How did railtours work in BR days?

Andy873 said:

I've often wondered just how much chartering a train cost? it would surely vary depending on distance and the number of coaches required etc.

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I recall in the late 80s my student union would occasionally charter a train to take people to national student demonstrations in London (about this that or the other issue of protest but at the time probably about government plans to abolish student grants), then charge the students who wanted to go a modest sum for a ticket.

I think various factors at the time - not least never being sure how many people might want to actually go, plus probably stock availability etc, saw this go over to hiring road coaches for the job - with an interminable and less pleasant travel experience as a result.

I can't recall at this time what the cost of that might have been or what the tickets would have been sold on for by the Student Union unfortunately. It would have had to have been cheaper than buying a return ticket with a Young Person's Railcard but the train would need to have got into London by about 10am I guess, so would have been travel at an otherwise peak sort of time.

Gloster said:

It wasn’t just the cost of hiring the loco and coaches, which were fairly constant, at least to a certain extent. The number of traincrew required could vary based on distance, route knowledge and even traction knowledge. You might have to book extra signalling staff on for certain routes or you might need extra platform or shunting staff at some locations. And if the coaches had to be brought in from another depot, that added to the cost.

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I remember going on a Tuesday night Footex from Portsmouth & Southsea to Lincoln and a 33 headed it all the way there and back, must have used quite a few 'Pilotmen'

Gloster said:

It wasn’t just the cost of hiring the loco and coaches, which were fairly constant, at least to a certain extent. The number of traincrew required could vary based on distance, route knowledge and even traction knowledge. You might have to book extra signalling staff on for certain routes or you might need extra platform or shunting staff at some locations. And if the coaches had to be brought in from another depot, that added to the cost.

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75A said:

I remember going on a Tuesday night Footex from Portsmouth & Southsea to Lincoln and a 33 headed it all the way there and back, must have used quite a few 'Pilotmen'

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Absolutely, walking into a BR office and asking to charter a train would have been one thing, to actually make it happen would have been something else.

On other threads, we've talked about staffing, route planning and timing. Perhaps BR might have asked you what time you wanted the train to leave and return, the reality might be different. I know one group of Sunday school children had to leave at 4:30 am and they were only going to the Lancashire coast, say 40 miles!

Andy873 said:

I've often wondered just how much chartering a train cost? it would surely vary depending on distance and the number of coaches required etc.

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I believe these days a figure of around £30,000 to £40,000 depending on complexity of itinerary would be an approximate cost of running a railtour.

Sun Chariot said:

As well as InterCity's above-mentioned charter division (and dedicated stock), BR used to run "Merrymaker" excursions, from various routes to popular destinations. The stock was usually a rake of Mk1s including rudimentary catering - and invariably there was a trade stand (books, etc) in the brake van's cage.
As a lad, I still recall my parents taking me on such a trip - up the Midland Main Line then across to Blackpool. It was 1983 and, goodness knows why, I still recall the loco was 45003.

Private enterprises also chartered BR stock - and, as well as those mentioned above, the early-mid 1980s had F&W (John Farrow and Peter Watts, who subsequently established their Hertfordshire Railtours and Pathfinder Tours), the Branchline Society, plus specialist clubs such as Class 40 Appeal, Class 20 Loco Society.


Aha our posts crossed in the post!

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F & W Railtours were operated by Tony Fielding and Peter Watts. They later became Pathfinder Tours.
John Farrow worked for BR and organised tours for the Lea Valley Railway Club. He later left BR to run Hertfordshire Railtours.

Peterthegreat said:

F & W Railtours were operated by Tony Fielding and Peter Watts. They later became Pathfinder Tours.
John Farrow worked for BR and organised tours for the Lea Valley Railway Club. He later left BR to run Hertfordshire Railtours.

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Thanks for correcting me on that. In which case, the article I'd read nearly 40 years ago, was also wrong!

I recall John Farrow's very visible presence on his tours - customer care par excellence; and it ensured none of the rowdy / drunken behaviour I experienced on some others (yes, "Fellsman 2", I'm looking at you...)

Gloster said:

It wasn’t just the cost of hiring the loco and coaches, which were fairly constant, at least to a certain extent. The number of traincrew required could vary based on distance, route knowledge and even traction knowledge. You might have to book extra signalling staff on for certain routes or you might need extra platform or shunting staff at some locations. And if the coaches had to be brought in from another depot, that added to the cost.

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I worked on planning charters for Res in the 1990s and, at an early stage, we would be given a slip setting out the basic service requested. We would then work up the (rough) loco, stock and crew workings necessary and pass back an estimate of the total involved which would then be used to calculate the cost.

This could, of course, come horribly unstuck if a depot was unable to cover and we needed to "hire in" from elsewhere, or if a depot could provide a driver with traction knowledge but not the route knowledge (or vice versa) resulting in a pilot being required.

Never confident we ever made much money from it all !

"How did railtours work in BR days?"​

In the case of the "Coalville Cobblers"... not very well at all!!!

( Those who travelled on these will know exactly what I mean... )

Am i correct in that Merrymakers used to run a lot of long distance overnight tours to reach their destination by morning?

greyman42 said:

Am i correct in that Merrymakers used to run a lot of long distance overnight tours to reach their destination by morning?

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The two I did as a lad (from Bedfordshire to Blackpool / to Blaenau Ffestiniog) were out and back in the same day

greyman42 said:

Am i correct in that Merrymakers used to run a lot of long distance overnight tours to reach their destination by morning?

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Not generally as far as I know, more usually early morning starts for day trips unless they were long distance journeys to Kyle of Lochalsh or similar destination.

12LDA28C said:

Not generally as far as I know, more usually early morning starts for day trips unless they were long distance journeys to Kyle of Lochalsh or similar destination.

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The overnight ones i seem to remember were York to Margate (or some where in that area) and York to Torquay.

12LDA28C said:

Not generally as far as I know, more usually early morning starts for day trips unless they were long distance journeys to Kyle of Lochalsh or similar destination.

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There were occasional Merrymakers that ran overnight. In 1977 I did one from Leeds to Plymouth departing about 2330 and returning to Leeds about midnight the following day.

greyman42 said:

Am i correct in that Merrymakers used to run a lot of long distance overnight tours to reach their destination by morning?

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The excursions originating on the Southern Region - which for some reason were branded as 'Awayday Pleasure Seekers' rather than 'Merrymakers' - were all out-and-back in a day, with the exception of those to the Blackpool illuminations, which returned overnight for obvious reasons....often taking in some very interesting diversionary routes.

HurdyGurdy said:

An honourable mention also of the Mystery Excursion. You would be well into the journey, and still speculating, by the time the destination was announced.

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Apart from the one where at New Street they announced "platform 10 for the mystery excursion to Weston-super-Mare". After that the special traffic notices just said "to Western Region" and not even the train crew knew where it was going after the crew change stop.

Distinction needs to be made between enthusiast railtours and the thousands of day excursions like Merrymakers (a LMR London Division brand name) in the late 60s and 70s, eventually killed off by Thatcher's accountants who didn't understand marginal profits and decided it was bad stock utilisation to have older coaches used only at weekends. But they had introduced many people to trains who'd hardly used them before. And used some novel routes that then became the norm such as Coventry - Leamington (excursions went via Bescot or Nuneaton to avoid New St).

For a while, excursions to Blackpool via Shrewsbury or Derby all had to change engines twice, at Crewe and Preston, because of the policy of not using diesels under the wires.

greyman42 said:

Am i correct in that Merrymakers used to run a lot of long distance overnight tours to reach their destination by morning?

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Yes, some did run overnight. And some over two nights.

I travelled on a weekend Merrymaker in 1974 from London St. Pancras to Edinburgh and back. Outward on Friday evening via Sheffield, York and Newcastle, arriving into Edinburgh Saturday morning. Return Saturday evening and back into St. Pancras Sunday morning.

Class 46 haulage both ways.

greyman42 said:

Am i correct in that Merrymakers used to run a lot of long distance overnight tours to reach their destination by morning?

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stephens said:

Yes, some did run overnight. And some over two nights.

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One I remember from the mid 70s was Nottingham division to Penzance, we went out overnight and were in Cornwall for long enough to do all the branches although I can't remember if the return trip was late afternoon and home circa midnight or if we also came back overnight - I suspect the former.

Also in the late 70s / early eighties when I was working on the West Highland, Railtours visited on many weekends in the season, some being day trips from Central Scotland typically by the SRPS (even then using at least in part their own stock (they didn't have the big Mk1 fleet back then and used their ex LMS stock), but more often from south of the border which would often be overnight at least northbound, and often both ways, and sometimes two railtours on the patch on the same day. Paths were much easier on a Saturday when there was only the sparse passenger service and no freights to work around.

On 11th May 1979 I worked 1Z11, 15.00 Mallaig to Sunderland as far as Bridge of Orchy, 27010 with load 7 to Fort William made up to 12 coaches during a 45 minute dwell at Fort William (27020/27012). Leaving Bridge of Orchy just after 19.00 this would have crossed the evening down Oban at Arrochar around 20.00 and project to passing (pause for relief) Cowlairs before 21.30, Edinburgh probably not long after 22.15 (loco change) and reaching Newcastle (probably the destination for most passengers) a bit after midnight and so to Sunderland probably before 01.00. Outward that trip would have to have been have been overnight (circa 10 hour journey) but it is difficult to imagine the return journey, having reached Cowlairs before 21.30, could have stretched to an overnight return trip.
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BR Scottish Region ran their own programme of Railtours perhaps most notably 'Grand Scottish Railtour no.1) in March 1967 which loaded to 18 coaches for a sixteen hour trip routing from Edinburgh (class 47 + class 40), Waverley Route, Carlisle, Beattock, Perth where 60009 and 44997 took over for the run to Aberdeen, continuing with 2 x class 24 to Aviemore via Dufftown with a third class 24 added for the run from Aviemore to Perth from where the steam pairing took over for the run back to Edinburgh.
Whilst many ScR tours were domestic others crossed the border whether to an advertised destination or as a Mystery Tour. In earlier years tours in Scotland used the preserved pre Grouping steam locos either under the BR banner or often run by such as BLS/SLS and other societies.

ChiefPlanner said:

When I was a student at Aberystwyth we hired a through train to Euston by the simple means of getting the chief clerk at the station to ring the Passenger Section at Stoke Division and a price was quoted with half an hour and the train booked.

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There had always been a market for privately hired trains of all sorts. BR's organisation included a Commercial Department, who determined mainstream service fares and also booked and arranged such private charters - or, for the intermediate stage between the two, did block bookings on scheduled trains.

Enthusiast railtours to obscure lines were commonly arranged by the longer standing societies, as stated above, and also the Ian Allan organisation. Often two or three of them together, all of whom placed their headboards on the locomotive. Special/interesting locomotives, a significant number of which are now in York museum (and some had been in the old York museum beforehand, as well, and got going again) were sometimes sent considerable distances to take part. Trips involving freight branches where passenger coaches were not allowed were "brake van tours", a string of guards' vans (I presume Fitted) with a dozen or so in each. H&S nowadays would have a fit!

Back to the quote, Exeter University had a railway society, who each start and end of term in the 1970s chartered a train to London, undercutting regular fares in the days before Student Railcards (another Commercial Department initiative). Generally a Warship, they had their loco headboard too, and also the old Torbay Express long wooden carriage boards from the 1960s, turned over, appropriately signwritten, and placed above the coach windows in the traditional position. I wonder what they did with them at Paddington during the long vac.

Taunton said:

There had always been a market for privately hired trains of all sorts. BR's organisation included a Commercial Department, who determined mainstream service fares and also booked and arranged such private charters - or, for the intermediate stage between the two, did block bookings on scheduled trains.
eight branches where passenger coaches were not allowed were "brake van tours", a string of guards' vans (I presume Fitted) with a dozen or so in each. H&S nowadays would have a fit!

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Your standard BR brake vans - the better ones - CAP were piped only - for use on fitted trains - (or coupled to a loco) - so they would probably have run as a class 9 (old class 9) , as not braked (CAR and CAO brake vans had no such luxcery)


Yes -absolute no chance today - though certain tours had passengers riding in open wagons - pictures exist of Harpenden to Hemel Hempstead for example.......

Some degree of supervision would have been provided of course. Not a supervisor on each balcony which would have been expensive , especially at weekend overtime rates.

There were a host of Mystery Tours run from Carlisle/Penrith/Oxenholme/Lancaster in mid and late 1980s. They'd be advertised in the local papers and you'd buy the tickets from the local station.

Departure times between 06:00-07:00 and back between 23:00-00:00 would indicate a long day. Departures starting in Lancaster (rare) pointed to a Scottish destination.

First one I did turned out to be Southampton and Bournmeouth using the Euston-Stirling Motorail rake that was Upperby based in the Winter. We were given tickets that allowed travel between Southampton and Bournemouth and allowed travel on local trains. We got off at Southampton for a couple of hours then went to Bournemouth.

Other ones I recall:

• Torquay and Paignton (local travel allowed again)
• Portsmouth (Electric to Class 33 changeover at Mitre Junction, which is where the destination was announced)
• Canterbury and Dover (again local travel allowed)
• Cardiff via Marches Line and return via Heart of Wales Line
• Nottingham
• Southend Victoria (didn’t do that one), which I think used the North London Line and took a Class 85 to Southend Victoria
• Brighton (didn’t do)
• York (didn’t do)

Stock for these was usually Mark 1 TSOs but at least one was Mark 2E FOs. As others have said a make shift buffet would be run from the brake. Everyone would be trying to see any labels on the stack of boxes with leaflets for wherever we were going. Another nice touch on some trips was being given the fold out national rail map in the morning and based on routing everyone would try guess where we were heading.

Bsck in the 1970's there were numerous Merrymakers from the Sheffield area to points all over Britain. Usual starting times were about 6am on a Saturday, getting back at roughly 2am Sunday, assuming things went to plan.
Places I visited on these trips included Dundee, Perth, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Largs, Carlisle in the north to Margate, Bournemouth, Dover, Poole, Bristol, Exeter Torquay and Plymouth in the south and Holyhead, Barmouth, Cardiff and Swansea in Wales
There were a few weekend trips as well, leaving on a Friday evening returning by Sunday lunchtime. Places included Kyle of Lochalsh, Mallaig and Penzance.
These Merrymakers started life as "Holiday Preview" tours, and usually ran from February through to April and again from September to November.
There were also "mystery tours", as the name suggests a train to a mystery destination. Problem was if you were a regular on these trip you could end up in the same place. One classic was a Merrymaker to Cambridge, which we went on, and the following week was a mystery trip, which we also went on, and ended up in Cambridge!
The stock was usually a class 47 or 45/46,with mk1 stock including a Gresley buffet car. The local Ffestiniog group always had a sales stand on board. I got to see places all over Britain on these.
Not directly related but there were also cheap day trips to the Ideal Homes Exhibition, London shoppers specials leading up to Christmas, happy times when I could afford to travel by train!

Sun Chariot said:

Also - this video, at 3m.45s you'll see the rear 2 coaches are Manchester Pullman carriages, chartered for private use on the tour.

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I think I was on that railtour (in 1984) - I don't think the two Manchester Pullman coaches were anything different to the rest of the tour - think they were added either for extra capacity, or as overflow as there were a few unexpected first class carriages (therefore with fewer seats than the expected second class ones) in the rest of the train, and presume that's what was available.

(and as an aside, i'm still not sure why we ended up with a single 31 from rugby to euston - there was a theory it should have been an 81 and someone misread a note...)

Lemmy282 said:

These Merrymakers started life as "Holiday Preview" tours, and usually ran from February through to April and again from September to November.

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Also known as "Look and Book" - a cheap off-season trip to a resort to see whether you fancied it for the summer holiday.

Roger1973 said:

I think I was on that railtour (in 1984) - I don't think the two Manchester Pullman coaches were anything different to the rest of the tour - think they were added either for extra capacity, or as overflow as there were a few unexpected first class carriages (therefore with fewer seats than the expected second class ones) in the rest of the train, and presume that's what was available.

(and as an aside, i'm still not sure why we ended up with a single 31 from rugby to euston - there was a theory it should have been an 81 and someone misread a note...)

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Fascinating, thanks for sharing.

Re: the two Pullman coaches; it seems odd they were used as normal tour stock, rather than BR utilising FKs from their "common-pool" that the rest of the stock was allocated to.
The tours I did in the 1980s and early 1990s, first class was Mk1s and the odd Mk2a/b.

Re: the 31 Rugby-Euston. I presume it had the full 14 bogies behind it? If only my fourteen year old self had cycled to my local WCML station to see (and hear!) that spectacle!

Sun Chariot said:

Re: the two Pullman coaches; it seems odd they were used as normal tour stock, rather than BR utilising FKs from their "common-pool" that the rest of the stock was allocated to.

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I'm only speculating, but assume they were what was nearest the surface in a hurry at whatever yard the train was marshalled at.

Sun Chariot said:

Re: the 31 Rugby-Euston. I presume it had the full 14 bogies behind it? If only my fourteen year old self had cycled to my local WCML station to see (and hear!) that spectacle!

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I think so - hence the fairly late arrival at Euston. Although some passengers would have got off at Rugby so it wasn't quite full.

Fortunately (if I remember right) I was on this tour with parents and uncle - and we went in his car to / from Euston (in the days when you could park in a side street near Euston all day on a Sunday) so we didn't have to think about getting across London for the last train from Charing Cross (parents never ran a car.) I think a few people were concerned about getting home (Sunday last trains / Underground may have been a bit earlier then than they are now.)

We can't really cover railtours of the era without mentioning "Railtour Review" in the 1980s copies of Rail magazine, by a writer called David Maxey, who was unparalleled for sharp humour about events on the tours - he seems to have gone on many of them. One of many running gags was "Railtour Standard Time" - being one hour late.

Taunton said:

We can't really cover railtours of the era without mentioning "Railtour Review" in the 1980s copies of Rail magazine, by a writer called David Maxey, who was unparalleled for sharp humour about events on the tours - he seems to have gone on many of them. One of many running gags was "Railtour Standard Time" - being one hour late.

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Agreed I'd wondered if my post #15, of David Maxey and "Railtour Review" would get a bite.
I still recall his wonderful reference to "a pair of 37s" next to a photo of a well proportioned tour stewardess....

Here is a 15 minute video of some rail tours from the 4 August 1968 celebrating the end of steam. It doesn't add to the topic except to say it's a lovely watch - thought you all might enjoy it!

I remember the Luxury Days out by train both booking them and being on them.

In the late 80s we used to have to call Euston Charter Trains unit and ask availability.
If there was we'd take payment from the the passenger.
We used to have to use a "Transfer Voucher" sheets (always in triplicate; 1 copy to the till, 1 copy to Euston, 1 copy to Derby)

Then it changed:
To issue tickets we had to swipe a bar code (in the Passenger Instruction Manual I think it was called - It was in a green binder and had updates regularly) through the APTIS machine and input the info like cost etc. then press the payment type.
Tickets issued and hand over to the passenger.
Then it changed:
So you had to visit the Travel Centre at Euston to get the tickets. If you were clever you'd still call the Euston Charter Train team and get them to hold on to x number of reservations for someone.

Travelling on one:


That's a link to my trip with the then girlfriend (now wife).

Sun Chariot said:

Fascinating, thanks for sharing.

Re: the two Pullman coaches; it seems odd they were used as normal tour stock, rather than BR utilising FKs from their "common-pool" that the rest of the stock was allocated to.
The tours I did in the 1980s and early 1990s, first class was Mk1s and the odd Mk2a/b.

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Weren’t the Manchester Pullman coaches restricted to electric haulage only (or was it just that for the time they were rare in being eth and air-brakes only?)