UK Railtours founded: Hertfordshire RT rises from the ashes?

[greenknight]

For those who may be interested, it appears a "new" railtour company has arisen from the ashes of the FM Rail/Hertfordshire Railtours Blue Pullman collapse.

Whilst I may be wrong, it very much appears to me that (probably most of) the original HRT staff have reformed into a new company called UK Railtours. The postal address is a P.O. box in Welwyn GC and the phone area code is also Welwyn GC - as was HRT's original base. I'm delighted to see that John Farrow (who was the original HRT founder MD) is at the helm so it looks like we could get a return to the high standard of tours we used to get from HRT until FM Rail took over.

There is a web site set up (http://www.ukrailtours.com), but I got a 403 Forbidden error so I guess the page is in the process of being set up.

The company philosophy appears to be very similar to the original early days of HRT with several "Forgotten Tracks" type of tour planned w/e/f 17/5/07 with both first class dining and standard class seats with buffet available.

I wonder whether this means they'll go back to using Mk1 coaching stock and EWS locos like they used before they were lumbered with FM Rail's 40-year old locos and Mk2 stock with non-functioning air-con like we were cooked in last summer when the outside temperature hit 32C in strong mid-summer sunshine!! Whilst I like to travel behind heritage locos and Mk2 stock gives a somewhat smoother ride, it's a big ask to expect 40-year old locos to perform faultlessly on mainline tours - which they need to! AND with Mk1 stock OK there's no air-con, but at least you can always open the windows on a hot day and whilst the train is moving get a nice cooling breeze - which is more than you can do with a Mk2 coach that has no air-con!

GK