Tornado Caledonian cancelled Saturday 18th

[Killingworth]

From Tornado Railtours Facebook page;

"We are extremely sorry to advise ‘The Caledonian’ scheduled for Saturday 18th September 2021 is cancelled.

Despite significant efforts by all parties, it has not been possible to identify a workable timetable for the train to Edinburgh that allows time to explore the city. The primary reason for this is the sheer number of higher speed electric trains north of Carlisle, with this exacerbated by diversions this weekend from the East Coast route. These later trains have taken the planned pathways needed for Tornado and the changes to the timetable post Covid have further reduced flexibility.

Whilst we can only apologise for the cancellation, we are very disappointed to be advising you so late on. We normally get final timings around 2-3 weeks before the train runs. We are investigating with Network Rail as to why we were not advised of this problem until the last 24 hours as this is clearly unacceptable.

Passengers have been emailed - please do check your junk file if you were due to travel but haven’t heard from us.

Once again, please accept our apologies for this news"

 

[Brian1947]

From Tornado Railtours Facebook page;

"We are extremely sorry to advise ‘The Caledonian’ scheduled for Saturday 18th September 2021 is cancelled.

Despite significant efforts by all parties, it has not been possible to identify a workable timetable for the train to Edinburgh that allows time to explore the city. The primary reason for this is the sheer number of higher speed electric trains north of Carlisle, with this exacerbated by diversions this weekend from the East Coast route. These later trains have taken the planned pathways needed for Tornado and the changes to the timetable post Covid have further reduced flexibility.

Whilst we can only apologise for the cancellation, we are very disappointed to be advising you so late on. We normally get final timings around 2-3 weeks before the train runs. We are investigating with Network Rail as to why we were not advised of this problem until the last 24 hours as this is clearly unacceptable.

Passengers have been emailed - please do check your junk file if you were due to travel but haven’t heard from us.

Once again, please accept our apologies for this news"

We were due to go on this tour and received the email from the A1 Trust yesterday. Rather late notice especially as I had only emailed them last week and received assurances everything was okay with tickets expected early this week. I have had a bit of a rant at them, more relating to the fact that Network Rail must have authorised the proposed schedule at a time when they were planning to close the ECML north of Newcastle.

How much wasted planning time is open for debate but I suggested to them they should get NR to reimburse the Trust for any financial losses.

 

[Spartacus]

Other 'one off' schedules seem to have been going in about a week ago, which suggests NR's Charters team are behind, though not so far as has been suggested. I'm guessing given previous experience is there was an impasse on what NR could offer given the limited paths available and what the A1SLT found acceptable in terms of start, finish and time at destination.