REVIEWS

Dear Pathfinders Team

We have just returned from this trip and would like to thank you so much for a wonderful tour. From start to finish it was exceptional, the hotel was excellent, the Pathfinder tour guides and the catering staff were brilliant. The food was amazing, and so much, thank goodness for elasticated waistbands😀. The weather was also very kind to us, which was a bonus.

This was the first time we have gone on a short break tour with you but it will certainly not be the last and we look forward to hopefully next Easter’s Scotland tour.

Kind regards

The Lander family 

Hello everyone,  Grateful thanks to all concerned for yet another  thoroughly enjoyable Spring Highlander. All worked so well etc. Till next time warmest good wishes      Bruce and Giles Hockin

I want to thank everyone for this excellent trip. I have been fairly isolated for three years and it was great to be back. However it was a special day too because after many years of great times on Pathfinder tours this may well have to be my last as I am now full time carer for my wife. All the tours have been wonderful but a few stand out. The Easter Highlander which included my 70^th birthday (2009) was marked by Richard bringing my wife and me a bottle of champagne which we enjoyed sharing with the others in our little area, but the most amazing was my 80^th when we had just about all the family on a day out to Kingswear. On this occasion we were in trouble for disturbing the flow of the service – but my apology was most graciously accepted!

On every trip we always felt like welcome guests rather than customers, yours is such a family style of team. I have just been talking in the street with a chap called Adrian and enthusing about the trip to Bolton and he says he will get in touch with you. I hope he does. I have every confidence that you will make him as welcome as you have always done for me.

I repeat my sincere thanks to all the team and particularly to Richard whose written notes I have found of real value and whose friendship has been much appreciated.

Every good wish to you all.

Sincerely,

Rob Darby

Dear Sirs,

I am writing to say how much my husband and I and also our two friends thoroughly enjoyed our weekend on the Easter Highlander.  We thought it was extremely well organised and the caterers were superb, in fact nothing was too much trouble for any of the staff.  We would certainly recommend this trip other people.

Unfortunately a couple of days after our return three of our party tested positive for Covid19, two of them becoming extremely poorly.  We were sitting in coach D in seats 17 and 18 and wondered whether you had heard of anyone else in the vicinity being struck down by this virus.

With kind regards,

Margaret Molloy

Before the moment is lost, I wanted to write to thank you and the whole team for the wonderful ‘Spring Highlander’ experience over the last weekend.

Our group of four (three of whom are ‘normals’ who have not been on railtours before), thoroughly enjoyed the experience. I originally had the idea to take my elderly mother, who has the wanderlust but finds it less easy to get around (hence the wheelchair). To her credit she readily agreed to the idea, and then to my surprise my wife said she’d like to come along too. To make it to 4, my mother suggested her friend from school days (Helen Ilsley, who she has known 75 years!) came along too, and again Helen readily agreed.

 Everything about the tour was wonderful. The scenery in East Scotland and particularly in the Highlands never fails to disappoint. Your wonderful stewards were unfailingly helpful and attentive. The catering team were stars, a highly experienced, capable and fun team delivering an onslaught of fantastic food. Particular thanks for accommodating Helen’s back difficulties on Fort William day. Could you pass my thanks to the hotel for looking after her during the day, please?

Thanks also for taking the Nuneham Viaduct difficulties into your stride and revising/communicating arrangements so effectively.

To every Pathfinder representative on the train, Wow! What a superb effort again deposit a difficult run up both long term and short term!

> This was a proper job of epic proportion’s.

> My party & I (Coach F 14/15 4 of us) had a great time and we wanted to report back to you what you already know, the quality of food offering from Paul & CRD Ltd was superb.

> Their food and their staff were exemplary!

> Your Stewards as always superb, Steve & Martin are great lads, Gary is just a nutter, love em all!

> If we were to have any criticism it would be of the unavoidable use of Coaches morning and evening given the hotel location. I understand it is like herding cats and needs to be done as you did it!!

> We were spoilt on our first two trips, Inverness and Aviemore, where the hotel was a walk away. I also understand you need a hotel who will prebook up to 80 rooms or so, not so easy now in Inverness for any fair price!

> Thank you for riding out Covid & surviving, developing Pathfinder Tours again and for serving the Midlands as you regularly do! More stops at Bromsgrove please!!

Just a quick email to thank you and all of your staff, not forgetting also, all the train maintenance workers and the wonderful restaurant staff, for all of their hard and most successful work over the past weekend for the benefit and enjoyment of all your 177 customers, including me. The organisation was simply faultless and it never ceases to amaze me how you can achieve such a high level of excellence. I guess that it is all down to teamwork which the likes of you and other seniors in the organisation help to foster. You are entitled to feel justly proud of the organisation and of its end product which was enjoyed and achieved with much enjoyment by your customers. It was also nice to see you still working on ‘the shop floor’ despite your well earned elevation within the Company.

Well done to you and everyone else involved.

 Kind regards

 Geoff James

On behalf of my wife and myself we would like to thank you for a really enjoyable 4 days. it was first class from start to finish the catering on the train was first class how they managed to cook and serve such good food in such a small please pass on our thanks to the catering staff.

Also please pass on our grateful thanks to our steward David who was really helpful and looked after us so well.

The hotel was a really good choice and the checking in was really well organised no waiting room was really nice.

Once again thank you for a great weekend.        

Chris & Tina Elias

The Diamond Twenties tour was one of the best I have ever been on. Dungeness is really dear to my heart and it was amazing to be on the train amongst the fields with the amazing scenery. The whole thing was absolutely magic.

Ann Town – May 2018

To all at Pathfinders,

Just to say thank you for the brilliant service my friend and I received from your team in Premier dinning on Saturday.

The food was excellent and there was a good relaxing atmosphere onboard the train.

I look forward to booking with you again sometime in the near future.

Well done to Peter and the team

Regards,    Mr Leonard Sykes

Dear all, 

I just wanted to let you know that the trip last Saturday was brilliant, thank you.

Up until the day before I had been rather poorly in hospital and didn’t know if I would be well enough to come on the day. But I decided to risk it, I couldn’t miss all that lovely scenery. As it turned out I was allocated a table to myself (I was in J seat 7 facing) which I was extremely grateful for because I could sit and have a quiet relaxing time with everything brought to me. The journey was amazing and all the Pathfinder stewards and catering staff were so helpful and understanding. So thank you for a really enjoyable day. I look forward to the next.

With best wishes to you all,

Jane Hartell

Please say a huge thank you to everyone involved in yesterday’s trip to Penzance.  It was fabulous to be travelling through our beautiful countryside, and get to see the sea – again.

All staff on the train were very pleasant and helpful, and kept us informed as and when the hitches arose.

Kind regards.  Dave and Phyl Smith

A big, big thank you for the excellent tour on Saturday (The Class 50 Terminator – Phoenixed). When I asked for tickets to be sat as close to the locos as possible I never thought I’d actually get them, let alone right next to it, and although coach A was at the back from Paddington, we certainly got the best of it on the climb back to Exeter from Penzance!

We had a cracking day and the lack of coach heating proved to be a massive benefit to us (that’s not a complaint). Food and drink prices on the train for us ‘non dining’ people were very reasonable too.

Between yourselves, the Fifty Alliance and GBRf you should be feeling very proud.

Thank you once again for giving us a brilliant day out.

Cheers

Mike B – March 2019

Having been on many tours with Pathfinder albeit not for a few years now. We have just returned from a very long day on the Ynys Mon Express.

Excellent organisation, great stewards plus the very humorous Geoff from Frying Scotsman catering in the buffet.

Everything ran more or less to time and Flying Scotsman performed well along North Wales mainline. One slight mishap with the engine when restarting from a signal stop just outside Chester slipping on the tight curve – that aside a great day out!!

Martin Dyer – September 2018

What a fantastic 4 days that was! Please pass on our heartfelt thanks to all your guys involved, they were fantastic throughout. Will hopefully be doing this again.

A special thanks too for the catering company onboard, CRD Ltd, who were outstanding both with the menus, quality of food and the standard of service by their staff which went way above and beyond anything I was expecting.

 Again, many thanks until the next time.

 Grahame Conlon

Good afternoon,

We travelled with you on Monday on the Crompton Torbay Venturer and just wanted to say how very much we enjoyed the day.  Everything was so well organized and all of your staff were so helpful and approachable.

We shall certainly be travelling with you again in the future.

Thank you    Sue and Maurice Buxton

I would just like to take this opportunity to thank the Pathfinder staff and Frying Scotsman staff for their professional service through out the Dorset Deltic Trip. The trip was on time in Stafford and was on time throughout most of the trip. What was special for me though was I have a gluten problem and so many organisations don’t care for this. However this was different the Frying staff did an excellent job for me and nothing gave me any problems through the whole trip. In fact this turned out to be one of the best trips out Ive ever had. So many thanks to all for a great day out.

Russell C Thewlis 

Here we are then, our ladies on tour, on the LOCH LINNHE boat cruise. Note BEN NEVIS looming over the loch. Overall, a brilliant weekend with excellent food service and a good hotel, well situated by the Clyde.Highlights were, RANNOCH and the TAY BRIDGE including the remains of the HIGH GIRDERS from the original bridge which collapsed in a storm on December 29th 1879. It has taken me over 40 years to get these pictures. Truly awesome.

 KIND REGARDS IAN THOMAS.

I would like to compliment you on the Hacienda tour, which I travelled on last weekend. The organisation and execution of this complex tour was first-rate – I particularly liked the on-board commentary as we covered the various routings of the train.

 I would keenly support any future tours of this type, where the focus is on unusual routings and coverage of routes that are unlikely to be unavailable in the future.

 Notwithstanding the heating problems on the train (for which I have gratefully received the voucher code), this was an excellent tour which I thoroughly enjoyed!

Thank you,

Terry, Milton Keynes  – March 2020

Another first class tour and most enjoyable.

All staff performed admirable and the catering was excellent.

Even the weather was good.

So well done to all.

Best wishes,
Robert Sherriff.

We went on the Railtour on Saturday to the Welsh valleys. What a lovely day it was too! Just wanted to thank all the train crew for looking after us soo well, and I can’t wait to enjoy our next trip on 12th March ! 

Thanks again

Lee C