Do railtour operations need a unified voice ?

Re: NORTH WALES COAST EXPRESS 2012

The Crewe pool originally comprised 46233, 45305, 60009 and 70013. All these locos were presumed fine for the routes RTC wanted them to be used on and would ahave provided adequate provision for the booked trains. 46233 has since been discovered out of gauge but is still ok for the CME's, the route which it is out of gauge on has seen 6233 run over it several times before so one must presume this must be a new occurence. 45305 firstly had longer than expected repairs and has now, for some unknown reason (anyone know why?) been sent to Carnforth - this would have been a logical replacement for number 9 and could have adequately covered the season of NWCE with her. 60009 is fresh from overhaul and has run successfully up until now, but snagging issues must still be expected. 70013 is now down south covering for Braunton which in turn has been held up by Flying Scotsman, otherwise 70000 would be left holding the fort. So with number 9 failing, normally the original plan would have seen either 45305 or 70013 covering the turn, fine, but neither are here. 6233 did step into the breach with a reasonable plan, but this was stopped by NR. RTC started by advertising a pool that should have covered all eventualities, but as far as I can see other than the (in my view sensible) decision to provide cover for 70000 with 70013 on the Royal Duchy, all other decisions have been out of RTC's hands. We are afterall still waiting to hear when 6233 became out of gauge between Warrington and Chester, despite the (seemingly unfounded) suggestions RTC have known for months. Also 6233 is NOT out of gauge for Scarborough or Carlisle which the Crewe pool is also advertised for. Perhaps those with daggers out for RTC would like to specify which locos they would now have in Crewe to provide adequate cover for number 9, as i'm sure RTC would love to hear where they are going to come from. Otherwise should they now cancel all tours for which there is no standby loco? No one is denying this is a tough year for steam, the butter is being spread thin, but 'I told you so' comments will not help. If these commentators are so good at predicting the future perhaps they could predict the lotto numbers and restore a few more steam locos!!

 

Re: Railway Touring Company

So by your rationale, nobody is allowed to discuss issues surrounding railtours unless they've bought a ticket to travel on the one under discussion? Really? Truly astonishing. Has it ever crossed your mind that the people "dishing out" free legal advice are actually trying to help the railway industry and mainline steam by pointing out obvious shortcomings?

When, oh when will the railway industry and the railtour sector finally understand that they can't afford to take customers for granted, especially in a time of recession? They've got to get a grip to deal better with problems within their control, and yes, Network Rail are equally to blame. Witness today's sorry excuses. T-bird Frank is entirely correct with everything he's posted here. Jesus wept. Many of you are so out of touch it's not funny any more.

 

Re: Railway Touring Company

Speaking as someone who seems to travel on less tours with each year that passes I do wonder why RTC (and certain other operators) keep shooting themselves in the same foot with the same gun without thinking about the consequences.

There can be little doubt that on (very glossy) paper RTC presents itself as an excellent provider of the particular product that most participants on this forum want. That product is so specialized that it is no wonder the number of established providers has contracted in recent years, with those seeking to replace them frequently failing before even the first hurdle. Because of it's predominant position RTC should be ideally placed to give customer satisfaction & maintain a good reputation. Instead what I see is constant and often predictable alteration, cancellation & recrimination about non or sub-standard provision of what any customer has a right to receive, what he or she has seen advertised and paid to receive.

Last minute and en route failures of ancient (and not so ancient) machinery are an occupational hazard which even non-enthusiasts can understand, constant use of cold, ill lit stock is not. Advertising a route which is not possible (with or without particular power) is not acceptable. Advertising a particular locomotive without even asking the owning group about availability is not acceptable. The website positively oozes the same glossy impression that the printed brochure gives, but often the sheer inaccuracy of what it proposes hardly inspires the confidence of those in the know to book. For about four years it repeatedly promoted 14 day steam tours in South Africa, long after such trips were at all practical. Even today it confidently invites booking for Syria and specifies the engines to work the tour between Dera and Damascus. These may seem extreme examples but given route problems less than a year ago even the 2013 Tin Bath looks decidedly leaky.

If this seems like an attack on RTC then it is with positive intentions. Like many others on this forum I have travelled often with RTC and have reason to be grateful for the volume of opportunities they have given in the UK and abroad, but continuing without giving thought to more accuracy and realism in the future will help neither us or itself. Ralph's PR skills may be considerable but I would rather RTC started repairing the cracks than relying on former staff to paper over them. A critical eye at their advertising would be a good place to start.

If they provided tours to match the standard of the brochure they would be unbeatable.

 

Re: NORTH WALES COAST EXPRESS 2012

ACORB

You totally miss the point - RTC is the promoter for and contracts in all the resources necessary for their tours; that is their business and their responsibility. This is not RTC bashing - its contract law and consumer rights and expectations, uncomfortable though that is.

They publish Flyers, NWCEs and CMEs as a season, and plan them as a season, resourcing, stock, motive power and staffing. Other than last night's failing of the A4, all these restrictions on motive power have been in play for months - yes months - so playing the "my friend is trying his hardest" card won't wash.

If their pool has been known to be insufficient for months then no matter how difficult it may be for them, RTC should have pulled out all the stops to protect their business obligations. If they haven't - then I'll say it again - They will fail the duty of having applied a satisfactory level of skill and care in their planning of their business over the summer.

That's it - no excuses - no exemptions. The law applies to all businesses and services without discrimination and if a business chooses to sail close to the wind as to the resources necessary to satisfy its customers, and fails, all the exclusion clauses in the world will be of no effect. That resources are scarce may be a fact, No-one is forcing RTC to overstretch them.

 

Re: Railway Touring Company

Railrover - Hear Hear!!!

Some of us have had a lifetime in the industry, on the legal and contractual side - so John - we not only DO know what we are talking about. We made the TShirt. But, post after post, some wonks on here who have never had a single day think they know better - one day they will!

This railway that we have now had to tolerate for eighteen years still doesn't work - and is showing few signs of improving - indeed tonight, following today's fiasco, I have had a note from a former NR scheduler indicating why, over the next year it will get far, far worse.

Take it out of school, give it a degree and call it a manager has an awful lot to answer for!

 

Re: Railway Touring Company

This really is turning out to be a day of reckoning ! Apologists take note, the tide is turning !

 

Re: Railway Touring Company

Sadly, yes. Many people don't seem to grasp that the railways are getting busier, paths are getting increasingly scarce and quicker, thus there's less latitude for when things go wrong. Punters also have less cash to spend, so are getting increasingly choosy when it comes to splashing the cash, and are less tolerant of when things do go wrong.

 

Re: Railway Touring Company

So Ralph, the gauntlet has been laid down. What are you going to do about it eh ?

 

Re: NORTH WALES COAST EXPRESS 2012

Frank, i'm afraid it you who is missing the point here. Can you please tell me how RTC could have known for months that the pool was insufficent? The four locos advertised are all in ticket and should have been in place were it not for outside circumstances due to a UK wide shortage of mainline locos. RTC have tried to pull out all the stops to ensure steam on today's train, but were prevented from doing so by NR. Please can you explain how RTC could have done more in this case? There just aren't the locos available at the moment, how can RTC influence that? This series was planned nearly 10 months ago, when 5029, Braunton and perhaps even 6023 or even Galatea were expected to be available. 30777 was also anticipated to be able to do more (but also seems to be under extended maintenance). Are you suggesting that RTC should trim it's programme at the last minute when locos are declared unavailable (losing deposits), or should they introduce golden handcuff contracts to loco providers whereby they only work RTC trains at the expense of other work (as 45305 seems to be working Compass Tours trains rather than RTC's)?
You appear to be very good at posting how you believe RTC are getting it wrong, but do not appear to be suggesting how they could do it differently..

 

Re: NORTH WALES COAST EXPRESS 2012

There's a huge practicle difference between "anticipated", "planned", "perhaps" and actually being available, proved and reliable. Doesn't matter what type of business you're in and what you're selling. Time and reality prove out.

 

Re: NORTH WALES COAST EXPRESS 2012

70013, 45305, 30777 & 5029 were all in ticket at time of planning. 6233 and 60009 had tickets in time for the season and are historically reliable performers with proven track records. Braunton has been promised for 2 years and was in Bury at the turn of last year with a current boiler ticket, several seasons of WSR running and with just (we were told) electronics to fit.
If people were RTC could they please state how they would have approached the 2012 differently? Would they not have promoted so many tours? Would they have added more tours as the season progressed and the season became clearer? Is it unreasonable to expect one or two locos to work a season of trains, The Jacobite and Cambrian would suggest otherwise? There is obviously a tide of opinion here, but there is little clarity apart from a lot of accusations of wrong doing. The facts stateat the moment that all trains have been met with the exception of today, where a substitute was steamed and was technically available, but was prevented from meeting the train.

 

Re: Railway Touring Company

.

Theres some with an anti RTC agenda here, let's be mindful of this before you get sucked in by the whirlwind.
No one is berating the failure of 46115 today are they..
One rule for one one rule for another, that's what I am saying.

The only winners in a legal fight are lawyers, theirs one user in here who chants daily for a legal fight with RTC... He makes a passion out of it. Ask yourself.. Why hasn't he taken them on legally ?

Losing RTC will make 1 man happy and thousands unhappy.

I reccomend you formulate your own opinion.

 

Re: Railway Touring Company

Please clarify. How is this a day of reckoning and in which direction is the tide turning? It's certainly another grim day for steam on the mainline and another kick in the teeth for the punters, but there have been plenty of these over the years, and plenty of hot air expended on here by those who claim to know how to do it better, but don't actually offer any concrete solutions.

So what's changed? Is a disgruntled punter taking a tour operator or NR to court - I doubt it. Is Frank going to launch SLOA 2012 - even less likely. So no day of reckoning then, and as the tide has been running against the punter for some time (according to several on here), then I can't see that's changed either. But please prove me wrong.

 

Re: NORTH WALES COAST EXPRESS 2012

If you haven't bought it, or contracted for it you can't sell it - but that is what the railtour industry is doing. It is wrong. End of. There seems to absolutely no acceptance or understanding of that basic fact. Just because some people think that being promised more is good, when it is either undeliverable, or doesn't exist, is a ridiculous start point, but that is how many on here seem to want it.

How many examples do you want :- 6100 being promised for years on end? two steam excursions from Inverness to Wick and back in a day, which was never possible? Scheduling an out of gauge loco for a route with no capacity (the Sherwood Forester last year) - I could go and on, but you would all get bored.

Why do posters seem to be incapable of understanding the legal responsibility a vendor has to comply with before he brings a prospect to market in any business? I'm sorry, but if understanding the basics is difficult, then trying to move forward into specifics is probably nigh on impossible.

Just because a promoter has chosen a product that is difficult to resource does not relieve him of the responsibility to do it competently and professionally. That this pool has been effectively two engines that aren't interchangeable has been widely known for months. I'm sorry that is a fact. Read the forum and you will see when a Duchess was barred through Frodsham and an A4 over the Ouse Bridge. Support crews are volunteers and they don't grow on trees. There is a finite limit on the number of days they can turn out, or the amount of maintenance they can undertake, and they do perform miracles week in and week out. They don't make a penny. The locos usually rely on fund raising when overhauls come round. The tour promoter is however a profit making businessman. Not a preservationist and most definitely not a charity case.

That promoters - nonetheless, carry on selling trains that rely on more than the real on site pool can support is not the pool, or the motive power supplier's problem. It is the promoter's, and if the net result is that cancellations or non delivery occur, the responsibility lies with the promoter who made promises that post event due diligence would show to have been very conceivably beyond his capacity to supply whilst still in the planning and selling process, and exclusion clauses would thus fail fail to apply. The "Due care and skill" test!

I am not recommending last minute fixes, I am recommending planning that doesn't need fixing, the only commercially sensible, legally sound, and deliverable option at the end of the day. If that means less workings then so be it. If you want to gamble - Go to a Casino!

The choice is clear - sell what you know you can resource, or face the music! Judging by the load factors I have seen these last few days the fat lady is warming up right now

 

Re: NORTH WALES COAST EXPRESS 2012

Well anyone know the answer to my first question? I am curious what has actually changed?

In relation to my second comment and if the Duchess is out of gauge for the line in question, then the reality RTC are out of order for advertising the fact that the Duchess is initial pool of 4 loco's to operate to Holyhead from both Liverpool & Manchester, regardless what happened today! Personally, I always thought it would appear on one of them from either destination just like the average punter would do but sadly it is never going to happen. The "promoter" HAS got to take some responsiblity for mis -information in the first instance as in the advertising literture it should state that the Duchess would never operate on the NWC trains from either Manchester & Liverpool.

I think "TBirdFrank" has already made valid point is some of his previous comments and I do accept some things do change leading upto the series of tours which can be out of control for the promoter, that is fair enough but I don't accept about the point of the Duchess, unless the out of gauge issue was only introduced in the last few weeks?

 

Re: NORTH WALES COAST EXPRESS 2012

This whole idea of SLOA2- comrades of engine drivers, union of socialist firemen, water tower dwelling hippies, Greek artisans of time tabling, harp playing mark 1 coach restorers and coal miners of Barnsley all humming cross legged on a cloud to plan a railtour. It sounds like a Beatles Video but in reality is at worst embarrassing, at best already in existence.

You could just buy your own engine, run your own coaches, sell your own tickets and arrange it with network rail.
and to hell with everyone else... example.. Its called a TOC.

WCRC don't need a DEmocratic People's Republic of SLOA to operate trains.
WCRC don't need anyone to market, schedule, prepare and operate their trains either.
be thankful they cater for most people who make an effort to lay on tours as they do and that WCRC go out of there way to make it happen. We have RTC and others thinking of the unusual, undone and impossible and try to find ways to make them happen... That's what makes it so exciting.

they certainly don't need a yellow submarine full of ageing luddites bubbling up in morecombe bay telling them how to plan a railtour Marxist style.

Mainline steam will eventually enter a decline, whether it's good service or bad, expensive or cheap, It will eventually become a smaller niche than it is now. A collective bunch of prawn butty suit munchers meeting monthly at NR's offices demanding turntables, water towers, coaling towers, GWGauge nationwide, 2-10-0's at 90mph etc across the network wont make any difference and will be a laughing stock not a serious entity.

Network Rails job is to run for the future, not cater for the past.
Railtours need to fit in the gaps, not widen the gaps so that it fits.
Eventually routes will have to be limited to what fits, unless you've got £bns to make it fit.

When an engine fails.. It fails. End of. It happens.
Unless your paying for standby, and crews, and paths, your accepting the risk. A nice product will always command a premium, and the dust has only just settled at the £10 premium for table cloths on steam dreams.

This propsed Mainline steam "nirvana" will cost you £500 + a ticket.. Just as it it in the US. You'll get great service, but not 7 times a day all over the country, and your pool of locos will be small... Just look at mainline steam in South Africa for the idea.

Be thankful companies like RTC and WCRC make the efforts they do in envelope pushing, if they give up, we're all back to OO gauge and 60's videos at worst...or the early 1980's steam scene at best ( oh wasnt that the happy days of sloa, limited locos, restricted routes, controlled dates, choreographed mileage, knackered stock, failures, late running and last minute diversions, fire bans and diesel substitutes).

For now I sit back and await the drain cocks of Epimetheus to puff another cloud in the sky, Hopefully someone on the train can garnish us with the reality of what happened today and give the philosophers /RTC snipers a break.

 

Re: Railway Touring Company

What is it about RTC that raises such passion ? What is it that inspires otherwise rational people, (presumably), to promote the irrational. I wish someone would explain. It's a real brain teaser IMO !

 

Re: NORTH WALES COAST EXPRESS 2012

Frank, please don't go on ......it is boring. My relationship as a customer of RTC is not the same as with Tesco, if I purchase a duff tin of Spam I will complain with as much indignation as I can muster, if let down by RTC or any Railtour Company (which is pretty rare) I will apply as much goodwill to their difficulties in not providing exactly what I purchased as is possible. The wider picture is that they also provide me with an array of mainline steam to phot and travel on, that was unthinkable all those years ago and if they occasionaly trip up on some of the hoops that they have to jump through to facilitate this I for one will remain ever tolerant.

 

Re: NORTH WALES COAST EXPRESS 2012

ADB - you are the best example of a ****** I know - do you communicate with your customers or despise them - because that is how you come across!

7P then you are a very silly man and easily parted from your hard earned - is there anything I can sell you?

RTC is the Tesco of the tour world - pile it high - sell it cheap - look at the discounts they are offering regulars. They are both businesses for profit - that's it.

Loadings are falling like a stone at the moment - letting your customers down is not going to improve that situation

 

Re: NORTH WALES COAST EXPRESS 2012

Does that mean I could get a job in your ideological collective ?
I know I'm a bit hypo-graphically negative on your idea, but if your idea is so good it should be able to hold water.

So Seriously frank..

What can your idea do, that EWS or WCRC cannot do today ?
Why would / should Network Rail take it seriously, over the status quo ?
How will it fund itself and produce an ROI ?

I quote a conference in Manchester back in circa 1991, when the various BR divisions met during privatisation planning, one speaker, for Sloa (whom I won't name) spoke in defence of mainline steam in the privatised rail industry, asking for concessions to allow steam and charter operations in relation to access charges. One question to him summed it up... Why should a privatised rail network subsidise one minority operator aiming to make a profit for a niche business over another operator providing a service to the public for the lowest cost to the tax payer ? ( I believe the reply was along the lines of, we're not making any money at least give us a chance), which I felt at best was weak.

I understand the product isn't perfect and the fault is on the production line, the cost of a perfect product may be too high, whereas toning down the expectation may be a better solution.
The money isn't there to make the product best, and if it was the ROI isn't there to recoup it.
Another committee isn't going to change it.
Sloa2 might make happy customers but price everyone out of the job.

I think most people's expectations are reasonable, given the market base. There is considerable room to expand the market, but the product needs massive investment. Given that no one has made that investment should be an indicator that the expected returns are not there and so not worth pursuing.
Has anyone got £30-40mn to do the job properly as a toc, new stock and new steam locomotives and a business plan to recover £10mn per year over 60 years to recover it ? And why wouldn't you invest that £40mn in a block of flats with a 10% rental yield instead ?