MYLOGO
News
08/08/2021 - GBRf 2021 Update
We’re very conscious that we have been very quiet for some time, but rest assured we have been busy in the background putting together the various pieces of the jigsaw to make our 4-day adventure happen.
It’s just four weeks before we set off on our next adventure, and there are a number of things that we wanted to bring you up to date on.
1 – Covid
The global pandemic continues to change the way we live our lives, and our charter is unfortunately no different. We will confirm the exact arrangements and requirements when we send out the e-tickets and boarding instructions, but we would like to remind those of you who have booked that you should expect there to be some level of covid controls on board, and that face masks may still need to be worn. We will be constantly reviewing the government and industry guidance in the lead up to the operation in order that we implement the most appropriate measures that allow us all to enjoy the trip as safely as we can. Please keep in mind that any measures implemented are not just for your own safety, but that of your fellow passengers and importantly our volunteer crews and stewards who are giving up their time to make this event happen.
2 – Itinerary Changes
As it’s been so long since we originally advertised our plans, and that we have postponed the operation twice, we’re sure it’s no surprise that certain parts of the itinerary now have to change as a result. On previous operations we have been fortunate that whenever we have found that part of our itinerary is no longer possible, we have been able to publicise our solution at the same time as we have shared the problem. For our 2021 operation we aren’t quite in the same position, however with four weeks to go we feel it prudent to few of the challenges and where we are with the solutions.
Day 1 - Day 1 is unchanged from our original plan.
Day 2 - As an added bonus, thanks to the assistance of Solent Gateway Limited, we have been able to secure access to the MOD site at Marchwood, and we are hopeful of securing some additional shunting locos for haulage whilst inside the complex. Our outward routing will be as planned as far as Fareham, from where we will divert direct via Bitterne to Southampton and onto Marchwood. We will depart Marchwood and call in for a shorter stop at Eastleigh Yard (reception lines) where locos will be changed. The extra visit to Marchwood means we will now be later than originally planned leaving southern region, and as such we will run to Kensington Olympia where Day 2 will now end and Day N will begin, at an estimated time of around 1900hrs.
Day N - Day N will now begin from Kensington Olympia (estimated around 1900hrs) with the 2 x 73/1s hauling us to Acton Lane Reception. The Class 86 will be added here for the journey to Birmingham New Street from where the original itinerary applies.
Day 3 - Unfortunately the owners of 33012 have advised us that their loco will no longer be available. Some much needed cab rebuild work had commenced during the period of our postponement and this work is taking longer than planned. This is unfortunate and the loco owners are disappointed not to be involved in this operation. We had approached other owners of main line registered class 33s, but they were unable to assist. At this stage we are working through a number of options for a replacement for the journey to Oban but as things stand right now, none of these are 100% locked in. We are now expecting to have the 2 x Class 20s lead in both directions to and from Oban with an unspecified locomotive assisting on the rear. We will keep you posted as things develop for this part of our itinerary.
Day 4 - Day 4 is unchanged from our original plan.
3 - Preparations
It’s just 4 weeks until we set off, we are currently working on the seating plan, preparing the tour programme, organising the goody bags, drawing up rosters and doing all the various things you’d expect at this stage.
We’re still very much looking forward to seeing you all and raising an amazing amount of cash for charity.
Regards,
The GBRf Charity Railtours Team
05/04/2021 (1630hrs) - GBRf 2021 Tickets Update
After the huge success of our ticket release on Friday, it's taken a few days to fully check our numbers, plus we've had a small number of changes and cancellations. As a result, a small number of tickets have now been re-released in our Ticket Office. These are very much on a first come first serve basis.
Also, for those of you who already have a ticket, don't forget, you can also purchase one of our Goody Bags (remembering that Full Works tickets includes one of these) which you will receive on board.
We're dleighted at the huge success of our ticket sale launch and now need to get on with making it happen.
Thanks for all your support.
The GBRf Charity Railtours Team
28/03/2021 - GBRf 2021 UPDATE
Whilst making preparations for the release of our ticket sales on Good Friday, we thought it only right to consider where the country is in terms of it's path out of the pandemic. We’re feeling positive about the current position and the successful vaccination programme, however it would be remiss of us to assume that the restrictions associated with Covid-19 are all forgotten by the time we run our train. We very much hope that by September that charter operations are as we remember them, but it’s entirely possible that certain restrictions and mitigations are still around, and we wanted to be open and transparent with all of you as to our position on those.
The safety of our passengers will always be the number one priority, and as such we will of course operate in line with any government or industry guidance that is applicable at the time of the operation. It is plausible that come September, the wearing of facemasks and/or restriction of movement around the train may still be required. We very much hope this is not the case however if the guidelines require us to operate in this manner we will do so, in the interests of everyone’s wellbeing, and also so as not to jeopardise future operations.
We are incredibly excited to be opening ticket sales next week, but when booking please be aware that we will be strictly adopting, and policing, any Covid requirements that are in place at the time to allow us to operate. If face coverings are still required, we would encourage anyone who is exempt to ensure they have the Sunflower Lanyard. And even if, as we all hope, there are no such restrictions, we will still be encouraging regular hand sanitization and will be adopting an appropriate cleaning regime throughout the operation.
Lastly, it would also be remiss to ignore the potential for restrictions to return to a point that makes the operation impossible. We think this is very unlikely, however should that happen, the tour will be redated again, likely to April 2022. In this event, we will offer anyone with a ticket the option to defer it to the redated train. We will of course also offer the option of a full refund, but this does present challenges in that we will lose a percentage of the ticket price to our credit card booking merchant which is not recoverable and would ultimately be a hit on the total made for charity whenever the train did run. We would politely request that any ticket holders who can afford to do so, defer their booking, as opposed to request a refund. We genuinely hope and believe this scenario to be unlikely, but we think it only fair to raise it now so that you can all give this due consideration when booking on our train.
We have updated and published our Terms and Conditions of booking which can be found here.
We hope the above is clear and understood, this is new ground for all of us and we are grateful for your patience and support! We can’t wait to open ticket sales next week!
The GBRf Charity Railtours Team
09/01/2021 - GBRf 2021 UPDATE
Following recent Covid-19 developments, we have decided it would be sensible to postpone GBRf-2021 from our planned April dates until later in the year. Whilst this is disappointing for us all, we are sure everyone will support us in this action.
On the positive side, tentative discussions with all the locomotive and rolling stock owners who we have been working with, have concluded that they can all supply us with their resources for a re-date of Thursday 2nd to Sunday 5th September 2021 and so we will be planning to run our 4-day tour back in the ‘traditional’ month of September. A check on provisional engineering work plans would suggest that we can run our tour as we advertised for April, albeit there will be one or two tweaks to the routing on Friday evening and Sunday afternoon.
We’ll update you on the tweaked route in the coming months and we also aim to release tickets on the traditional day of Good Friday. Please keep an eye on Forums and Facebook posts for updates as things progress and we look forward to finally running this very personal tour and see you in September!
However, please don’t remove the April dates from your diaries just yet… there is still a hope that life will become “more normal” in the Spring/after Easter. Whilst we don’t want to guess, predict or debate what the next few months hold, we are optimistic people and have set ourselves a little challenge. If (and we appreciate it is a big if!) we are able to, we may insert a one-day fun charter into Saturday 17th April. We are not saying where we might go or what with yet, as things will be down to availability of traincrew, volunteer stewards and locomotives at the time – We know not everyone will want to travel on charters straight away, but it would get those that do, to get out and about again and raise that all important cash for charity. Any plans would be announced at short notice as/when/if we know we can run a tour, so could even be 2-3 weeks before we run it, but we’d rather keep the option open as we don’t know when ‘normal’ will be this year.
The GBRf Charity Railtours Team
13/11/2020 - GBRf 2020 Relaunch - GBRf 2021!!!
As you know, we were forced to postpone our GBRf 2020 tour planned for last September for obvious reasons! We announced at the time that we had reserved a weekend in April 2021 with the intention to run it then if the situation allows.
With recent positive announcements in the news and the suggestion that "things will be more normal in the Spring", we feel it right to add to this positivity and announce our plans for GBRf 2021 for April 15th - 18th. We appreciate that nothing is certain at this stage but with planning timescales and the high level of interest our tours generate, we didn't want to sit back and miss the opportunity.
As we said at the time of the re-date, we do not intend to put tickets on sale until we are certain that we can run the tour. It may be that we will have to put in a level of social distancing or other safeguards (we would rather run a full train given the level of interest we generate), so are keeping a close eye on developments. To give everyone a fair chance of obtaining tickets, the intention will be to give at least two weeks notice of tickets being released via the WNXX forum and our Facebook event page as well as updates on our website.
The full plan can be viewed on our website www.gbrfcharityrailtours.co.uk
The GBRf Charity Railtours Team
15/05/2020 - GBRf 2020 Postponement
At GBRf Charity Railtours we are very proud of the fact that we have raised an incredible amount of money for great causes over the years, causes that genuinely change the lives of many. We now however live in a time where all of our lives have been changed, and where life may never be quite the same for a long time to come.
Over the past weeks and months during lockdown, the organisers of GBRf 2020 have considered carefully what the impact of the global pandemic may do to our operation, always taking into account and reviewing the latest government advice on social distancing and how it intends to release the UK from lockdown. It is still not clear what the rules in society will be come September, as the latest government advice suggests that this will be conditional on the UK passing a number of tests to reduce the alert level. But also, it’s worth noting that the alert level, and therefore the rules could well vary geographically. How we overlay any rules that may be in place onto a twelve coach train full of passengers is not clear. What is clear though, is that even if somehow by September that the pandemic has passed and relative normality is restored, the appetite for such travel is likely to have significantly diminished, either because of remaining concerns about contracting the virus, or not least because many of us may have suffered some level of financial hardship through the course of this summer. With all of the above in mind, and the ongoing uncertainty, it does not feel appropriate to continue to make arrangements for GBRf 2020 to take place this September.
All that said, whilst reviewing the latest information over the last eight weeks and coming to this decision, it was always in the back of our minds that if we arrived at this point, we would want to announce such a decision with a plan B. It is not in our nature to give up, and there is still very much the desire to deliver this operation at a later date. We also considered though that a short postponement for such a big operation would be unwise, given that a number of other railtour operations are now being postponed to later in the year - a large number of tours in a short timeframe would be unsustainable for both the number of people wanting to travel and their ability to afford to travel on them all.
As such, we are pleased to advise provisionally that GBRf 2020 (ish) – “This Time it's Personal” will now take place from Thursday 15th April to Sunday 18th April 2021. We intend to keep the itinerary broadly the same, though there were a few ideas we had originally that were scuppered by engineering work. We will need to review the operation against the engineering work planned for that weekend and expect there to be a few modifications/improvements which we’ll share over the coming months as and when confirmed. It would be remiss of us not to be clear that the re-dated operation is of course still conditional on the global situation. Let us all hope things are very different by the turn of the year. We will release tickets for sale when we are confident that we can run and will give plenty of notice of that date as things progress.
We have not taken the decisions above lightly, and we trust you understand why we have come to the conclusions we have. We are very grateful for your support and we very much look forward to you joining us in April next year.
The sad problem with the current situation, is that many charities have lost their funding streams as people are unable to raise money through their usual activities and many projects are stalling. Redating our train will have the same effect on what is potentially a huge donation to Prostate Cancer research funding. As this year progresses, GBRf Charity Railtours may still look to offer some of our more simplistic operations, similar to those we have done previously perhaps using the empty coaching stock moves from other operations. As the ability to do this becomes clearer over the coming months we will share details as soon as we can.
We hope that you and your families are all safe and healthy, and enjoy what you can of this summer.
The GBRf Charity Railtours Team
17/03/2020 - Ticket Sales Update
Given the current global crisis we thought it only right to update your on our position with regard to GBRf 2020.
There is a huge amount of uncertainty for everyone at this time, and no-one really knows for certain what the world will look like in the coming weeks and months. We are still confident that GBRf 2020 will go ahead as planned, however it does not feel right to release tickets for sale at a time when the nation is facing such uncertainty about the future.
As a result we have taken the decision to delay the date of releasing the tickets for sale, and will update you all in due course via the usual means.
To be clear, we are NOT cancelling the train at this stage, and given what we know at present we don't expect to. Rest assured that the planning for this trip will continue in the background, and we still look forward to welcoming you all on board in September.
However, for now, we ask you all to stay safe, take care of each other, and wash your hands!
We will get back to you all soon.
The GBRf Charity Railtours Team
13/03/2020 - GBRf 2020 Full Plan Released!!!
We’re excited to announce the full plan for GBRf 2020 “This Time it’s Personal” which will take place this September from 24th to 27th.
The organising team have put together a great itinerary which hopefully includes something for everyone.
Full details can be found on the GBRf 2020 page of this website here, or you can download a copy of the plan here.
Tickets are planned to go on sale at the end of the month with all proceeds going to our nominated charity Prostate Cancer UK.
11/03/2020 - Final GBRf 2020 Teaser
Those of you waiting patiently for the full plan to be released, there is light at the end of the tunnel (hint!).
You only have 48hrs to wait before the full plan is released this Friday 13th March.
Here's our final teaser at a location which has changed a bit since the sim was built.
09/03/2020 - Another GBRf 2020 Teaser
Another teaser to start your week!
Don't forget the full provisional plan will be released this Friday 13th March.
06/03/2020 - GBRf 2020 Key Dates Announced
We're pleased to announce that the full plan for GBRf 2020 will be released next Friday 13th March 2020 with tickets going on sale through this website on the evening of Sunday 29th March.
In the mean time here's a few more teasers to keep you guessing.
Four locomotive types and four locations, but which ones are going where???
Four locomotive types and four locations, but which ones are going where???
04/03/2020 - GBRf 2020 Teasers
As we have done before, we've released some teaser photos of some of the plans we have for GBRf 2020.
You'll find these on the facebook event, but we'll include them here too...
27/01/2020 - GBRf 2020 Launch
GBRf Charity Railtours is excited to announce that it will return in 2020 with another 4-day Charity Railtour.
Operating from Thursday 24th to Sunday 27th September inclusive, we are aiming to raise as much money as possible for a very worthy cause, Prostate Cancer UK. As before, our train will visit many parts of the country following interesting routes and with unusual locomotives, a recipe that we know works well.
…”but you said you wouldn’t do another”?
After GBRf 2018, just as we did after GBRf 15, the team behind these trains took some time to reflect, and often the first thoughts are “would we do another?”. Initial views in late 2018 were that we’d done two excellent tours that would be difficult to beat, and that we were ready to hang up our boots. In addition, one member of the organising team is no longer with GBRf having moved abroad.
..."so what changed"?
The clue is in the title, “This Time it’s Personal”.
Late in 2018, a much-admired GBRf colleague Des O’Brien passed away at relatively short notice having suffered an aggressive stomach cancer. Des was not only a big personality within the Control Office at GBRf, but a huge supporter of the Charity Trains and you may have seen Des and his wife Sue helping out on a number of our previous operations.
Following on from this, in June of 2019, Paul Taylor, one of the key players in organising these trains was diagnosed with Prostate Cancer. Paul got married in July after which he commenced a heavy programme of Chemotherapy. As of January 2020 Paul has almost concluded his treatment, has responded well, and the outlook looks positive for many years of normal life. Despite the gruelling treatment Paul has continued to work whenever he can, and it was during the numerous hospital visits and time away from the office that thoughts turned to another charity operation.
Meanwhile in the background, GBRf staff had been selecting the next supported charity and (without Paul’s knowledge) have chosen Prostate Cancer UK, making this even more relevant to those involved.
Prostate Cancer UK is funding research to stop prostate cancer killing men. They’re investing millions to find better treatments and better tests that can spot fast-growing cancers early, and that could be used in a screening programme to save thousands of lives.
You can find out more about Prostate Cancer UK at their website https://prostatecanceruk.org
..."what happens next"?
The dates are set, 24th to 27th September 2020. We expect a similar format to before with four days of operation and an overnight on the Friday night. The organising committee have an outline plan which is just having some of the finer details sense-checked.
We’ll start to tease out some of the details in February before a full announcement of the itinerary in March.
Bookings will open in early April, and we will announce the release date in advance.
We’ll share all the details on our website gbrfcharityrailtours.co.uk, our Facebook Page, and on rail enthusiasts internet forums such as WNXX interactive.
As always, we are hugely grateful to everyone who makes these trains happen, the Directors of GBRf who allow us to do these things, the traincrew who generously give their time for free, the stewards who work tirelessly on board, and those of you who book tickets for these trains.
We are hugely looking forward to GBRf 2020 and hope to see you there!