RTC 2024

Or it gets rescheduled or cancelled, so five really.

 

Sorry but I do not believe for a second that RTC don't have a pretty good idea what's going on/will pan out, maybe the person answering the phone doesn't know but those higher up the ladder will have a pretty good idea, no one in their right mind would continue to operate a business on that basis.

FWIW WCR don't have to explain anything to the market, but one would assume that they are keeping their customers updated as to progress.

 

Agreed, & perhaps RTC maybe will want look to spread their risk by sounding out other operators rather than being reliant on just one.

 

Any idea who this "other operator" may be then?
LSL are hardly going to offer up help to a competitor, and anyway the MK1 rake looks pretty well in constant use for the Saphos and SD programmes. I doubt VT have enough steam drivers with route knowledge of where all the RTC tours go, and probably have a pretty full programme of their own anyway.
DB have moved out of this market it seems apart from what they have already contracted to.
Plus if it is not WCRC where will the stock come from other than Riviera, and I guess a lot of that is already allocated to diesel tours.
I of course, like the rest of us, have no knowledge of the contractual arrangements between the two organisations, and what either party may or may not be able to do either.

 

This is it, as it stands WCR are a problem, but as it stands, without WCR there isn't a solution, something those rubbing their hands in glee at WCR's potential demise should maybe bear in mind. All this has really done is to show how precarious and dependent on a few operators the whole steam on the mainline business is.

 

I can't honestly see LSL as a 3rd party operator TBH. They seem to mainly hire in loco's and operate their own tours...

EDIT: LSL are also air only...

 

Pure speculation, but DB pulled out of the 'one off' market - but many of VT's London based operations are repeat intenary, tried and tested, days out. They are also on VSOE territory as far as route knowledge is concerned. Given it was reported that DB were happy to operate the Aberdonian trips for Tornado...who knows, a conversation perhaps could be available - London is a lot easier than north east Scotland!
Vintage Trains are operating the Northern England trips for the A1 Trust, it's another option.
Given the difficulties West Coast have put RTC under this year (through no fault of their own) any business owner would perhaps be wanting to open up their options.
Pathfinder have utilised a number of different operators for their diesel trips in recent years after they too fell foul of having all their eggs in one basket a few years ago, loyalty generally doesn't pay in business!!

 

Only VT currently operate Vacuum AFAIK...

 

Given the lack of vacuum stock, yes any tour with DB would be an air braked loco and likely Riviera stock, but it's another option when you consider West Coast only have one rake of usable stock currently. In the summer, RTC often ran two tours on the same day - one north, one south. This isn't currently possible and West Coast have their own program of trips.
Totally agree we need a long term solution with West Coast and they will always likely be the primary operator for RTC, but having a back up solution protects you from any other potential banana skins.

 

I was unaware Vintage had any London based operations. So if Vintage did it lots of moves back and forth to Tyseley, diesel on the back (same old debate) as mentioned by @sycamore vacuum only.
There are only 4 operators with a steam case and look what happened when there was a move to DB a few years back, which did not work well.

 

RCT are in a situation, not of their own making, caused by West coast deciding that they were not going to abide by what's been agreed with every other operator, namely that they would fit CDL, in an agreed timespan, and in exchange ORR would allow time for this to happen, It RTC were to fail, it would be down to who ever decided to wreck their own business model of hiring stock and engines to tour companies, preferring instead to have confrontation, instead of doing the actual work as agreed, there are no other operators now in the market that can fill what West coast does, all the others have their own tour businesses, and have no spare capacity, unless something drastic happens, such as someone really throwing their toys out of the pram, and putting everything on the market, and someone else snaps it up,

 

44871 at Woodhouse today

 

Not sure if this has been picked up before, but the 8th June 'Tynesider' has disappeared from the RTC website. It is still listed on Railway Herald, but Rail Advent says it is postponed (new date not specified, and there is none in RTC's listing).

 

Manchester - Holyhead on 25th May has been postponed until 28th September as well.

 

just received e mail from Railway Touring Company promoting The Waverley over the summer, hope these can go ahead but how can RTC advertise them when there will be no carriages according to Mr Smith at WCRC!!

 

Suspect this has been re-dated due to there being a Northern Belle on the same day and currently only 44871 available for WCR.

 

Isn't the Holyhead tour the one that was a BLS Driven train and so perhaps postponed in the hope that issues are resolved and 45596 can head the train?

 

Yes, a sort of memorial train. Is Tanglemere out of action then?

 

Ah ok, yes that makes sense too then.

As I understand it, yes.