Interesting Announcement

Just come back from Bracknell to see the Black 5 go through.
It was scheduled to stop, but what surprised me was the announcement
Instead of the usual ' Stand back not for public use ( or variant of)
It said
The delayed 21.08 West Coast Railways service for London Victoria, calling at Staines and Hounslow'

So are they a new franchise running the occasion service steamer. Was very tempted to get a return to Staines to see what would happen.

It certainly gave the impression that this was for bonafide travellers to the stations mentioned

No it would have been ticket holders only.

OK. But to actually announce it as calling at Staines and Hounslow could have confused someone who needed to go to Staines and wasnt up to date with the various TOC and just got on, as It was the normal voice announcement as well.

So why do it ,and for what point? Because if they, whoever they are, took the trouble to announce a non service trains calling points, they could have also took the trouble to point out that SWR tickets are not valid on this service.

to give an example i purchased advance return ticket KX to Peteborough valid on LNER only
At Peterborough there eas a bit of late running and the announcement said the xx train to KX, BUT it was an East Mid HST. Now having seen some of the threads on here about getting on wrong trains, i asked one of the train staff if my ticket was valid. They assuered me it was and got on. I found out later that it was hired in. Now i know a little about trains ,but for someome to hear this official announcement. not once but TWICE i would be on their side if they got on.

so back to the original question why do it? Oh and the chap staffing the station mentioned that he had neve heard of a service going to Victoria from Bracknell, so even he was confused.

It would seem to be a reasonable announcement if it was then followed up by something along the lines of "This is a special excursion train available to ticket-holders only".

Andy,
That was my point. There was no 'Do not board thsi train ' type of announcement. I have it for posterity on the Video!

Reminds me of the departures Screen at Bedford on the occasion of a Hastings DEMU tour in February 2011. There was a note saying that it was a charter train was for pre-booked ticket holders only though.

I was on a tour that started at Woking and I remember the screen just saying it was for Kingswear operated by WCR. Don't remember it saying charter or ticket holders only.

I've quite often seen charters displayed on departure screens at the pick-up stations, though I agree it's unusual (and potentially confusing) to do that at a station that definitely isn't a pick-up point. Sometimes there's an additional mention of being for ticket holders only, sometimes not.

However, on the charters I travel on, the on-board PA announcer virtually always makes an announcement at each stop along the lines of "This is an XXX Railtours special train to [destination] for ticket holders only. If you do not have a pre-booked ticket for this train please leave the train immediately".

I do recall once being on a delayed railtour heading north through Exeter St Davids, when we came to a stand in a platform that was full of passengers awaiting a Cross Country service which was showing on the destination boards. Despite our train being a loco-hauled service of maroon mk1s, quite few XC passengers started boarding, until the PA persuaded them we were going somewhere entirely different.

A weird one was a few years ago being at Victoria where it announced the train on platform 2 was heading for East Grinstead Sidings...

UP13 said:

A weird one was a few years ago being at Victoria where it announced the train on platform 2 was heading for East Grinstead Sidings...

Click to expand...

'Please have your ticket ready for inspection and your yellow pen ready to mark up your rail atlas!'

xotGD said:

'Please have your ticket ready for inspection and your yellow pen ready to mark up your rail atlas!'

Click to expand...

Rare metals!

FYI it was for Sheffield Park and was top and tailed with Braunton and 44932.