The Severn Valley Railway AutumnSteam Gala, held from September 19-22, was blessed with warm sunshine for the most part, but all did not quite go according to plan.
As always, the gala had an imaginative timetable, with plenty of ‘local’ trains, auto-trains and goods trains, plus overnight running, but an imaginative timetable often means that when things go wrong, they usually do so in spectacular fashion.
Lineside fires, due to the extremely warm weather on Friday and Saturday, a points failure at Hampton Loade, and the failure of locomotives, all played a part in disrupting the timetable but, by and large, lost time was recovered and only a handful of trains in the intensive programme had to be axed.
As always, the gala gets underway in a sedate fashion on Thursday and builds up to a frenzy of non-stop action throughout Friday and Saturday, before easing up again on a Sunday, as locomotives are returned to their home depots and stock is positioned ready for the Monday’s timetable ‘A’ services.
The guest locomotives were the Bluebell Railway’s Q 0-6-0 No. 30541, the East Lancashire Railway’s West Country light Pacific No. 34092 City of Wells and the Mid-Hants Railway’s BR Standard 4MT 2-6-0 No. 76017, along with summer-long visitors No. 6960 Raveningham Hall from the West Somerset Railway and Didcot’s large prairie No. 4144. The latter two were rostered on local trains, with No. 6960 seen on a four-coach formation of Gresley teak coaches – shades of the 1948 Locomotive Exchanges on the Great Central – operating mainly between Kidderminster and Bewdley and the prairie matched with three GWR ‘Toplight’ coaches, running on the ‘locals’ between Bewdley and Arley/Highley.
Diese Geschichte stammt aus der Issue 260-Ausgabe von Heritage Railway.
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Diese Geschichte stammt aus der Issue 260-Ausgabe von Heritage Railway.
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