Saphos Christmas White Rose: 16,20,23/11/24

If it’s terminated at Preston how on earth are the passengers from Barrow getting home?,
Is Jeremy putting them all up in hotels? Or has he found some road coaches late on a Saturday night?

 

It is, northbound departures from platform 1 and the adjacent loop, and the freight and mail terminals at Dallam go north to Winwick to cross to the down lines.
There used to be a Warrington to Lime Street train a few years back which did exactly that several times a day, it's been some years since there was a crossing to the down line from the up side at the station.

 

You deserve a medal for turning out in such weather, thanks for doing it and thanks for the excellent video.

 

Thank you!

Was much better than my previous contribution from Northallerton!

 

I was on this tour. Train terminated at Preston at 2245. Four coaches were waiting for us including one to Barrow.

The B1 ran really well.

Andrew N

 

I was not at Barrow so cannot tell. The train was fully booked, and the Saphos Mark 1 rake had been strengthened with a Statesman Mark 2.

I will post photos later.

AN

 

Despite the fact Avanti and Northern always claim they can not get coaches, despite I assume having contracts in place for such incidents. Thought I read on the BBC Northern said conditions were too dangerous to run RRB services.

 

A booking for 4 coaches to take Railtour Pax home from Preston to Barrow is relatively small fry compared to replacing an 11 car Pendolino form Preston to Carlisle. At best you’ve got 240 people on those 4 coaches, whereas an 11 car Pendolino is 607. So instantly you’re needing 10 coaches and the distance is significantly more.

Normally rail replacement is pre-planned, so it’s a lot easier to have everything in place. When incidents occur it can take hours to even set up, and then bus providers aren’t always available. You can guarantee if it’s 7am to 10am and 2pm to 5pm they have more work on with schools, etc so rail replacement is harder to get.

To give you an idea of what might be required yesterday during the Stalybridge Rail Fracture which saw that line shut for about 4 hours you’d have had 3 TPE services each way from Hudds/Manc and vice versa. All with roughly 300-400 passengers on. You’d need 8 buses to replace each train. 24 per hour. 96 buses. You’ll never get that when every other operator is trying too.

 

That's true but presumably LSL/Saphos only started on the phone in the afternoon when it must have become clear that the problems at Ulverston were not going away. So they did well. I wonder who the operator was--- maybe Travellers Choice?

 

Saphos have acquired a reputation for looking after their customers.

 

I was on the Barrow - York Xmas White Rose. It proved to be an eventful tour but Saphos handled it well. They had to terminate the tour at Preston due to flooding, but had arranged four Travellers Choice coaches to get us home.

Re starting at Barrow - the tour had to run to Barrow anyway because that is the only place on the Furness line with carriage sidings able to hold the stock.

Similarly, Saphos sometimes start tours at Carnforth because the stock from Crewe would have to run to Carnforth goods loops anyway to reach Lancaster in the up direction.

Here are 41 photos of the tour, including some showing a few of the less well known exhibits in the NRM:

https://andrewstransport.smugmug.com/MyBritishrailtours/Christmas-White-Rose-23-November-2024

Andrew N

 

Thank you for an excellent post.