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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A lovely trip to Buxton hauled from Leicester to Buxton and return by Black 5 no. 44871. The engine performed faultlessly and the staff as always were attentive and friendly. However the day was rather spoiled by signal hold ups at Buxton that gave us a mere hour in Buxton , not long enough to fulfill the point of the trip. The brief stopover was again compounded by the engine getting stuck in the siding where it was being serviced due to a point failure leaving us all waiting in the station . This was not RTC’s fault of course but due to these infrastructure failings, the day was rather spoiled. This is the reason for the loss of a star in the review.
Three Tour guides all knowledgeable and approachable - Action packed experience of Poland which is now a smart and successful country with a good rail system (beware the platforms change at the last minute) and roads too. Some of the days were rather long and the cold weather made open air carriages character building. The hotel breakfast was good and all their staff were very helpful throughout. My room incorporated a staff lift and was really part of the corridor but it was quiet although being in the corner it was overlooked by the main bedrooms - a single MAN supplement room!
Most of the organised activities were good. Bit misleading over the "steam" description as 3 of the trips were diesel hauled
The train was on time and we had good views from our seats. The staff were mostly friendly & welcoming with the exception of the man on the buffet bar. He was rather miserable, the cold drinks were not on view so I had to ask what was available, He was a bit reluctant to tell me. We wanted a hot breakfast & were told by him that there "might" be some sausage or bacon left after the first class passengers had had their food. We found this a little cruel as we had left our home very early in order to catch the train & had not had a breakfast. There were some cold sandwiches but we couldnt understand why cant everybody be catered for with hot food, as we were willing to pay. The journey was good and Buxton was nice, we would have liked more time to look at the train but there were lots of people that were not passengers crowding round so we had difficulty trying to get near it! Maybe keep the area more private in future as we paid for an experience we couldnt get the full value of! We did however enjoy the day.
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.