I visited the SVR gala on Saturday and having bumped into a colleague at Bewdley did so again on Sunday. I have got to say they know how to put a gala on even if the local cows decided to get a little bit to close to the action! Another great selection of locos even if some of the allocations were a bit maddening. I think I get why but it is still maddening! How they put these rosters together is incredible. It was a fantastic event.
This is a hell of a list of locos:
- D7018
- 55009
- 56049
- 57010, 57306, 57604
- 59001
- 67006
- D9551
- D8568
- 20048, 20189, 20142
- 33108
- D821
- 46045
- 50033 & 50049
- D1015
- 09107
- 101 DMU
I don't think you could get them all in one day and I don't think I managed it in 2 days!
I was a bit apprehensive about the Saturday as it has been mad in the past but this year it seemed a lot less crazy. Perhaps the GM stuff put off the hardcore bashers. I have never been worried about that sort of thing and just want an interesting and enjoyable day out. There were few top men this year as I guess most Deltic top men are no longer with us and no one wants to admit to being a class 57 top man!
The DMU drags were a fantastic idea as it allowed many different locos to be sampled in a comfortable environment and without the vehicles being swamped although a Deltic hauling a 3 car 101 was perhaps a tad over powered
I thought the 56 and/59 runs would be idiot magnets but they were also quite relaxed. The only issue on the Saturday was the youth team. Sadly there were quite a lot of 12-15 year olds acting up, rushing about, shouting silly things and making hand gestures out of the windows. It is tiresome and embarrassing lads.
The Sunday was very calm and relaxed. Only issue was a pod of youth teamers acting up and swearing ( standard lack of confidence/trying to look like the big man stuff) which dragged the ambience down a touch but we just moved away from then and got another beer, something they couldn't
