Excursions from the South West

[Turbostar]

Why do us citizens south of Bristol seem to get left out on excursions originating from the south west? Yes, we get excursions COMING into the region, but nothing seems to go OUT (i.e. start/originate). Is there some operating difficulty or something preventing tour operators from running trains starting from the south west?

Mart

 

[westcoaster]

i suppose its all to with where the depot's are and where the crew are based?
take for example wcr they are based in carnforth, so to start a tour from say bristol to carlisle it would be un-economical, the crew would have to come down to bristol, lodge, take the tour to carlisle and back, lodge, then take the stock back, three days work for one train, they could swap crew's at carlisle but the it's two crews, and works out at four days work, or there might not be demand for charter's in that area.

 

[devon_metro]

Why do us citizens south of Bristol seem to get left out on excursions originating from the south west? Yes, we get excursions COMING into the region, but nothing seems to go OUT (i.e. start/originate). Is there some operating difficulty or something preventing tour operators from running trains starting from the south west?

Mart

I agree, Its stupid.

 

[Coxster]

I'd have thought maybe because there's a bigger market for people wanting to visit the West Country than getting away from it. Same goes for the North of Scotland and, possibly, Wales?

 

[theblackwatch]

I think it comes down to simple economics - what's the likelihood of a tour filling with several hundred cranks from the West Country? Bear in mind that Pathfinder couldn't sell enough seats to run a Class 37 hauled train to South Wales this weekend, picking up at stations between York and Worcester (a huge catchment area if you work on people travelling up to 50 miles to get to the train). There's also the additional cost of ECS/Crewing moves which Westcoaster mentioned, which would probably push the price of the tours up by quite a bit compared to normal tour prices.

Its also worth noting that, up to a few years ago, Pathfinder used to run a bus from Exeter to Bristol for a lot of its tours. I believe it was eventually dropped due to lack of demand to make it worthwhile.