SVR Autumn Steam Gala

First detials about the Autumn Steam Gala are now up -

https://svr.co.uk/event/autumn-steam-gala/

6 home engines and hoping for 4 visitors. If we get the 4 we want should be a couple of first time visits too.

Overnight running returns - With rising costs and so on our Gala Group reached a decision with the railway to make this overnight running happen in anniversary years every 5 years, so being our 60th Anniversary year.

Hopefully going to produce a timetable which may remove some, maybe most of the double crosses at Bewdley.

Should be a very good do.

 

Also states the full line will be open
(Had my B&B booked a while ago whatever length of line was going to be open)

 

Overnight runnings mean I'll stick it in the diary and start negotiating the time off.

 

BINGO: Which way will the guest locomotives be facing?

 

Hahaha brilliant! Out little gala group was having this discussion earlier…..To be revealed!

 

Wheels to the rails is usual. Too much friction the other way up...

 

Am I missing something, but there appears to only be an individual travellers one day price for Thursday Do you have to buy a multi day ticket?

 

It is there but its on the wrong line. I’ll get it addressed

 

Issue with ticket price on website should be corrected now

 

https://www.svrwiki.com/GWR_9581_Wheelchair_accessible_Buffet_Car

Looks very likely now we will be able to launch Coach 9581 at the Autumn Gala. All being well this should go in to the main GWR rake, which will be formed of 8 Collett Coaches in matching GWR Shirtbutton Livery.

Launch day likely to be Thursday 18th September, mid morning departure from Kidderminster after some form of launch celebration/presentation. Assuming all works well we would expect 4930 to head the train.

 

35006 announced as the first guest.

I believe it will be the first time a Merchant Navy has visited (?).

 

Yep 35006 the first of hopefully 4.

First Merchant on the SVR, first of a lineup of visitors which haven’t visited before (If all goes to plan!), chance of some boat train recreation, and well the rest you’ll have to wait and see

 

SVR special headboard as well H? Signwriting is well on the way. Photos have appeared of said headboard on SVR railtours .

 

An excellent first visitor although if I may turn "pedant mode" on for a moment, the "boat train" recreations to which the GWSR seem a bit partial are pure fantasy. Waterloo-Southampton Docks boat trains were usually the preserve of Eastleigh shed, which only ever had an allocation of light pacifics. True, the very last one, on 9th May 1967, was worked by a light pacific from a different shed - Nine Elms' 34021 Dartmoor - but the likelihood of a Salisbury "MN" ever working a boat train is pretty remote, <Pedant mode off!>

 

Not technically a normal boat train, but 35006 was moved to Nine Elms for a week in may 1961 for VIP trips to view the SS Canberra before the maiden voyage. Not sure but I was told it also ran the first trip at the end of the week. Happy to be corrected. Sadly don’t know who the photographer is but it was the basis for me doing the artwork to recreate the headboard.

 

Well, you learn something new every day! As you say, not technically a boat train, so I was not completely wrong in my statement above. All the same, this was only a very brief moment in 35006's history. I've seen more pictures of it like this in preservation than with the "West of England" headcode discs which would have been its most common guise for most of its working career.

 

I do get concerned with the pedantry of the purists who insist "this" or "that" did / didn't happen. Why not not enjoy the creation of things that "might have been". For example when Pickersgill 0-4-4T 419 / 55189 visited the Churnet Valley I was allowed to place my "Heart of Midlothian" headboard on the loco for one round trip as noted below: an LNER headboard on a Caledonian locomotive - who would have thought !!
Preservation is surely about having fun and enjoying the experiences of locomotive activity and the experience of "What ifs ?"

 

Yes and No. A function of preservation is to represent and recreate history and an accurate presentation plays a part in that. Unfortunately, history is in the eyes of the beholder: what they see is what must have happened, and so history becomes distorted. "I know that BR turned out Jubilees in red livery because I've seen it." This is a problem within preservation as an accurate rendition is usually simply impossible as it clashes with commercial requirements.

 

Agreed; the person who sees the red 45593 in 2001 but thinks it represents the BR 45593 of his youth is obviously mixing time periods hence distorting his conception of history. That said why shouldn't preservation be allowed to distort the perception of time periods as long as it makes clear that the time periods are not historically accurate but simply cases of "what might / could have been" had different conditions applied at the relevant time period.
That said what is wrong in painting preserved locomotives in blue livery to note that at one time BR considered blue livery to be applied to its express locomotives hence providing an opportunity to show what such livery choice would have looked like or painting preserved locomotives in 2-tone green to show how this would have appeared; think class 50 D444 / 50044 in its attractive 2-tone green livery !