RAILTOURS

Railtour operators ponder when to start running trains again, and whether the older generation will even want to take the risk of venturing out.

The battle to reschedule tours.

IT is a sign of the times when two of the nation's leading railtour operators, Pathfinder and UK Railtours, do not have any tours publicised this coming July.

Whilst Pathfinder has been busy rescheduling tours postponed from earlier in the year, there is no sign of UKR rescheduling yet - which comes on top of the sad news of its managing director John Farrow passing away in arch (see last issue). John Farrow's daughter, Liz orris, wishes to continue running charters, but "not until we are sure they will definitely be able to operate".

eanwhile, the luxury train operators Belmond and Northern Belle appear to be continuing as normal, both having numerous July outings planned. Slightly worrying is that at least one of the destinations has publicly stated it is closed because of the pandemic, yet the tour is still shown as running. Belmond and Northern Belle have both issued impressive statements detailing what arrangements have been made to safeguard passengers. Whilst cleanliness is to the fore, the fact remains that all passengers will be in close proximity to others.

One company being proactive is Statesman Rail. Its first tour is due to run on July 18 (from Peterborough and stations to London to Torquay and Paignton) and, to comply with social distancing, it is reducing the passenger count by 40% and installing Perspex screens between each bay of seats to reduce the risk of spreading infection.

The Railway Touring Club is advertising a packed July and August programme; Steam Dreams has just one tour listed for the end of July; whilst Vintage Trains has curtailed its entire 2020 programme.

■ GBRF TOUR PUT BACKTO 2021: The four-day GB Railfreight charity tour

'This Time It's Personal' will now run from April 15-18, 2021. The decision has been made by the organisers because of the uncertainty of the prevailing Government regulations, the possible financial hardship suffered by participants during the lockdown, and the fact that so many other operators will be rescheduling their tours for September that it may unsustainable for participants wanting to travel on GBRfs tour and others planned for September. The organisers are planning to run the tour with the same itinerary, but are checking if there are any planned engineering works that might require slight modifications. 13