The Severn Valley Railway (Part 1).

Wednesday 14th June 2017 at Kidderminster.
Wow! What a day we had! We had heard that the Severn Valley Railway is one of the finest heritage railways in the country and it certainly lived up to its reputation.
The line and all the stations are set in the 1940s and so the first thing that we saw on the concourse was the "blackout times" for today.

We bought our "day roving" tickets in the ticket office, which meant that we could travel on the trains all day. The old fashioned tickets brought back old memories of pre-Beeching travels.

On the main station concourse a typical 1940s "front room" had been set up and, next to it, a grocer's shop, each staffed by costumed volunteers.

The grocer's shop had many tins of spam. "Yeuk" said M! "Great!" said the Monty Python team!

Everywhere we looked were uniformed or costumed volunteers. All the staff were in uniform and looking their best. Eventually, we discovered that today was a special day for the line as the railway's patron, HRH the Duke of Gloucester, was visiting to make awards to 20 volunteers, each of whom has served for more than 50 years!
We caught the 11:00am service from Kidderminster to Bridgnorth, a distance of 16 miles, stopping at four stations en-route. Our handsome carriage was typical of the era.

 

The stations all along the line are a joy and all decked out with bunting and union jacks.

Our train was pulled by a small goods engine that had to work quite hard to pull a long line of coaches.

There were a number of other engines in steam. This "Manor" class engine was driven by the Duke of Gloucester to the station where he made the presentation. And driven very smoothly, according to one lady.

On the way, we passed by a wild life park beside the line. Elephant and Rhinoceros were not something that we expected to see and M thought at first that they were wood carvings - until they moved!

At Bridgnorth, the end of the line, are the SVR's engine sheds where the locomotives are maintained and some were visible outside the front of the shed.

We returned to Kidderminster and couldn't resist doing the trip up and back again, sometimes with a steam engine and sometimes with a heritage diesel.
Most of the line is single track and is operated by a "token" system so that the engine can only travel on a specific section if it has the physical token for that section. As there is only one unique token for each section, which looks a bit like a tennis racket without strings, in theory it is impossible for two trains ever to be on the same bit of track.
We watched the process in fascination as the signalman held up the token for the next section, while collecting the token for the previous section from the engine driver as he went past (backwards).

We arrived back at 5:30, having travelled up and down the line twice. Brilliant!
On the way back to MM, we picked up a few groceries and crossed over the canal beneath the very handsome parish church of  St. Mary and All Saints that dominates Kidderminster.

It has a beautiful set of bells that chime the quarter hours and the hour and - a very special treat - at 9:00am each moring, it plays a clarion tune. Beautiful.
MM had the day off today.