Winter at the SVR: 28th December 2023

On a cold, wet and windy day in December 2023, I went to the railway to use up my remaining 'Freedom of the Line' tickets. This was an initiative by the SVR in which if you bought a normal day ticket or a ticket online for one of their special events you got a voucher signifying a free return trip. Considering that, for example, I myself ended up with several having booked tickets for several of the line's special events over the course of the year, you can imagine how it might've got a bit out of hand! Needless to say, the experiment wasn't repeated for 2024, and any outstanding tickets needed to be used up by the end of the year.

So this trip was a chance to do that, and I arrived in time for it to start waving while I waited for my train to arrive!

Said train was hauled by visiting USATC S160 Class locomotive, no. 2253 'Omaha.' The locomotive had arrived for the Autumn Gala and had unfortunately failed during it (though not before I managed to travel behind her, thankfully). My plan was to travel all the way up to Bridgnorth, back down to Highley then get the other steam train up to Bridgnorth, then travel back to Kidderminster. I.e. get footage of both engines climbing the banks at Highley and Eardington.

All was well, until I got to Hampton Loade behind 75069, where I heard that Omaha had, once again, failed, and had been replaced by Hagley Hall. Change of plans then, I'd be back home a bit later! I wasn't going to miss the chance to get a run up Eardington in the dark. It helped that I could easily switch over to the last train back to Kidderminster at Bridgnorth too.

Locomotives:
USATC S160 Class 2-8-0 no. 2253 'Omaha'
BR Class 40 1Co-Co1 no. 40106 'Atlantic Conveyor'
BR Standard Class 4 4-6-0 no. 75069
GWR 49xx Class 4-6-0 'Hall' no. 4930 'Hagley Hall'