The Severn Valley Railway has confirmed the first guest for its Autumn Steam Gala will be 35006 Peninsular & Oriental S N Co, which will make its first-ever appearance at the heritage line during the four-day event from 18 to 21 September.
And, in a special move to celebrate the SVR’s 60th anniversary year, it will re-introduce overnight running on the Friday and Saturday nights of the event.
SVR managing director, Jonathan ‘Gus’ Dunster, said, ‘It’s especially exciting for us to make this announcement, as 35006 has never visited us before. We’re grateful to both the 35006 Locomotive Company Ltd and the Gloucestershire & Warwickshire Railway for agreeing to its appearance at our event.
‘It’s particularly pleasing to be able to bring back overnight running at our autumn steam gathering. This will see the railway operating continuously for a 60-hour stint, from early Friday morning to mid-evening on the Sunday. We’ll have two services in operation, and these will stop at all stations. Mounting this sort of operation is a huge undertaking, and we can only do it from time to time. However, the SVR’s 60th anniversary is one of those special occasions, and we can’t wait!
‘For this event of course, we’ll have the full line open again, something we are very much looking forward to seeing, following the repair of the landslip towards the northern end of the line. And we hope to be able to make a further guest announcement soon.’
The event will also see six members of the SVR’s resident steam fleet in action, including 4930 ‘Hagley Hall’, 7714, 7802 ‘Bradley Manor’, 13268, 75069 and 1450 operating as an Autotrain.
Advance tickets are discounted by up to 10% and great value multi-day rovers are available at svr.co.uk.