Bury-Holyhead Flying Scotsman 15th September

[terryc]

Referring to this railtour schedule
https://www.cfps.co.uk/scotsman
After ELR stops, this service is calling at Man Vic, Newton le Willows & Warrington BQ.
However, on that weekend lines between Deansgate and Eccles are closed for engineering work, with Liverpool - Manchester Northern services terminating / starting at Eccles, Liverpool TP services starting / terminating at Man Vic and Arriva Manchester - North Wales services replaced by buses between Manchester and Warrington BQ.
So, I'm puzzled as to how they are managing to run this tour? (Nothing yet showing on RTT)
Thanks

 

[Spartacus]

It'd hardly be new for a tour to be promoted and on sale before they've even submitted a bid, let alone a compliant one. I wonder if it's cleared via Northwich? Either that or it looks like a reverse at Preston or Crewe!

 

[terryc]

Well, the tour was finally cancelled today due to "the closure of an important section of the route due to late notice engineering works." Well, what disappoints me is that the engineering works had been announced over a month ago, and the tour operator (ELR) could have saved themselves the time and expense of issuing and posting tickets. In addition, the NW of England isn't exactly blessed with steam hauled railtours, and as such I would imagine that many passengers were coming from a distance, and could face the possibility of already having arranged travel to join the tour, which would now be wasted.
Anyway, saying that, I'm looking forward to hearing details about the re-scheduling.

 

[Spartacus]

Yeah, it seems people knew about the problems this was going to have with engineering long before something started to be done about it.

It was nice to see a steam charter starting in the north for once and not being the usual rinse and repeat of going over the S&C or the fairly short hop from York to Scarborough.

 

[AM9]

Yeah, it seems people knew about the problems this was going to have with engineering long before something started to be done about it.

It was nice to see a steam charter starting in the north for once and not being the usual rinse and repeat of going over the S&C or the fairly short hop from York to Scarborough.

I would think that they go where the demand is. There doesn't seem to be much demand for cruising down the WCML or ECML, even if there were sufficient spare paths for a slow-moving steam hauled train.

 

[Spartacus]

I would think that they go where the demand is. There doesn't seem to be much demand for cruising down the WCML or ECML, even if there were sufficient spare paths for a slow-moving steam hauled train.

Who says you need to go down the ECML or WCML?