railtours on tube

[Tubeboy]

Is it me , but why do lul not capitalise on their wonderfully restored 1938 stock unit. They could easily use it for a railtour. There would be two main benefits, one they would make money and two they would be getting good pr. I remember reading somewhere that they dont want to do railtours as if the train breaks down, it will screw up the normal train service. Running it on a sunday on say the east finchley-barnet section,would be ok i feel. Comments please!

[Deleted]

Well if the Mill Hill East branch is to be a self-contained shuttle it could be ideal for this sort of thing, albeit a bit of a short ride!

[Tubeboy]

Not quite what i had in mind!

[Tubeboy]

I have been on this lovely train twice. Firstly on a Ealing common- uxbridge and back trip, whilst visiting the lt museum at acton in 2003. The second occasion was the uxbridge anniversary[4th july 2004] when it went[via wembley park ] to amersham-harrow and back to uxbridge. I have seen so many smiling faces on the tube in my life. I shall certainly remember it.

[Deleted]

tubeboy said:

Is it me , but why do lul not capitalise on their wonderfully restored 1938 stock unit. They could easily use it for a railtour. There would be two main benefits, one they would make money and two they would be getting good pr. I remember reading somewhere that they dont want to do railtours as if the train breaks down, it will screw up the normal train service. Running it on a sunday on say the east finchley-barnet section,would be ok i feel. Comments please!

Unfortunately your two reasons are not enough to convince the powers to be. IMHO it needs someone up there with our sort of enthusiasm.

[Phil]

To be brutally honest, a 4-car train would not earn enough in 'fares' to compensate for the cost of running the tour. Even on the mainline, railtours using less than 11 coaches have trouble covering their costs.

[Tubeboy]

I am assuming then that the uxbridge centenary run made a big loss then.

[Phil]

tubeboy said:

I am assuming then that the uxbridge centenary run made a big loss then.

No specific idea on that one - don't have the figures. BUT if the same train formation can do several trips in a day, each trip producing a new set of paying customers (sorry!), then the total day's operation can indeed be profitable where a single trip wouldn't

[Deleted]

There's also the issues of things like signalling (when the Northern and Jubilee get ATO/ATP, the 38 will likely be barred), station alterations (I highly doubt the 38 will ever run south of Green Park on the Jubilee), driver knowledge, and so on.

But the primaru issue is indeed constructing a service pattern that will make enough money to cover its costs. With that in mind, Hammersmith to Uxbridge on the Picc would be quite nice IMO

[mowat]

tubeboy said:

I have been on this lovely train twice. Firstly on a Ealing common- uxbridge and back trip, whilst visiting the lt museum at acton in 2003. The second occasion was the uxbridge anniversary[4th july 2004] when it went[via wembley park ] to amersham-harrow and back to uxbridge. I have seen so many smiling faces on the tube in my life. I shall certainly remember it.

Smiling faces well mine was one of them coz i was on a real train ;D I think that heritage tours whith the LT museum's 1938ts unit on the northern line would be good, thay could be on a sunday every few months and run the full line (they should do this before it's to late), or if not just shuttle's one every month on a sunday on the following parts of line, Golders Green-Edgware, East Finchley-High Barnet, Acton Town-Uxbridge, and Queen's Park-Elephant & Castle (this could be called Bakerloo Centenarian). If four trains a day were run LUL/LTM would make money to cover costs ect.
See my photos of the Uxbridge Centenarian here (these are the first eight)
www.trainweb.org/districtdave/html/uxbridge_centenarian.html