Here's one for you guys to think about, providing the SWT 3CIGs are still cleared to run on the main line which they should be - does anyone fancy the idea of one last special going from Waterloo to some SWT destination?
Yes that would be great. But let's hope it does actually happen. An all day railtour(early departure/late evening arrival back, with a few hours break at some location) would be absolutely FANTASTIC. At the very least though I'm hoping for at least some tour which offers at least an hour or so journey each way and the trains can really get up to some decent fast running.
I went to Lymington Pier yesterday to ride on these beauties. And it was great to ride on them again, a little over four years since I was last aboard one of the slammers. To me they are a hell of a lot more enjoyable to ride on than these newer plastic things now. The louder engine sounds(allways good), the older carriages(I hate these modern units with overly bright carriage lighting), the much more comfortable seats. It was all too short a journey though onboard these yesterday. Only really about four or five minutes in each direction that the train was running at a half decent speed(due to the max linespeed of 50mph). Was great, but just all too short really. And I'm just very hungry for a nice long distance journey on them where the train can get up to decent speeds. Just hope that one day this is possible.
I did make a number of journeys aboard the slammers during their last few years. Though wish I made more. These units are very sorely missed!
As mentioned previously, I hope when the Lymington CIG's are (sadly) retired from service that they will be preserved and looked after well, hence making a tour with them a possibility. Rather than being scrapped. It will be very sad to hear if these are scrapped.
Looking through the list of railtours, there's lots of diesel and steam loco tours. Which is all very well. But there could do with there being some EMU and DMU tours, as well as tours using electric loco's. Also now that the Valenta HSTS's are out of services, some tours featuring them would be great!