Potter magic needed to end saga

It is becoming one of the most bizarre transport stories of the year, with as many unexpected twists as the Harry Potter tales which have helped build its fame.

The Jacobite steam train has begun its summer season with a long-running safety dispute between its operator and the rail regulator coming to a head.

Services finally started on Monday on the Fort Williammallaig line following a climbdown by West Coast Railways (WCR), which had cancelled the first two weeks because it wanted to run carriages without mandatory central door locking.

The prohibition, which has been signalled for years and is being complied with by other heritage operators, led to WCR losing a court case against the Office of Rail Road (ORR) in December. It then applied for another exemption three months later – within weeks of the start of the season. Then last week, another firm, Locomotive Services Group, ran its diesel-hauled heritage West Highlander service over the route during the Jacobite’s absence.

Except the Jacobite wasn’t entirely absent, because West Highlander passengers weren’t able to spend long in Mallaig before their return journey as WCR ran empty trains on the single-track line at the times when the Jacobite would have operated.

WCR told me this was for crew training. But it then emerged that that train is not the one being used for the Jacobite, because it does not have compliant doors.

Another train, with central door locking fitted, was sent by WCR from its Lancashire headquarters in Carnforth on Saturday for that purpose, albeit it has fewer carriages so some booked passengers may miss out.

WCR would not tell me its intentions for the original train. It said: “Our crews have had refresher training on all relevant protocols and are prepared for the re-start of our Jacobite services.”

So why has WCR decided to start services, since there’s no sign of the exemption from the ORR that it had sought when announcing their suspension? It turns out that WCR had actually planned to have its compliant carriages “ready for use at the start of the season” after all.

But, it explained, “our engineers encountered some challenges and were only able to get them ready for service from mid-april.”

Whatever will happen next?