SVR Autumn Steam Gala

Very long, but enjoyable day yesterday. I was at Bridgnorth for 06.45am yesterday - the double header that was due off Kidderminster at 19.25 last night, eventually made it to Bridgnorth at 22.30, quite possibly my longest journey ever on an SVR train!!
However, the rest of the day was straight out of the top drawer and a reminder why the SVR does galas better than anyone else. I am not sure any other railway could pull off an event of this scale - the sheer number of volunteers needed must be incredible to resource everything. The timetable intensity continued right into the night too and gave some unique scenes and atmosphere. This is when SVR galas come alive.
This event looks very, very well attended and notable that it attracted a real cross section of people - I spoke with a number of 'non enthusiasts' yesterday who only have a passing interest in trains who were really enjoying themselves. Lots of youngsters and families too - can only be a positive for the future and hopefully a big financial success.

Extremely well done everybody, very proud to be a long standing SVR member yesterday.

Will share some pics once sorted later.

 

Selection of camera phone images from the gala.

 

Having spent the last few days alternating between photographing and travelling, a few observations, some as enthusiast, others as someone who has been involved with planning things elsewhere (albeit slightly less complicated things...) :

For me, a very well thought out event in terms of the number of interesting things happening. You never had to wait too long for a train. From what I saw, the lateness had a mix of causes but opportunities to catch up didn't seem to be grabbed. I observed this most at Bewdley; one example were some local services kept waiting out of empty platforms, when they perhaps could have been signaled in to allow people to board rather than having a mad crush to try and board and get the train away as quick as possible. My last trip on the Auto yesterday moved out of platform 3 to take water, then continued to sit there half in/out the platform with crew having a chin-wag in the yard, meaning you couldn't get on board. The Jinty subsequently arrived with the goods from Kidderminster, the auto got given the signal to depart and THEN the auto crew decided that was the time to set back so people could board it. Some of these may perhaps have been down to crew changes taking place where the new bodies were arriving on other delayed services but that wasn't necessarily obvious.

Another opportunity I noted was yesterday's booked working of the Hall overtaking the Jinty at Arley; Hall arrived at Bewdley before the Jinty had even left, and then had to wait for the Jinty to arrive at Arley before it could follow up and overtake. The Jinty then had to wait for the Hall to clear Highley before it could carry on - while that was what was booked in the timetable, I was surprised that the pass therefore wasn't moved to Bewdley. From what I could make out, that would have put the Hall's Bewdley departure a few minutes late, but the Jinty would have arrived at Arley about the time it was booked to depart onward to Highley anyway, so would have recovered some net time.

I boarded the 13.20 departure from Kidderminster and we left the station, then sat outside the platform for (I think) about 15 minutes waiting for a train to arrive from Bewdley. There was nothing in the adjacent platform we had departed from so I was surprised we were signaled out and then held there rather than in the platform - something mentioned by quite a few around me who commented they would have otherwise looked at stalls on the station or gotten food/drink from the platform buffet.

My first experience of the night trains and while I was drifting in and out of sleep for the majority, I thoroughly enjoyed doing so running through the night to the sound of steam and look forward to when this is done again. An extra carriage or two might have been handy, certainly early on in the evening when they were very well laden - I stayed with the Mogul for all its trips but the one behind the Hall looked rammed. I had thought about staying for last night's services but given how busy the night before was I felt hesitant to risk another night of broken sleep ahead of a long drive back to Essex. Given the short set lengths, the decision to not have both made up of compartment stock was probably a wise one (the two that were part of the Hall's set were all full but mostly each compartment contained just two people who had laid out along the seats). I personally would be happy to pay for a compartment upsell on such night workings - something to consider offering next time?

All in all, another enjoyable visit to the Valley. I hope the Backworth livery stays on 813 for a while yet - I saw it once or twice but it did rather evade me!

 

Here's my soundtrack of five steam engines tackling the iconic Eardington Bank when I visited the Steam Gala on Friday. The locomotives involved are 73082 Camelot, 35006 Peninsular & Oriental S. N. Co, LMS Jinty - 47298, 7802 Bradley Manor and GWR Pannier Tank - 7714. The Jinty Soundtrack started with a departure from Eardington Station, The Merchant Navy soundtrack was leaving Bridgnorth and the rest were heading to Bridgnorth. This is the first time I've done this sort of video and I hope you enjoy it.

 

Great day today overall, the sun shone and the trains were well loaded. I wonder if some people postponed their visit from Saturday?

Must say the timetable must've worked well as the ex0525 Bridgnorth arrived into Kidderminster with the driver saying "over an hour late" (and with the wrong loco!), so to get back to 15mins late by 1830 is impressive.

I do feel things at KR first light could've been improved to at least stop the 0745 leaving 37min late. The Jinty was doing nothing but steam heat set N for the 0910 the whole time when it arguably could've helped 13268 bring in from outside the station and shunt the local set to allow 13268 to get onto the 0745 quicker? 13268 also had to perform a brake test on set M as it had not been used overnight. One good thing about the delay though was that I was able to get breakfast from the 8am opening Valley Suite rather than wait for Bridgnorth. I know it's not easy, but there just seemed no urgency at all to try and get the time back.

A highlight was 7802 charging through Arley with the afternoon Goods, hearing those wagons bang together as the regulator was opened was quite something!

Must say the 1625 off Bridgnorth with 75069 was a fantastic display, so much s0 that I decided to stay on the train to Kidderminster as a result rather than swap for the local behind the Jinty from Highley onwards.

Top gala, thanks to all involved!

 

The Jinty was superb on Saturday night, definitely the highlight for me. Sadly the late running put paid to my plans to sample 49 and the 813/7714 double header. Not sure what the cause of the delay was but lengthy station stops seemed par for the course. Over the length of the journey with the Jinty from KDR to BRI on Saturday evening, I think I spent more time static than moving!

 

Visited on Saturday but this proved a real washout - literally with time spent at Highley Engine House to shelter from the worst of the rain. Difficult to spend time elsewhere due to concerns over heavy rain interspersed with light showers. Let's hope for better weather during the Diesel Gala as driving over 125 miles to sample SVR rain is a little tedious.

 

Could only visit Sunday afternoon but this gave me rides on all the locos I wanted with some short moves around a full line trip. 49 and 11 (813) northbound out of Highley was very good. The return should have been 49 and 1450 but for some reason 11 substituted for the Austerity. The climb out of Bewdley through the tunnel was worth coming for alone!

 

To be honest, the weather on Saturday was better than forecast, rain didn't come on until lunchtime, had been forecast to start at 9am, so to get a dry morning was a bonus.
I only got wet once when changing between trains, (the canopy at Bewdley proved very useful!) and 200 years on, the open air carriage has fortunately gone out of fashion!

 

A fabulous Thursday to Saturday at the gala. Will go as far to say this was my best ever SVR Steam Gala, which is saying something in twenty years of visiting. I have never seen such volume of traffic at Bewdley before, you could spend ten-fifteen minutes there and there was a departure/arrival in each platform/siding in that time.

35006 and 47298 gave some fantastic performances on Eardington Bank on Thursday; a bit too extravagant in the case of the Jinty as dragging brakes could be heard approaching the summit and we stopped for a blow up. Although 7714 gave me my run of the entire gala on Saturday afternoon, really hammering away in an almighty downpour.

With probably their most intensive timetable to date, slippage was inevitable but was great to see everyone rising to the challenge. Everyone was kept in the loop really well. From my end the delays didn’t seem to cause too much consternation, it seemed the urgency to claw back time wasn’t taken when it could’ve been in a couple of instances. But I’m not privy to whatever the reasons were.

Thank you to everyone at the SVR, it was an absolute pleasure.

 

I'll second that! A grab shot of the two Backworth locos approaching Highley, after which I sprinted from the Engine House to the platform in time to get aboard for the rest of the trip to Bridgnorth. (Memo to self - I'm getting too old for that game...)

 

A massive thankyou to everyone who attended our gala, and spent their hard earned cash on tickets and secondary spend. I'm sure the SVR will publish some official numbers in due course but it looked very busy from what we could see. On a personal note I particularly enjoyed my turns on 7802/73082 both Friday/Saturday afternoons, and I was pleased to hear so many positive comments.

I'll try respond to a few bits below which I've read above (Only just caught up on this thread after about 12 hours sleep last night!!)....

Timetable
We know this wasn't perfect. We'd been asked to create something special for the 60th Anniversary and we went a little too bold probably. The recovery time wasn't really there, which in hindsight even the simplest of changes could have had a big difference with that. However, we did have a lot of positive comments on the frequency of trains, and the spectacles of shunting, etc so we can now look to find a balance. This was the first time we had tried this style of TT so things can only get better with learning from it.

Comment No 137
- Timetable being too ambitious - Reasoning as above.
But actually the number of trains is no different to last Autumn. It was simply that the locals were split at Bewdley rather than all running to KR. The shuttles are much needed, as they are the best way to keep a flow of passengers and prevent over crowding of bigger trains.
- Cut the goods/separate goods weekend
Doesn't really work. The separate goods weekend has been tried and loses more than it gains. The goods is part of the gala and cutting it often saves nothing as without a second platform at Highley all the crosses just remain the same.

Sheep
These really didn't help. A lot of caution for these creating delay.

Shunting at BDY
This was added complexity, but needed to be tried to see if the more ambitious style of WTT could work. We have identified some changes we could make to this we should decrease risk/delay possibility. A lot of the shunting out of platforms/back in to others, etc was to try keep big trains through P2/3 but doesn't always work.

Changing the plan
I've seen a few comments across forums asking why something couldn't have done something else to help pull time back. A lot of it is down to how shunt plans/station limits, etc work and how we can still fit crew breaks and so on in. Its not a simple switch most of the time which is often why its left to run its course.

....

We've certainly got a stack of learning points to take forward. Hopefully we can produce something that works a little more to time at Spring and keep the excitement still there.

 

A couple of shots from my very enjoyable firing turns.

 

For me, there was some cracking displays which I was able to sample from the lineside and on board. I have condensed the best of my efforts down to 20 minutes. I hope you enjoy.

 

My video coverage of the SVR's gala.

 

Another fantastic weekend at the Severn Valley! Some great performances put on by engine crews and a nice variety of engines out and about. Heard plenty of positive words about 813's NCB appearance, certainly seemed to be a highlight of the event for many. Also, a friend and I took the opportunity to ride overnight on Sat/Sun now it's becoming a less regular feature; a great experience for sure, though not one I'm rushing to do again in a hurry (Just about recovered from it )

Here's some video coverage from the Friday and Saturday

 

@2857Harry thanks for your insight and 'feedback on the feedback', really is interesting to know the addional complexities that have to be taken into account when planning such an event. You should all be really proud of yourselves for putting on such a spectacular show.
Personally I found the timetable really interesting and there was always something going on. Really don't be put off trying something ambitious, as much rather have that & for it to a little awry than something mundane!
Also, the mix of visiting locos was spot on, really enjoyed all of the guests - Camelot & 49 both 'cops' for me - Camelot is a gem of a loco. The Jinty was brilliant fun and lovely to hear P&O being put to work and being unleashed (a little!)

 

Thanks for the kind words.

Camelot is my favourite engine in Pres (2857 excepted I guess!!). I must have blown that chime about 73082 times on Saturday