RTC IS BACK – BUT WITH ‘ONE OR TWO TRAINS A MONTH’
RTC proceeds with caution, but first post-lockdown outing shows appetite for main line remains.
WE COULD HAVE STARTED A LITTLE BIT EARLIER, BUT DECIDED TO DELAY UNTIL WE FELT IT WAS RIGHT. WE’RE NOT RUSHING KELLY OSBORNE
How better to come back than with a belting run over Shap and Ais Gill with a ‘Scot’?
That’s what awaited passengers on August 8’s ‘Cumbrian Mountain Express’ with No. 46115 – the Railway Touring Company’s first trip since lockdown.
RTC’s return is a big moment, and not only for the East Anglian promoter itself. Before now, the only main line trips to have restarted have been those backed directly by a train operator: the ‘Jacobite’ followed by the ‘Scarborough Spa Express’ and ‘Dalesman’ from West Coast, and the programme from Jeremy Hosking’s Saphos Trains. Both outfits kicked back into public life in July (SR508) – but until now other promoters have been absent.
Kelly Osborne has been pretty careful about when her outfit would return. Just last issue, the RTC boss said that while August 8 was her hoped-for date, she’d not yet made a final decision. And, she accepted on August 10: “Potentially we could have started a little bit earlier, but decided to delay until we felt it was right. We’re not rushing, we’re not hoping to run everything, we’re being cautious even now.”
The move, she says, follows “being asked by customers” and receiving “numerous positive comments from people wanting to travel”.
“It’s about customer confidence and making sure we get it right every time. We have to put all their needs first, but we felt we’d got everything covered – it felt right.”
August’s debut ‘CME’ for this summer was “a successful day” – and I’m told timers are rapturous about how Scots Guardsman flattened some pimples in the North that folk excite themselves over. Clearly though, that’s not what made this a ‘moment’.
“It’s been a troubling few months,” says Kelly, “not just for us but the country, and it’s great to have a bit more of a sense of normality. People have been looking forward to this, and normality is, hopefully, not that far away.”
She concedes that it has also “happened sooner than I thought… in March you couldn’t buy loo roll!”
As you might expect, RTC’s boss is fulsome in praise for operator West Coast (“they’ve worked hard to get not just themselves back, but also us”) as well as her own team, for making it happen.
Yet, good as this may be, it doesn’t take away from the bigger questions that stubbornly linger. Such as how
long it will be before genuine normality is restored.
“For us, what is normal?” asks Kelly. “Normal at the moment would be frantically running three or four trains a week… that could be many months ahead, it could be a year. ‘Normal’ is going to be one or two trains a month.”
Plus, as people have pondered ever since social distancing became a ‘thing’, there’s no doubt that with nearly half a train forcibly empty, the tricky sums that support main line steam are stickier still.
“We’ve already had to reduce capacity
[to around 60%], so we have to fill to that capacity to afford to do it. It’s a slow and steady return.
“We’re not going to get rich, but it’s not about getting rich, it’s about promoting what we do. It’s not about money, it’s about the love… about providing that service, keeping the industry going and putting a smile on people’s faces.”
What about the issue that’s exercised much of the charter community in recent weeks – face coverings (SR508/SR509)? Unlike on Saphos Trains tours, Kelly says that for RTC these “are mandatory” – albeit with exemptions for certain medical conditions, and that you can remove them to eat and drink.
“I think people are getting used to it now; it’s becoming part of life. Some people are ringing up wanting to make sure people are wearing masks.”
● How’s this for irony? With train capacity down to below two-thirds of normal, some charters may not have too few passengers… but already too many.
“There are a couple of trains where we may have to lose a few bookings. Who’d have thought that a year ago?” says Kelly.
“The fairest way is ‘last in, first out’, but there are only a couple of trains like that. It’s more that we’ve had to close off to new bookings.”
Not something any promoter can enjoy doing…