The Railway Touring Company delivers strong experiences with attentive staff and good itineraries, but inconsistent service quality, mechanical failures on premium trips, and infrastructure issues undermine the premium positioning at 4.0/5.
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We enjoyed going on The Buxton Spa Express. It was an interesting itinerary with an attractive destination. The meals were great and the catering staff attentive and pleasant. The stewards were also helpful. But there was one awful omission, no chance whatsoever to actually see the engine, a Black 5. Yes there were operational difficulties with short platforms at Buxton but there was plenty of time there for the engine to draw on to another platform for us to actually look at it. Instead it went off to a siding.
Finding toilets "out of order" is something tha happens all too frequently on your excursions and this was no exception. I was in the back coach and the public address system was inaudible - though for me this was a "Plus" as I consider 90% of the announcements unnecessary and irritating. The steward sometimes made announcements in the coach, but just stood in the middle and I could not hear a word he said; he did not come to each seating bay and repeat the announcements as I would have expected. As far as the operation of the train goes, the time-keeping was good in spite of the locomotive stalling on the Copy Pit incline and needing to be pushed by the diesel to re-start (not your fault of course). I was saddened that the original plan to travel to Blackburn via Darwen had to be cut from the itinerary (again not your fault, though it puzzles me why problems of "gauging" and "pathing" - the reasons given for this change - sometimes arise shortly before the date of a tour when one would have thought that everything had been sorted out and agreed with Network Rail or whomever months previously). You also were apparently forced at short notice to make another change - going outward to Buxton via the L.N.W. route and retrning via the Midland instead of the other way round - but here, fortunately, the Midland route via Great Rocks was still covered in daylight - that was my main reason for booking on this trip as the last time I had done that line (the 29th of October 2023) it had been in the pitch dark.
Based on 20 verified customer reviews, The Railway Touring Company holds an average rating of 4.0 out of 5 — rated Great on ReviewTerminal. 75% of customers gave 4 or 5 stars.