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New Belmond train in England & Wales

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Western 52

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I expect Monday's trip to Wales will be cancelled then. Pity as I'm sure the punters were looking forward to their over night stop in platform 2 at Haverfordwest!
 

BillStampy

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This could be the stock heading back to Eastleigh:

Assuming so. As previous comments have stated, they've rushed this stock in too quickly and it should've been prepared and tested more before trying to put the well paying passengers on the thing. Hopefully they can spend a bit of time to iron out the issues plaguing the thing.
 

Supercoss

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Curiously of the ten vehicles available, the schedule / consist shows load 9 ( 99105 missing) but only eight coaches went to Wellingborough Friday !
 

chrisjo

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Next scheduled Britannic Explorer appears to be the 3-day Cornwall jaunt starting on the 8th August with:

1Z10 1548 Victoria - Bishops Lydeard GBRf

​

 

Deepgreen

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Next scheduled Britannic Explorer appears to be the 3-day Cornwall jaunt starting on the 8th August with:

1Z10 1548 Victoria - Bishops Lydeard GBRf

​

If this one also fails, they will start to lose a huge amount of trust, if they haven't already. It's been a disaster, and with probably the most potentially-litigious (i.e. richest) customers on the railway!
 

BillStampy

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Next scheduled Britannic Explorer appears to be the 3-day Cornwall jaunt starting on the 8th August with:

1Z10 1548 Victoria - Bishops Lydeard GBRf

​

Isn't the stock still down at Eastleigh? The runs for the entirety of next week have all been axed and removed from booking availability.
 

31160

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To be fair it's not as if I'm the market ordiance for this but it does look very shambolic from a distance
 

chrisjo

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Hmm - I wonder where else one would expect to book these trips? 'BillStampy' stated that all possible booking options had been removed, but this seems the obvious one. What a mess.
There are two alternative ways to view available dates on the Belmond website, but they do not return the same results. It doesn't fill one with confidence.

I wonder whether the paying passengers spend time on RTT looking to see what has happened to the trips previous to the one they are booked on? Probably not, so when theirs is cancelled they accept whatever they are told, along with the compensation, without realising that it's part of a pattern. I imagine that Belmond's small print will cover them against any other claims pretty comprehensively anyway. LVMH probably have competent lawyers to organise these things.

The Britannic Explorer doesn't feature on TripAdvisor yet, but the British Pullman appears to do alright, apart from the punters who complain that they were expecting a steam engine (Belmond's response is along the lines that 'if it was going to be a steam loco we would have said so, if we don't specifically say that a particular offer is steam-hauled then it won't be'). And then there are the ones that are up in arms because it went without them although they were only half an hour late. But I digress.
 
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Gloster

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It does look as though they have largely managed to prevent the main news outlets hearing of the cancellation: I can find nothing later than the 21 July one. Even though it is ’just another cancellation’ the titillating details about the rich and pampered being forced to disembark in Bedford ought to have been worth an item. I presume that a high proportion of the passengers are foreign, so they wouldn’t be the sort of people who will write to the Times or Telegraph, or contact people high up in the media. We may see rumours slowly start seeping back from reports in the South Arkansas Cornpone Dealers Gazette or the Wagga Wagga Cork Hangers Tribune, but by then Belmond will either have got things running well or thrown in the towel (monogrammed, of course).
 

Deepgreen

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It does look as though they have largely managed to prevent the main news outlets hearing of the cancellation: I can find nothing later than the 21 July one. Even though it is ’just another cancellation’ the titillating details about the rich and pampered being forced to disembark in Bedford ought to have been worth an item. I presume that a high proportion of the passengers are foreign, so they wouldn’t be the sort of people who will write to the Times or Telegraph, or contact people high up in the media. We may see rumours slowly start seeping back from reports in the South Arkansas Cornpone Dealers Gazette or the Wagga Wagga Cork Hangers Tribune, but by then Belmond will either have got things running well or thrown in the towel (monogrammed, of course).
I wonder if previous cancelled/aborted trips' disappointed punters will have been offered free trips on the next one, and so on and so on, ad infinitum!
 
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Looks like another attempt is being made. Tomorrow at 8.09 the 5Z65 goes to Stewarts Lane, then on to Victoria.
Let's hope it works this time!
 

chrisjo

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5Z65 0809 ECS Eastleigh Arlington - Stewarts Lane
5Z10 1437 ECS Stewarts Lane - Victoria
0Z10 1500 Light Loco Stewarts Lane - Victoria
1Z10 1548 Victoria - Cranmore

then no paths out of Cranmore later tomorrow or all day Saturday.

but Saturday;
1Z62 0900 Bishops Lydeard Gbrf to Penzance

​

 

Graham H

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16 Apr 2018
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Todays trip seems to have been cancelled while sat in Victoria station. 1Z10 just changed to 5Z10 but still showing Cranmore as the destination.
 

eastwestdivide

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Cancelled "due to a request by the train operator" according to realtimetrains. Either more disappointed passengers, or perhaps it was intended as another dry run, hence the change from 1Z to 5Z?
 

torten

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Perhaps they are still going ahead with the tour but using coaches and hotels instead?
 

Deepgreen

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Cancelled "due to a request by the train operator" according to realtimetrains. Either more disappointed passengers, or perhaps it was intended as another dry run, hence the change from 1Z to 5Z?
Would it not have been a 5Zxx throughout if so? The 1Z10 RTT entry also had the train timed at 33mph max!
 
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31160

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Has any paying customers even been on this yet? It seams a very smoke and mirrors type of operation
 

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