Severn Valley Railway winter steam gala January 2024

The ownership shares in the locomotive were not all of equal monetary value, so it is possible that one family may hold the largest single share in terms of percentage. I fear that you are right in thinking that it will be a long time before any of us see it running again. I have had countless footplate turns on this locomotive, and every one has been a pleasure. I will certainly miss seeing it in action.

Andy

 

Video from the Winter Gala, including the last runs of 43106.




Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

The Pig and Manor steal the show on the Winter Steam Gala !

 

We had a brilliant weekend, thank you to all involved - hopefully the event has worked well for the railway. Video from across the weekend including a few bonus shots from Friday added in. Photos to follow...

 

A lovely day out at the railway yesterday, felt well attended but not too busy. Hopefully the event was a success for the SVR.

Of all the villages along the line, up on the hill in Highley would probably be the best place to be in a flood! They must be unfortunate to live in one of the few river side properties there.
It was interesting to look out of the window at the river while travelling yesterday, think its the highest I've personally ever seen it. Can share a couple of phone photos I took when I got off at Arley.

 

3 from me below. Not great photographically but very enjoyable weekend and good to see many familiar faces at the lineside, an excellent event that I hope is repeated!










Richard

 

Without sounding like a willy waving post I have seen it like that at Arley before, however it’s a little worrisome how much more of a regular occurrence it seems to be, even more worrying is that I believe that there’s permission to build more houses down the road in Bewdley close to the flood plain.

 

Don’t disagree with that, my folks are in Bewdley, they considered their move there very carefully before they purchased their property, ie how far away it was from the river, a couple of my customers have also done the same thing with their property there, and purchased somewhere that’s nowhere near the riverside.

 

I did quite a lot of measuring and installation of flow rate monitoring and flood warning equipment on the Severn as in my previous job working in Hydrometry.........

Without wanting to get too much into the issues on the Severn specifically, building on flood plains is happening all over the place still, and we are *still* seeing an increase in impervious surfaces which increase run off- we have had also had an exceptionally wet few months so all new rainfall in finding its way into "main river" courses very very quickly indeed.

Flood defences are often a double edged sword, rather than alleviating the issue it often moves the problem elsewhere- things like the flood barriers that have appeared on the Severn will result in the level reaching higher peaks elsewhere on the course- unless there is some way of speeding up the transit time, or increasing storage by allowing the river to flood this will always be the case.

It's only been relatively recently recognised that catchments and river courses need to be managed as a whole and that a far greater understanding is needed of the catchments regime and discharge curves.

We will be seeing more of this over coming years.

Chris

 

I don’t disagree with that Chris at basic GCSE Geography standard our teacher did say that flood and coastal defences just move the problem elsewhere, something I’m seeing first hand on my way into work at the moment.

 

Any videos of the last run up eardington bank of the pig please? I wanted to go but couldn’t make it due to being ill. Was it as good as 2857’s last run?

 

I could see a flash light being used as we went up the bank, so someone was there, but not seen it on any of my favourited channels yet..
It was a great run, plenty of noise and sparks flying. The run up to Bewdley tunnel though earlier was just as good and appears on quite a few YouTube videos.

 

Had a very enjoyable time on Sunday, my father decided to come with me at the last minute, and like me hadn’t been in 15 years plus and both came away having had a good day. Echoing previous comments in that I hope it was a success, loadings seemed high on all the services we travelled on.

Very impressed with the coaching stock inside and out across the sets (the destination boards giving the year built much appreciated), the station cleanliness and the punctuality of the timetable. I do think the Engine House could have done with opening a bit earlier on a gala day; there were a couple of families waiting outside in the cold having caught one of the first services of the day, and had presumed it would be open like the rest of the railway! The beer selection in the Railwayman’s Arms was surprisingly diverse and happily seemed to be doing a busy trade.

Rode on 43106’s penultimate trip and she was making a fine sound, sad to see her go, but 2968 is a fantastic replacement. Looking forward to seeing more of her over the next 10 years.

Not much of a photographer, but a few photos and screenshots from video below (hopefully resized appropriately via a website as away from my PC this week).

Thanks to all involved in the planning and running.

 

True.
For once D7076 we agree on something.
However, it seems [if the rumor mill is correct] they have something else more British replacing it.

 

Quite. I believe that Gordon is ahead of it in the queue

 

Photos from Saturday & Sunday... https://www.flickr.com/photos/alts1985/albums/72177720313952166/

 

According to latest Branchlines, 2500 passengers and twice expected revenue, sounds like a good result to me!!

 

I think this is a bit of a common misconception of the term “Queue”. Realistically there is no queue. The old maintain and run agreements are dead/dieing. Several locomotives, most in the EH, have limited funds. Some have very inactive owning groups.

You could probably count on 1 hand the locomotives that have sums of money large enough to even get the SVR thinking about overhaul.

You won’t see change from £1 million for something like Gordon, and the SVR don’t have a million. Similarly you could probably say the same for 3/4 other locos on the SVR.

I can only speak for 2857, with which I stand as a trustee, and tell you that even for our loco which is relatively reasonable we wouldn’t expect change out of £650,000.

 

I mean speaking as the fireman on 2857’s last run, was anything as good?!

 

That in itself is one of the problems at the SVR, it should not cost anywhere near 1 million pounds to overhaul a loco, materials probably cost 10 - 20% of the overhaul cost, it is the SVR charging the owning groups commercial rates for their staff that is the problem.

How about they charge the staff at cost (probably 75% less than a commercial rate) all of a sudden costs of overhauls are no where near as bad! Or are the SVR trying to float the books with fleecing their loco owners?