Severn Valley Railway Autumn Gala: 15 - 18/09/22

Pete to misquote someone you said all the right numbers, just not necessarily in the right order

 

The start/finish times according to the SVR website:
Thursday 0800-1930,
Friday and Saturday 0800-midnight,
Sunday 0800-1830

 

Running to midnight is a nice compromise. Neve been a fan of the comportants being commandeered into free bedrooms. It's certainly got my attention.

 

Think this has happened before, maybe in about 1997?
I seem to recall it was when 3442 became 61994.
Rather interesting few other railways don’t seem to have taken up the all night running thing as a selling point for galas.

 

Excellent compromise. I can more than appreciate the SVR wanting to get rid of the ‘smell factor’ that does prevail on gala Sunday - completely off putting to most visitors.

 

Except that's not the reason given - which is it's 'rested' to conserve coal

 

I suspect that it is also quite off putting for volunteers who give much of their time and attend at their own expense, to see the rolling stock they have worked hard on turned into a mobile doss house with all that implies.

 

Not just the volunteers but us paid staff as well. We have to deal with the damage and also the missing parts. Over the years we have had numerous components half-inched. This might sound a little petty but one gala we had 42 lightbulbs removed and taken away just on one set of coaches. That might not seem a lot but at £6 each at the time, it was still a cost.

I for one wont miss the 2 hourly alarm clock going past the compartment at Bridgnorth. I would rather see the goods train/ wagons given far more recognition and useage than have damage and unsavoury smells in the carriages.

No one complains when Glastonbury festival takes the year off.

 

I suspect coal is the convenient answer for not running over night. Lets be realistic 2 locos overnight combined would only burn a couple of tons of coal.

Its a drop in the ocean compared to what they will burn over the event.

 

It appears that a tonne of coal may be c. £355, from this recent BBC article.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-dorset-62241336

 

Slightly more than a couple – I believe the usual quoted figure is "a ton per round trip" so about 4 tons. Not a lot in the gala total I agree, but from the SVR's POV it will save on coal which is now an expensive resource. It will also save on volunteer turns and loco/carriage wear and tear. In fairness they are still looking to have (up to) four guest locos and at least some use of the goods according to the website.

Against that is the extent to which no overnight running will reduce ticket sales. I doubt there are more than a handful of people who would totally boycott the return of Hagley Hall after 30+ years just because they can't ride behind 7714 at 3.00am. What may happen is that some people will buy a 1-day rather than 2-day, or 2-day instead of 3-day and so on. The SVR management have regularly said "This is not a normal year" and I guess this is one of those cases where they have made a tough decision and will see what happens.

 

It’s a tricky one, but a decision I understand and why it’s been done.

 

Any suggestions to overcome it then?

 

From midnight to 8am is errr..... 8 hours running.
A normal "timetable A" day is 10am to 17:05 for the one steam loco in operation at the moment - so 7 hours running.

I've no idea how intensive the early hours running would traditionally be at a gala, but in crude terms by not running over night it potentially saves fuel to burn on a normal operating day at another time. If normally there are two services in the early hours then that's potentially a weekend's worth of coal saved for another time.

 

On Sunday, a similar figure per tonne for mentioned re costs for preparing Clun Castle for the cancelled run on Sunday.