Duchess of Sutherland in Scotland - or not, in this case

I was quite looking forward to seeing 6233 up this way in May this year, hauling the Aberdeen Flyer on May 2nd. However, I notice that the Railway Touring Company is now advertising that tour as being hauled by "a locomotive from the Carnforth pool".

This will be the second time I know of that 6233 has been pulled from a railtour running north of Edinburgh: we were booked on one of the SRPS tours a few years ago when Tornado had to be substituted at fairly short notice due to "gauging issues". Is that still a problem for this locomotive (in which case one might wonder how it came to be advertised in the first place) or is there another reason this time?

ISTR that 6233 was scheduled to be coming to Edinburgh as part of another tour at the start of May, and running the Aberdeen Flyer while it was up here. However, I can't find any trace of any other tour coming up this way that week, so maybe whatever that one was, it got cancelled.

Guess I'll have to satisfy my Stanier urges with 6201 around the middle of April instead...

ejstubbs said:

Tornado had to be substituted at fairly short notice due to "gauging issues". Is that still a problem for this locomotive (in which case one might wonder how it came to be advertised in the first place) or is there another reason this time?

Click to expand...

It may well be down the the dutchess' gauging. From (slightly fuzzy) memory, 6233 is slightly larger in places than other locos.

As for advertising... It wouldn't the first occurance of a promoter advertising a rail tour 'North of the border' with an engine unfit for the planned route... The tours are put out for sale often before the engine has been guaged cleared (especially if the particular loco hasn't run the route in a very long time), and sometimes the engineers just have to say no.

I remember this issue a couple of years ago and looking at old posts on the scot-rail group, one Duchess of Sutherland railtour was substituted due to gauging issues at last minute whilst it had run the previous year ; in both instances the Carlisle - Edinburgh route. It was suggested that the difference may have been that the gauging issue was to do with having to run around the Edinburgh suburban line which was about the only difference in the two routings.

Not sure that this addresses any issues north of Edinburgh.