Severn Valley Railway Autumn Steam Gala 21st-24th September 2017

We certainly had the weather for It! Yesterday I was trundling up the valley on a goods at Dawn as the mist began to dissipate from the valley, today I'm sat in Stourport watching it rain!

 

My photo gallery from the Saturday: http://preservedrailway.weebly.com/severn-valley-railway/autumn-steam-gala-2017

 

Absolutely, the video is below. The scene starts at 11.25. Just to confirm this was the Sunday morning northbound run.

 

Yes, it was. Brilliant. Thank you.

 

Great day at the SVR yesterday, and although due to being a Sunday mainline service I couldn't get there until just before noon I still managed to see/do quite a bit in the relatively short 6 hours I was present.
I feel this was help by a superb timetable, cutting out the 4th 'main' rake certainly made journey times a lot quicker end to end. The Goods (am) & Limited (pm) were out on full line runs, so I guess this could be the 'fourth' on Fridays and Saturdays moving forward? The timetable was pretty tight too, and near enough spot on running all day so well done to everybody involved for that.

The SVR really can't be matched in terms of amount of variety of trains and their operation. Somebody was moaning behind 323 yesterday that they should give the roster away for free but I totally disagree. Value for money, there can be no better railway galas.

My photos can be viewed at - https://www.flickr.com/photos/jbtevans/

 

Further to my last message, it occured to me you might appreciate some details.

Our load was 10 for 355 tons.
We were five minutes late from Kidderminster.
We came off the Sterns P. Way restriction and opened up to full first valve, at 55% cut-off, shortening to 50% before Hay Bridge, then 45% in the cutting and full second valve, where the regulator stayed until the summit. I shortened again to 40% in the cutting on the right of your film and the reverser remained there until Crossing Cottage, where I shortened again to 35% before shutting off at the summit.
We were never going to break any records with a Class 4 engine and 10 coaches up a 1 in 100 bank, but we didn't need to; we were five minutes early into Bridgnorth!

 

I have to say I enjoyed this year's gala more than either 2015 (Royal Scot / Britannia) or 2016 (Flying Scotsman / Tornado). I'd like to add my thanks to all who worked hard to make it happen, including those who fixed Bradley Manor's broken spring overnight. Also thanks to whoever (presumably) waived the rules and let 1501 take 8 from Bridgnorth to Kidderminster when covering for Bradley - the 'raging bull' coped admirably as expected!

My 2p worth on charging for the WTT is that I don't object to paying in principle if the money is going to the railway, but do we really have to buy a 40 page document just to find out what is running? Surely it would be possible to save paper and produce a 'WTT lite' for public sale?

 

Thanks for this. Nice to know what the settings were. Saturday's morning run behind 7812 was also good, we went over the top at 30. Earlstoke is still in great condition considering the miles.

 

Ahem! Perhaps discretion is the better part of valour?

Tom

 

I forgot to mention the superb job done by my fireman, James. The needle was nailed to 215psi all the way up, and we rolled into Bridgnorth with a nice, bright, flat fire and plenty of room in the boiler to keep the engine quiet. Top job.

 

I think what he meant to say was "25".

 

This.

I dont care about what goes into what siding and for how long, Id just like to know what loco is going to be on what train, £5 +p&p is too much to pay for this info.

 

I think I've said this to others every year I've been to the autumn gala and bought a WTT, all the vast majority of people buying the WTT need is the first 4 or 5 pages. I would be interested to know if there is a specific reason for not producing a 'WTT lite' as you say, e.g. more cost effective to produce more of one document than two separate ones.

 

I wasn't actually present for these, so I can only give you what was in the WTT. If it was changed on the day for any reason, these will be wrong, so please bear that in mind. However, the WTT gives these goods workings:

18:30 BY to KR: 926+7714
19:30 KR to BH: 564
21:40 BH to BY: 7812

 

I do know that on Friday 926 went LE to Bridgnorth about 1800 to cover 7802's roster I understand so suspect just 7714 on its own, but we left Bewdley before it departed. The others do not know.

 

I only read the timetables. I don't see why, for a fee, these first couple of pages could not be emailed out.

 

Time for a laugh. The crew of 1450 at Hampton Loade on Friday between turns.

 

£5 is less than two pints. Considering they now give away the SSG for free, really it's £2.50 per gala. This has never gone up since I've been buying from 2008 and so is even better value for money now than it has been. Some people, not saying yourself, don't travel and freeload so at least the railway makes a hefty profit on people not even coming onto their land.

This hobby is relatively cheap too. £25 odd for 24 hours validity on a ticket is a bargin.

£5 is not much in the grand scheme of things - travelling there, a rover, buying food, accommodation (not applicable to all I know).

The same p&p price is spent on the ticket anyway, and those who do not buy their ticket in advance miss out on saving money even with the p&p added.

I imagine they do not do a 'lite' version to maximise profit (which every heritage railway needs to), make it easier for the printers and to cut down on staff time spent on working on the document/distributing it.

 

i bought the WTT once and ended up throwing most of it away as it was unnecessary for my needs. Surely a one page free roster could be provided on the website, after all it is for the diesel gala?

 

I suspect that despite all the adverse comments you won't see this altered. As I understand it there is a print run which covers both staff issue & those WTT's sold. The economics of printing are such that reduced runs cost much more per item than longer runs. Producing an abbreviated version simply complicates the gala costs and those need to be properly recovered. Galas cannot be subsidised by the railway they must make a positive financial contribution if they are to continue.