Easter ‘Jacobite’ planned for 2017
By the time you read this the ‘Jacobite’ season will be over - but the wait for the next one should be shorter than in previous years. West Coast Railways MD Pat Marshall says that not only is the start of Fort William-Mallaig trips to be brought forward a week to the beginning of May, but that Easter ‘Jacobites’ are planned too. That means four days of steam on the ‘Road to the Isles’ from Good Friday to Easter Monday (April 14-17).
There’s already been an expansion of the season this year, through the extension of the second (afternoon) train from the end of August through to September 9 (SR458), though Pat says that was, in part, to compensate in other areas, such as the landslide that blocked the line in August. She also reveals she’d personally like to see the ‘Mallaigs’ running even further outside their normal times: “One of the things that I would love to do is stop the ‘Jacobite’ at the end of the season, ‘same as’, but perhaps do some ‘Santa Specials’. “It’s a dream, but I would love to do it, and perhaps we will one day.” She argues such a move “would be spectacular.” It’s hard to disagree. The ‘Jacobite’ season might be over, but that doesn’t mean it’s a time of rest for Ian Riley’s ‘Black Fives’. Fresh from Scotland, they’re expected to stand in on a range of pre-Christmas Railway Touring Company tours that had been down for Oliver Cromwell. Although now running at the Great Central following major work started in 2015 (SR457), the ‘Brit’ hasn’t yet made it back onto the main line.