SVR General Discussion

I would suggest it matters little regarding the enthusiast community. They are likely to attend whenever it is.
The bigger risk I would have thought was potentially upsetting a lot of "normals" who may turn up expecting to just have a ride over a long weekend.

 

It can work the other way - I remember some "normals" getting on the train at Bridgenorth during a gala who hadn't known it was a gala weekend. They were absolutely delighted to find so many trains and locos running!

 

And so they should be, the Valley Galas are one of the greatest heritage railway events in Europe

 

Sadly the clash with Easter rules me out. I can’t understand why efforts wern’t made to move the event, when Easter weekend will be well populated with families and normals.

 

Easter is not as well populated as most would have you believe.

Unfortunately moving the event is very difficult. We have a very busy programme with SVR 60 next year, plus Rail 200, meaning we’ve basically an event every other week.

Also the list of events below shows the difficulties in finding a suitable weekend. Clashing with other railways for their galas is not a wise move. There just simply isn’t a suitable weekend to move to. Easter doesn’t clash every year and we have accepted this year it’s better to keep it the same weekend, but put on a top tier show.

March
14-16 Bluebell Branch Line Weekend

20-23 Keighley & Worth Valley The Steam Gala Extravaganza

28-30 Swanage Spring Steam Gala

April
11-13 Llangollen Branchline Gala

18-21 Severn Valley Spring Steam Gala

25-27 Watercress Spring Steam Gala

May
2-5 West Somerset Railway 200: Spring Steam Spectacular

3-4 Ffestiniog Friends of the Ffestiniog

15-18 Severn Valley Spring Diesel Gala

 

Its difficult to change it now but why wasn't the first weekend in April considered instead? If insufficient "normals" travel on a BH that suggests a publicity/marketing failure for what should be a peak non enthusiast centred weekend.

 

We already have an event on ourselves on the first weekend of April which again we try not to change the date of because it is a regular event. Also the railway has booked private charters that weekend which we try not to book on gala weekends so it would be far from ideal.

 

Surely the problem lies with Easter which is a variable date; at least the SVR has retained its fixed dates as the 3rd weekend in April.

 

Easter being late (the latest it can be is 25th April btw) does as mean that the school holidays aren't consistent with some authorities picking the two weeks before Easter and others having Easter in the middle of the two. The local authorities around the SVR seem to have all picked the latter but I know London and North Yorkshire are the former for certain. It does make arranging family meet ups awkward.

 

Do you want to kick off that discussion with the Church, or get someone else to do so?

Tom

 

The Easter Act 1928 provides provisional to limit Easter to "the Sunday following the second Saturday in April", thus Easter would be between 9th April and 15th April. The act is still valid, just never been in force.
Also apparently there's discussions to unify the date for Easter between the Western and Eastern churches.

 

And the churches have been clear that they do not, generally speaking, have an issue with fixing the date of the celebration.

 

No, they just disagree with each other.

 

If you’re referring to western and orthodox, then that dispute over calendars is centuries old.

 

Get ready for another clash in 2028!

 

And that’s the thing. We want a regular, stable calendar, so as such we have to consider keeping our events on the same weekends every year. 3rd Weekend of both April/September for our galas. It means both staff and customers alike know when it’s going to be and can plan quite happily.

We know Easter might put one or two off, but also we know that if we do something special it might draw one or two in. And that’s what we are looking at and have plans for.

 

Appreciate the balance & explanation Harry. For those of us who are committed elsewhere for Easter hopefully some of the treats can stay on for May B/Hols..

 

Timetable for winter diesel day now available:
https://svr.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/30DEC24-Diesel-Day.pdf

 

According to the latest issue of RAIL magazine, the theme for next year's Autumn Diesel event will be 37s with it being 65 years since their introduction.

 

An updated list for next year's events: