Landcruise promoter; Born April 26, 1945; Died June 1, 2007. John Begg was Scotland's foremost landcruise specialist. From his Aberdeenshire home in Newburgh, he operated a minor travel empire that brought thousands of North Americans to Scotland to savour transport by vintage trains and antique buses. His "Mrs Brown Experience" tours on Royal Deeside introduced dollar-spending tourists to food producers and distilleries, and from these he even tailored personal trips for ancestor hunters.
Begg, burly and immensely likeable, operated his business in spite of significant problems in running vintage trains on modern railways. For years, Grampian Railtours ran the luxury Northern Belle every summer from Aberdeen to the distillery mecca of Dufftown.
Annually he promoted day trains to Dunrobin Castle in Sutherland, to Kyle of Lochalsh and resorts in England such as Whitby, hiring vintage stock from the Scottish Railway Preservation Society and generously staffing the carriages to reflect levels of service reminiscent of past eras.
He even once headed one of his trains with a steam locomotive, using his initiative to replenish her thirst en route to Elgin with hundreds of gallons of water through a petrol-driven pump cannily installed in a burn on a Banffshire hillside.
Begg was born in the railway capital of Springburn, Glasgow, and went into the airline business, working on the commercial side. He specialised in smaller airways, and met his wife Pat during a stint in Luton as a traffic officer. He was made redundant in Maastricht in the Netherlands in 1979, but was quickly headhunted to an Aberdeen post.
With travel organisation being in his blood, it was little surprise that he left to establish his own enterprise, setting up Bon-Accord Airways with a Shorts 360 out of Aberdeen on oil and postal runs.
A long-time interest in rail travel encouraged him to set up Grampian Railtours - and in doing so, he found a niche market, tapped it and profitably exploited it, engaging with a clientele who simply kept returning annually. For 22 years he ran railtours to many destinations, frequently in the face of mind-numbing madness that travel operators now suffer in trying to run special trains on the privatised network.
A regular business visitor to the US and Canada, Begg, in his trademark tartan jacket in Grampian Highland sett, had just returned from yet another transatlantic promotion, in partnership for the fourth time with Balmoral Estates, when he died.
A hospitable companion, John was known in the travel industry not just as kind and helpful, but someone who went the extra distance in using the personal touch to add travel options, from booking a favourite room in Inverness for an American couple, to producing a named malt whisky at the eponymous place.
John died suddenly in Ellon, Aberdeenshire, from a heart attack. His autumn railtour on September 16 - by popular demand a return to Dunrobin Castle - will go ahead as a farewell tribute to him.
He is survived by his wife Pat, mother Cathie, sons Alastair and Peter, and granddaughter Poppy.
By GORDON CASELY
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article