Great Western Coffee Shop

Where have all the mystery excursions gone?  They were ... something of a feature of rail excursion programs in my youth, but these days you search for "Mystery Excursion" and with the notable exception of an Irish event last July, all you seem to find are "Murder Mystery" trips, taking you along the short length of some preserved line where the mystery is not where your going, but which actor is pretending to have done it.

A mad idea.  Do you think we might be able to persuade our friendly local TOC to run a couple of couple of units that aren't gainfully employed on a Sunday from Bristol to .....

Oh - I had better not say to where, had I?

20 pounds a head, 10 pounds a child, 4 cars, 300 seats sold ... income around 4500 pounds.  This would be a new service - all income to cover the cost of operating the train, nothing being passed up to others under "cap and collar"

I never got the chance to go on any of the Merrymaker Mystery trips but I think I would quite enjoy one.  Having a fairly good knowledge of the railway network I'd be following each junction to eliminate the possibilities of where we might be going and finally narrowing down the destination.

You would be lucky to be able to get a 4-car train for ^4,500. CLPG had to pay a damn sight more than this year for its 8-car Portsea excursion.

Did a mystery tour from Slough in a 9 car 117! went via Worcester to Coventry.

Quite fun crawling up Lickey in first gear!

With a bit of mulling over, I'm wondering if a "Mystery Trip" is out of the question these days because of all the electronic systems we have - internet data, bloggers behind the scenes ... I can quite imagine the display at some station saying "Mystery excursion calling at Warminster, Dilton Marsh, Westbury, Trowbridge, Melksham, Chippenham, Swindon and Tenby"

Perhaps the Mystery could be which platform it will depart from.... bit like the Summer 08:20 Swindon to Weymouth on occasions.... ;D