Railtours
This page and contents last changed on
Saturday 15 June 2019
(the Twitter feed’s contents below may have been modified more recently)
Saturday 6 July 2019: HDL Dean Forest Foray railtour to Gloucester, Lydney Junction and the Dean Forest Railway
Our third outing of 2019 is to Gloucester and onto the preserved Dean Forest Railway.
This 403-mile railtour starts at Hastings and serves the usual stations to Tonbridge, then Redhill, Guildford and Reading. We’ll be routed via Swindon and the Golden Valley line through Kemble to call at Gloucester (affording some 5 hours to visit the Roman city), before the final 19 miles’ travel to Lydney on the northern shore of the Severn Estuary.
On approach to Lydney we will traverse the connection onto the Dean Forest Railway, before serving Lydney Junction station on the preserved line. We’ll run in service to Norchard for water-tank reflling, and will later proceed to Parkend at the far end of the line. The return leg of the trip begins with a non-stop run from Parkend to Lydney Junction.
Club Class passengers are seated at tables, and the fare covers refreshments including a meal with wine on the return leg of the trip. Club Class isn’t available from Reading as there is insuffcient time from Gloucester for the evening meal.
To illustrate the detail of our expected route, annotated extracts from Network Rail’s Sectional Appendix have been produced for the outward and return legs of this outing (updated 28 May).
Booking
Details and booking-instructions may be found in the leaflet, which can be filled in on your computer prior to printing (this helps ensure legibility and accuracy); we encourage you to use this method. Fares are also displayed below.
The timings on the leaflet are provisional, and are quite likely to change: finalised timings will be published here in the days leading up to the trip. To avoid distress, please ensure that you check the finalised timings and any letters/emails you are sent!
We now operate a print-at-home ticketing system: if you have use of a printer, please don’t send an SAE: instead, your tickets will be emailed to you; this is to reduce the workload of key HDL staff and to avoid the worry of tickets being lost in the post.
Tickets are sold subject to our Code of Conduct. Children under 16 must be accompanied by a responsible adult. Smoking is not permitted on our train. Bicycles cannot be carried, except folding bicycles with prior approval. If you wish to bring a mobility scooter, wheelchair or buggy you must inform us on booking, giving its dimensions.
| Standard Class fares | seat in trailer coach (CEP or DEMU) | £72 |
| bay of 4 seats in trailer coach | £280 | |
| seat in motor coach (E) | £79 | |
| Club Class fares (not available from/to Reading) |
seat in trailer coach | £98 |
| seat in motor coach (A) | £105 |
If you cannot view PDF files, or the given method of booking is not convenient to you, please email us or ring 07501 478676 and we will provide further details and/or post you a paper copy.
Update: 15 June
Club Class trailer coach B and Standard Class CEP trailer C are fully booked.
A modest number of seats remains available in Club Class motor coach A Tunbridge Wells, and a fair aliquot is still awaiting booking in Standard Class DEMU trailer D and motor coach E Mountfield.
The train will be formed as shown below on departure from Hastings station, with Coach E leading.
| Coach A | 60118 Tunbridge Wells | Club Class DEMU motor coach | |
| Coach B | 60501 | Club Class DEMU trailer | Sold out |
| 69337 | Standard Class BIG buffet car | ||
| Coach C | 70262 | Standard Class CEP coach | Sold out |
| Coach D | 60529 | Standard Class DEMU trailer | |
| Coach E | 60116 Mountfield | Standard Class DEMU motor coach |
Updates relating to The Dean Forest Foray railtour are given via an extract from our Twitter feed, below.
Tweets from HDL about our next railtour:
Plans for future railtours
We ran or co-run five outings in the course of 2017, and three in 2018; thank you for supporting these outings!
We continue to formulate plans for future railtours, taking into account the various restrictions imposed by weekend engineering work and the availability of traincrew.
Details of, and booking-instructions for, our future railtours will appear here when they are available; when that happens, those on our emailing list & our followers on Twitter will receive notifcation.
We are progressing outline plans for railtours as follows:
Saturday 14 September 2019: proposed railtour to Salisbury, with the possibility of added extras including unusual routes and visit to a non-passenger line, details to be formulated.
The previously mentioned proposed railtour to Princes Risborough and Quainton Road in August or September, will not take place this year because of Quainton Road not being open on the remaining dates and vegetation overgrowth which would damage our train.
Until properly advertised, these outline plans are unavoidably subject to cancellation, modification or change of date (except where stated to the contrary).
To ensure everyone has an fair opportunity to make bookings, no bookings or reservations will be accepted nor entertained for any outing shown in this panel.
Code of Conduct
It is a condition of holding a ticket for any outing on our train that passengers abide by the letter and spirit of our Code of Conduct.
Leaning out of windows
We continue to endeavour to keep our passengers safe by not allowing them to lean out of our train’s windows. This notice contains further information.
Folding bicycles
It may be possibile for you to bring your folding bicycle on the Hastings DEMU, with prior written approval; our guidelines on carriage of folding bikes will help you to determine your bike’s suitability for carriage.
Railtour Archive
We can recommend a dip into the HDL Railtour archive, which contains details of all the previous “days out” which HDL has operated to date.