Spa Valley Railway - Latest News

Unrebuilt?

 

Gotta admit, though I've never been a fan of these Austerities being gutted and rebuilt into all manner of different shapes, I got a soft spot for 'Douglas'. It's in my mind the most well done of Austerity transformations, looking genuinely like a natural as built engine. Has a certain charm about it, and certainly stands out from a lot of other locomotives.

Pity it's in just plain black though... wouldn't mind seeing it in different colors, like say Caledonian blue~?

 

I think @61624 was referring to FR No. 20.

Tom

 

I was, didn't realise that there was another no. 20!

 

Nope .... that term has been common in pictorials of OSVB's pacifics in original condition since at least the 1970s ..... mustn't confuse that issue further. We need a new and unique form of confusion for 21C011.

 

De-rebuilt?
UnJarvised?
ReBulleided?

 

Gricered?

 

Re-tuned? Are they going to jack the boiler pressure back up?

 

I have been look into this and yes it was. It got put to a tenner engine to make it more useful for going up hills and further and they liked the how it looked this way more. They also made the Douglas engine better like this

 

? Number 20 was built as a tender engine. After a time it when number 20 and some her sisters weren't useful on mainline service anymore (it seems to been only 5 years or so), they were sold, and rebuilt with saddle tanks to become shunting engines in a steel works. In preservation, number 20 has been restored back to her original state as a tender engine, nothing to do with helping her up hills. Her surviving sister 25 remains a tank engine and is due to be restored as such in time.

Douglas became a tender engine purely to pretend to be 'Douglas' at MHR thomas events, since the owner at the time had a spare tender frame.

 

IIRC It was rebuilt with a tender for a variety of reasons. It's owner at the time wanted to create a special train for private hire over the full length of the MHR and so the extra coal and water capacity came in handy , as did the extra footplate space for visitors.

 

Turning back to the Spa Valley Railway. 25yrs ago the railway opened to the public and today we're carrying 1,600 people to the North Pole, not bad for our little railway!

 

A nice surprise happened during todays short break thanks to our partners PNP Events as we were presented with a banner, cake and champagne to mark the occasion of 25yrs of trains at the Spa Valley Railway!

We (the Spa Valley volunteers) genuinely had no idea this had been arranged by PNP and it took Jon Nye our Chairman & I in the photo by complete surprise!

Bulleid Pacific 34053 'Sir Keith Park' had just returned from the North Pole with another 300 visitors and took another 900 there after this photo had been taken. We've just 12 Polar Express train rides to go which equates to 3,200 people having already carried the best part of 30,000 already!

 

Congratulations @Jonnie may your next 25 years be as interesting as the 1st 25!

 

Yesterday saw the curtain come down on The Polar Express for 2021. We took 33,000 people to the North Pole on 106 trains spread over 22 days.
This was by far the busiest event we’ve ever operated at the Spa Valley Railway and everyone should be extremely proud of what we’ve been able to achieve. The railway has certainly entered the 25th year of operation in an enormous way!

What this event has done is opened the doors to a much bigger audience and advertised us to people that may never have visited or even heard of our line before.

The Polar Express will return in 2022, notes have been made throughout this event to enable us to improve for future years and a feedback form for Ops volunteers will be distributed shortly.

In a bit of good news for Christmas, our draft accounts for the Operating Company were received the other day and despite 2020 being one of the most awful years we can recall, the Wealden Railway Co. Ltd. (that owns the Spa Valley Railway) only made a very slight loss of around £2,000. An absolutely outstanding achievement given the lockdowns, restrictions and limitations we were faced with! Well done to everyone!

From all the Managers, Directors and Trustees of the Spa Valley Railway, we’d like to wish all our volunteers, members and supporters a very Merry Christmas. We cannot thank you enough for standing by the line through thick and thin over what had been an incredibly challenging couple of years.

 

Busy day at Tunbridge Wells West saw the line de-Polar Expressed as best as possible.

The 4 on hire coaches were taken out of the train and it was reformed with our own coaches where not already in use in preparation for running from 28th December to 2nd January.

A lot of cleaning was undertaken and some further Xmas decorations taken down.

In the shed/yard ‘Douglas’ had a warming fire on the go and ‘Sir Keith Park’ had the name plates (back in blue), number and plate refitted.

I’ve completed a Winter Steam Up timetable and that’ll be published later this week, however, with the uncertainty (which isn’t very nice when you’re trying to plan things) surrounding any restrictions that may or may not happen we’ve held off on publishing it. It is our every intention to operate the Winter Steam Up if we’re permitted to do so.

 

Visitors to Eridge today were greeted with the site of the new access ramp and steps, which removes the original stopper to a future run around loop. Whilst we aren't going to be rushing to put some track in (as it isn't a simple as that) the potential for doing it has increased somewhat than before.

 

L&Y 752 is due to leave the ELR early next week and will join 34053, 2890 and 31430 operating a two train service, timetable is being made to look nice and will be uploaded asap to our website, we're asking the question to the owners whether we can use the hired in MK1 TSOs during this event as it is now likely they'll still be at the railway.

If you do visit during the WSU you will probably see the North Pole still erected near Birchden Junction, so if you're into taking photos from the local publicly accessible areas (non-lineside, we don't offer passes due to the NR section), I wouldn't recommend a photo Harrisons Rocks at the moment unless you want a clock tower and a North Pole the length of 6 MK1s to appear in it! Inside the shed at Tunbridge Wells there has been a large marquee which should be dismantled by the time this event takes place enabling us to let you see other locos in the shed.

We've had a busy few days of standard passengers, although if you compared it to Polar it is quiet but I wouldn't expect the same number of people on an ordinary day! It was rather odd going back to a quieter way of operating but that is our bread and butter along with the events we love to put on.

A personal achievement for me happened last Wednesday on 'Douglas' when I passed my Steam Drivers exam, my late Xmas present as I've called it.

Happy New Year to all the our Spa Valley supporters. If you're around at the Winter Steam Up I'm on 752 on the Saturday and Responsible Officer on the Sunday, do say hello!

 

Timetable for the Winter Steam Up now online and following the announcement that there are no further restrictions coming we're intending to go ahead as planned, 51456 will be arriving later this week. https://www.spavalleyrailway.co.uk/shopimages/SpVR Public Timetable - Winter Steam Up 2022.pdf