Maybe gbrf class 57/3 they do appear quite a lot on ukr toursNew tour
The Ancient Kingdom August 22nd
It weirdly doesn’t mention traction, if anyone knows anything about that please shareThe Ancient Kingdom – UK Railtours
www.ukrailtours.com
-
Our new ticketing site is now live! Using either this or the original site (both powered by TrainSplit) helps support the running of the forum with every ticket purchase! Find out more and ask any questions/give us feedback in this thread!
2026 UKR railtours
- Thread starter 31160
- Start date
Sponsor Post - registered members do not see these adverts; click here to register, or click here to log in
R
RailUK Forums
6 hours in Aberystwyth.
Used to live just down the road from there & there wasn’t a lot to do back then
Kite159
Veteran Member
£149 for standard class for what appears to be a 'vanilla' long day trip to Berwick where you pay extra for one of the options. Somehow I can see this one getting cancelled closer to the date unless they are planning something special to draw in the punters.New tour
The Ancient Kingdom August 22nd
It weirdly doesn’t mention traction, if anyone knows anything about that please shareThe Ancient Kingdom – UK Railtours
Although I will be happy to be proved wrong and it's a big seller.
Last edited:
I was wondering!
BR Traction
Member
Interesting pricing. First class non dining with a table for 2 is only £6 less per person than travelling on the Midland Pullman from LSL. May be UK railtours are using that. !New tour
The Ancient Kingdom August 22nd
It weirdly doesn’t mention traction, if anyone knows anything about thatlThe Ancient Kingdom – UK Railtours
Isle of Mull
Member
Sadly not, it’s ERS mk3s
It is GBRf Class 57/3sNew tour
The Ancient Kingdom August 22nd
It weirdly doesn’t mention traction, if anyone knows anything about that please shareThe Ancient Kingdom – UK Railtours
There are a number of UKR regular customers who book dining for a day out at a destination. As there haven’t been any dining trains for a while I would expect the dining places to be popular., even though the prices are higher than last year.
Isle of Mull
Member
I heard the train is mostly dining so I hope that’s the case
SEtrains
Member
It appears as though the tour to swanage on May 9th has been cancelled due to a lack of bookings. Not a good start to the year for UKR.
OliverH68
Member
I did suspect this wasn't gaining much popularity given they were advertising it a lot on social media.
Isle of Mull
Member
Unfortunately I can see a possibility of Uk railtours seizing to exist
LiftFan
Member
- Joined
- 27 May 2016
- Messages
- 368
Sadly it seems as though they've found themselves caught in a loop- a large amount of cancellations at relatively short notice as well as other issues dampening things somewhat - though no fault of their own - (4TC to Morcombe, South Wales Industrial Explorer, as well as the Romic HST falling off the tracks and that rather unplanned carriage movement trying to attach the Flying Scotsman) I wouldn't be surprised if more people have been put off. Unfortunately with the GCR gala and Swanage gala tours both being canned it does make me think twice before booking annual leave/hotels/travel when shift patterns misalign and hotel costs keep rising.
Isle of Mull
Member
I’d have to agree with you, I myself come from Ireland for these tours so it really puts me off when they get cancelled over and over again
If UKR could be persuaded to call at Borth there are great walks from there, either a flat one north to Ynyslas dunes, or a hilly one south along the coastal path into Aberystwyth. A couple of decent pubs in Borth too and a cute cinema, Libanus 1877.
In Aber, aside from the railway itself, the VoR station has what is probably the best railway book shop in the country plus the relatively new railway museum.
Pubs wise in Aber, there's Spoons on the station plus other gems such as the Glengower (good food too) not far from the funicular, the Ship and Castle or for crap in tins (sorry, 'Craft') the Bank Vault or Bottle And Barrel. The local CAMRA list is linked below.
Pub Guide - Bae Ceredigion CAMRA
baeceredigion.camra.org.uk
EbbwJunction1
Established Member
There's also the Aberystwyth Cliff Railway which goes up Constitution Hill on the North side of the town. It's open between 10.0am and 5.00pm and provides an excellent view from the top. There's also a camera obscura, miniature golf and a cafe and restaurant at the top.
Kite159
Veteran Member
Or it will show they don't want to do tours to heritage line galas which don't give that long at said gala.
As I would imagine most visitors to a heritage line gala would want to maximise their time there by using service trains (or driving).
Last edited:
Agreed.If UKR could be persuaded to call at Borth there are great walks from there, either a flat one north to Ynyslas dunes, or a hilly one south along the coastal path into Aberystwyth. A couple of decent pubs in Borth too and a cute cinema, Libanus 1877.
In Aber, aside from the railway itself, the VoR station has what is probably the best railway book shop in the country plus the relatively new railway museum.
Pubs wise in Aber, there's Spoons on the station plus other gems such as the Glengower (good food too) not far from the funicular, the Ship and Castle or for crap in tins (sorry, 'Craft') the Bank Vault or Bottle And Barrel. The local CAMRA list is linked below.
Pub Guide - Bae Ceredigion CAMRA
Borth is a beautiful area.
Had a weekend stay there a few years ago.
Afterwards we wished we’d spent the week there.
JGurney
Member
"Tour to Swanage" suggested at first glance a train actually going there. That it turned out to be a train to Wareham and a coach to Corfe Castle, then if you wanted you could buy another ticket to Swanage itself, was bound to trigger disappointment. A train to Wareham and bus to Corfe I can get any day, a through train to Swanage would be quite different.
xotGD
Established Member
- Joined
- 4 Feb 2017
- Messages
- 7,803
It depends on whether the traction on the tour is more attractive than the traction at the gala.
The_Train
Established Member
- Joined
- 2 Jun 2018
- Messages
- 5,247
But then you would have to fit said train into the TT of a gala day which means the actual gala trains are reduced whilst everybody waits for the charter train to arrive and then depart. The railway also needs somewhere to shove the charter train out of the way as well so logistically it would be a nightmare to plan.
As someone else has said, the issue isn't with where the charter reached, the issue is the fact it doesn't arrive to Wareham until the afternoon and gives roughly 5 hours of time at the gala. This is why charters to Gala's don't work unless they are ones that arrive the day before and depart the day after the gala event (like SRPS are running to Keighley). I very much doubt we will see any tour operators advertising these sort of trains again!
== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: ==
Well I booked onto the Merry Men of Loughborough tour along with the mini-tour around the East Mids as I felt that was a better option than going to the gala itself
BR Traction
Member
By comparison, what are the railtours like in Ireland and do they have the same problems as we do over here in England etc.
Isle of Mull
Member
Irish tours are way cheaper in the uk, they don’t run as much since it’s 2 companies who do day trips (RPSI and Tailte tours). They are never cancelled because of low bookings. The only reason one may be cancelled is steam ban or loco unavailable, our tours don’t have dining or first class though which does misses certain audiences though
Neilo09
Member
- Joined
- 24 Jun 2012
- Messages
- 51
RPSI generally operates 2 diesel tours a year using the cravens set, they are somewhat like a mk1 but there’s no need for CDL requirement but can’t run north of the border due to the same rules as the uk CDL on slam door stock, rarely get cancelled due to low numbers and generally sell well.
Isle of Mull
Member
The northern Irish set has CDL, I heard they are hoping to restart operations there later in the year
D6130
Established Member
Although sadly there are currently no steam-hauled tours in Northern Ireland because NIR no longer have any steam-trained drivers.
Isle of Mull
Member
I think they are nearly done training for a new one