry, but very true. TOCs can only take bookings for scheduled services up to 12 weeks in advance because NR will not confirm route availability before that. TOCs need time to plan rail bus replacement services or route variations if viable so that they can sell a ticket for a train that should run. There are of course exceptions and I have had scheduled journeys changed within the 12 week period, but as a general rule it is true.

Odd that VT seem confident that they can sell tours at short notice when WCRC issues have been resolved.