An idea was born
A plan to develop the Blackburn St. James' Church of England building in the late 1980's demanded a large amount of cash. Too much to obtain from the parishioners alone. So an idea was born to run charter trains and the St. James Day Tripper came into being.
The first was a Mystery Train to Canterbury and Dover in 1987. This and the next train made a substantial loss! "We would have come if we'd have known where you were going!!" was what we heard on our return. A little late after the event.
Then we hit on the idea of running a train over the then threatened Settle-Carlisle line and it filled very quickly. So good was the interest we ran another 2 months later. We were into profit, developing a large clientele base and enjoying every minute.
We have never looked back since. The development of the Church cost well into 6 figures and was opened with much ceremony on 20 June 1993 the Day Tripper having provided, thanks to your patronage, a significant proportion of these funds. Job done and done well!!
Should we stop?
We thought 25 would be a good number to stop at and we did for about a year. An approach from an international charity got certain members of the Committee thinking. The matter was discussed whilst the Committee was assembled at a Leighton Hall Last Night at the Proms and the Day Tripper was re-railed. So popular are our Day Tripper rail excursions we had little difficulty filling that trip to London for the Railway Children Charity. To see how many we are now up to visit our Past Trips page.
Now we have hit on what we think is a winning formula - West Coast Railway Company (Carnforth) rolling stock and interesting motive power from Fragonset Railways. Now people are travelling miles just to be behind interesting locomotives.
We put a lot of forethought into the excursions we run and we like to think it pays off. We are always open to suggestions so feel free to post our feedback form to us telling us what you have to suggest.
