Great Western Coffee Shop

Tornado Steam Engine on Night Riviera Sleeper
Tuesday 18th March 2014

First Great Western supports the use of heritage traction on the national network, including steam, Indeed we are working closely to facilitate one such operation in May, but the challenges that would need to be overcome to use a steam engine with the sleeper are frankly enormous

It would require considerable planning, right at a time when our efforts remain fully focused on getting services back to normal after the flooding and looking after our customers.

We will be doing a number of things to celebrate the opening of the Dawlish line and supporting the return of rail services to and from Devon and Cornwall. A steam hauled sleeper is not one of them however.

Even if it was possible to find a safe way to do it, and this is by no means straightforward, most people on the sleeper want to be in bed. It is not therefore the passenger spectacle that a steam service by day provides. We might well look at a steam service in Devon and Cornwall later this year, but this will not involve the sleeper.

The sleeper is all about giving customers a good night^s sleep, rather than providing an exciting outing in the middle of the night. Not that we oppose exciting outings, we have done more than any other TOC to support steam runs on our network.

We appreciate this will be disappointing but this is not something we are going to offer on the sleeper train, especially when we are working to get business back to normal.
 
Prior to the sea wall collapse we had been seeing significant growth in passenger numbers on the sleeper, . We will continue to focus our energy on encouraging this important group of customers back to the sleeper when it returns in April. With support from Cornwall Council and the Cornwall and Isles of Scilly Local Enterprise Partnership, we have also secured under this franchise extra seasonal capacity for leisure and business passengers on our Night Riviera Sleeper. This will mean one additional sleeping car and another seated carriage introduced to the service

I would agree, that steam is not very suitable for the sleeper.

Not that I can remember much of it, as once darkness fell I was lulled into my slumbers by all the wonderful sounds of the railway.

I must say, to go off-topic slightly, I'm surprised the green lobby hasn't tried to ban the use of steam engines, as I assume they're pretty dirty machines in terms of CO2 output.

Not just CO2, also sulphur and particulates.

Nevertheless the number of steam engines in use does not amount to much in the global sum of things.

I'd argue that the worst carbon footprint for many heritage railways is the fact that the vast majority of visitors have to use road transport to get to the attraction.

In many cases (West Somerset Railway being a classic example) it is so only for want of a permanent connection to the national rail network.

Others are more fortunate. The Severn Valley Railway has just walking distance between its station at Kidderminster and its namesake on the national network. Dartmouth Steam Railway is next door at Paignton.

I had an interesting conversation with the folk running the rail museum at Holt, who were talking about the difficulties of connecting to a main line, I think due to all the safety regulations and other rules, that obviously heritage railways have to abide with as much as any other TOC.  I think the difficulties arise because so many of the heritage railway staff are volunteers, I imagine it must be a nightmare trying to get everyone concerned trained up.

Yes of course, when I was a little one, it was steam or nothing, so strange to think now that this mode of transport is thought of as a luxury!  I must say, to go off-topic slightly, I'm surprised the green lobby hasn't tried to ban the use of steam engines, as I assume they're pretty dirty machines in terms of CO2 output.

I had an interesting conversation with the folk running the rail museum at Holt, who were talking about the difficulties of connecting to a main line, ....

Ah, and I assumed Holt, which is the western terminus of the North Norfolk Railway.

Running adjacent to a Network Rail line isn't so bad (although even that has some restrictions).

I'm not sure where else being locked in the train would be acceptable.

I recall being rather uncomfortable being locked in to a carriage on the Ffestiniog railway many, many years ago.

Indeed - and just to prove it here are the rear of two engines meeting at Bodmin Parkway....  ;D

... and the Bodmin & Wenford ...  ;)

Isle of Widget Steam Railway interchange at Smallbrook Junction ...;)

The only National Rail station in the UK with no pedestrian or vehicular access.