It seems that the tour market is a tough place to be these days, however even the casual observer (never done one in my life) cannot fail to spot the enormously haphazard way in which events seem to occur.
I'm amazed at how often there are cancellations, and the way in which it seems to happen really rather late in the game. I realise of course that the concept of working together is seen as a bit of an ugly disease in many heritage circles, but the companies operating in this field surely need to pull their finger out and perhaps seriously consider using their collective might to push for some better contracts with their crew/traction suppliers and NR?! It is a shambles that one or more of these agencies can seemingly simply decide whenever the mood takes them that actually they haven't got a crew/loco/train path etc after all, or just can't be arsed to organise one. Okay the punters get their cash back, but this is clearly harmful to the tour operators' businesses, there needs to be a penalty clause in these supply contracts so the third parties might be inclined to try a bit harder. On a similar note, it's also slightly worrying to hear of how frequently the chosen heritage traction fails, which can cause major issues for timetabled TOC services. None of this can be doing the railtour sector or the heritage movement in general any favours.
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