WCRC's announcement does indeed make out that they are the victim rather than the cause of their problems:
The vintage carriages that we use on the Jacobite Steam Train trip require a central door locking exemption certificate in order to run on the mainline railway network. In past years this has been automatically granted, however this year that has not been the case and a more detailed application has had to be submitted.
West Coast Railways (WCR) the operators of the Jacobite applied to the governing body of the railways the ORR» , (Office of Rail and Road) for a short-term exemption certificate whilst awaiting the full application consideration. The ORR have refused to issue this and will consider the full proposal but are unsure as to how long this will take.
Due to this, we are unable to run our Jacobite service until the exemption certificate is granted.
Please accept our sincere apologies for this possible disruption in our service, however the timing of when we will be able to resume our service is completely beyond our control.
WCR will continue to work closely with the ORR to obtain the necessary clearance for the Jacobite service to resume.
We will communicate messages via email and SMS text to all affected bookings for trips that we might have to cancel and full refunds will be given following any cancellations of our trips.
Although we have suspended the Jacobite trip until we reach agreement with the ORR, we are hopeful of reaching an agreement and be able to resume our service.
The Jacobite trips that have been cancelled are the 28th to the 30th March 2024.
Further communications regarding cancellations will be first sent our affected passengers, then will be announced on these News Articles.
West Coast Railways.
The ORR evidently thought that was a very one-sided description of what happened, and responded with their own announcement - not yet on their own site;
this is from Rail Advent:
“All heritage operators were told several years ago that in order to operate after 31 March 2023 they either needed to fit central door locking or obtain an exemption from us. West Coast Railway's application for an exemption failed and they made a claim for judicial review. A temporary exemption was granted in order to maintain the status quo, enabling WCR to operate whilst the litigation reached a conclusion. Despite this, WCR chose to sell tickets when it was far from certain that a new application for an exemption would be granted, either in time for the commencement of services or at all. It submitted an exemption application on 8 March, which we are now assessing. ORR is disappointed that WCR appears not to have made sensible contingency plans for the benefit of their customers.”
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