DERBY, England — Rolling stock manufacturer Alstom was forced to halt ticket sales for an event celebrating the 200th anniversary of railroading this week because the system handling ticketing was overwhelmed by demand from around the world.
The company is planning to open its Derby Litchurch Lane Works to the public for the first time in more than 50 years for an August event, “The Greatest Gathering,” showcasing more than 50 pieces of equipment from the rail industry’s past, present, and future. Tickets for the event Aug. 1-3 went on sale Thursday, Jan. 30, but a notice on Alstom’s website says the company’s third-party ticket provider was unable to cope with “unprecedented demand.” As a result, the company has suspended sales “until we are confident that our provider’s servers can handle the expected web traffic.” This, Alstom said, will take some time.
Alstom said “thousands of tickets” remain available across the three days. The company said it will promote details of the resumption of sales on its website and on social media.
The BBC reports the event will feature rides on the Derby factor’s test track, operation of narrow-trains, fairground attractions, street food, and live music. Up to 30,000 are expected to attend across the three days.
The Derby event is part of the Railway 200 celebration taking place across England to commemorating the anniversary of the opening of the Stockton & Darlington Railway on Sept. 27, 1825, an event marked as the start of modern railroading. Alstom’s participation reflect the fact that the first locomotive on that railway was built by Robert Stephenson & Co., which through a series of mergers eventually became part of Alstom in 1989.
More on Railway 200 is available here.
Here’s something to think about: 2027 is coming-up. How about a “Bicentennial of The Iron Horse” at either the B & O Museum in Baltimore or CSRM in Sacramento?
Crashed the web site? Those British do love their various RRs. Especially older ones.
This is a bellwether for what this year will bring for our bicentennial.
Do you mean the 1826 opening of the horse-incline Granite Railway in Massachusetts? (In Quincy and Milton, between them the birthplaces of three US Presidents.)
You can ride most of the r/w toll-free on the I-93 Southeast Expressway. Wikipedia and other Internet entries describe a small portion of the Granite Railway incline r/w preserved at the south end, at the Quincy – Braintree border. Never seen it myself.
Lesser known is that the New Haven Railroad (I mean likely the predecessor Old Colony Railroad) converted a portion of the Granite Railway horse incline into a steam railroad spur. Don’t know how long the New Haven kept the spur in operation. Construction of the Southeast Expressway (later, I-93) started around 1951. The expressway was open to traffic by about 1958.
Without going to preservation site itself, you can get an idea of the quarry territory in two ways: (1) Ride the MBTA Red Line between Quincy Adams and Braintree, looking out the window toward the west. (2) Drive I-93 between the Braintree Split Interchange and the Furnace Brook Parkway exit in West Quincy.
To continue yesterday’s discussion on the Bay State’s version of sort-of English, both the city and the middle name of the 6th president are pronounced “Quinzee”. (FWIW, this is my second post in two or three days about I-93 and Norfolk County. The prior discussion was about the Route 128 Station on NEC and MBTA Providence Line in Westwood. Massachusetts Route 128 was later rebadged as I-93.)