Severn Valley Railway Spring Diesel Gala 19th-22nd May 2022

Severn Valley Railway Spring Diesel Gala 2022 continued the Railway’s successful 2021 events with around 4,800 passengers attending, more than the last comparable pre covid event in 2019. With a substantial nine visiting locomotives and the home fleet this made for an extensive range of motive power. Late additions to the line up were Class 33 D6515 courtesy of 71A locomotives; 68003 ‘Astute’ courtesy of Direct Rail Services; and GB Railfreight’s 69005 ‘Eastleigh’, 73107 ‘Tracy’ and 73136 ‘Mhairi’.

Unfortunately, 67006 ‘Royal Sovereign’ which was due to attend was instead drafted in to haul a UK Railtours’ excursion from Paddington to Penzance due to unavailability of other suitable traction for the tour.

Sharing the limelight as stars of the show were Class 33 D6515 courtesy of 71A locomotives and 69005 in a matching BR Green livery, providing the first public run of a Class 69 on a heritage railway. There was only one minor failure involving D6515 on the evening of Friday 20th May with a broken pipe to the vacuum control circuit governor causing the loco to fail on the evening service which put the highly anticipated double header run of the 33 and 69 on the Saturday morning in doubt. Thankfully this was quickly attended to by the owning group’s support crew, ensuring it operated as planned on the subsequent two days and the double header was able to run.