Spa Valley Railway - Winter Steam Up!

Join us for an exciting new event taking place on Saturday 29th & Sunday 30th December with Mince Pies too!

In a change to our previously advertised Green timetable, we're increasing our service and running a Special Event between Christmas and New Year so join us to blow away those post Xmas blues as we run TWO Steam Locomotives and a recently arrived Heritage Diesel!

Joining us for Christmas is the 1901 build Great Western Railway Locomotive No. 813 visting us courtesy of the Severn Valley Railway and the GWR 813 Preservation Fund, this weekend will be the only chance to experience the engine operating on her own trains as the other remaining services for 2018 and into early 2019 will likely be a top and tailed arrangement with a heritage diesel.

Running alongside 813 will be another visiting Steam Locomotive No. 1982 'Ring Haw' courtesy of the North Norfolk Railway. This delightful little buy extremely powerful Hunslet last visited us during 2017 and makes a welcome return to the Spa Valley Railway where she will be based away from her Norfolk home for our 2019 season.

The final locomotive to operate over this special weekend will be a freshly arrived and also rather rare heritage diesel, Class 31/4 31430 'Sister Dora' is arriving at the Spa Valley Railway in October and this event will be the first time she has operated other than our Beer Festival!

All trains that are hauled by a Steam Locomotive will (subject to there being no show stoppers!) have steam heating, all trains hauled by the Class 31 will be unheated however the Steam Locomotive will provide heating for as long as possible prior to the 'Sister Dora' hauled trips.

Locomotives:
• Great Western Railway No. 813
• Hunslet No. 1982 'Ring Haw'
• Class 31/4 31430 'Sister Dora'

Coaches:
• A: Rake of 4 MK1/2s with Bar Car 'Kate'.
• B: Rake of 2 MK1s creating a nice branch line feel!

Fares
• Adult - £12.00
• Child - £1.00 (Yes just £1!)
• Senior - £11.00
• Family - £26.00

Timetable:
Services will operate to our standard two train timetable with the first train of each day being double headed by 813 and 'Ring Haw'.
Tunbridge Wells West departures: 10:20, 11:10, 12:00, 12:50, 13:40, 14:30, 15:20 and 16:10.
Eridge departures: 11:10, 12:00, 12:50, 13:40, 14:30, 15:20, 16:10 and 17:00.

A full timetable with the allocation of locomotives can be found here.

Driver for a Tenner:
A unique opportunity to have a go at driving (yes driving!) a real life Steam or Diesel Locomotive is available at Eridge between trains! You can take to the controls and under the instruction of one of our drivers move the locomotive from Platform 2 over to Platform 3 where it will then be stabled pending its next departure. A short movement but an opportunity not to be missed! Bookings can be made via this webpage soon.

Mince Pies:
Available from Bar Car 'Kate' on Coach set A will be a Mince Pie for everyone travelling (subject to availability!) so don't delay making your way up to the bar carriage, once they're gone they're gone but there'll be plenty of other treats on offer for you!

Tickets for this event can be booked in advance on our website here.

 

A reminder that this weekend will see GWR 813 and Hunslet 'Ring Haw' out alongside Class 31 31430 'Sister Dora'.

Timetable here: https://www.spavalleyrailway.co.uk/shopimages/Winter Steam Up Public Timetable.pdf

 

Slightly disappointing day today. For a number of reasons, trains got later and later as the day progressed resulting in the last two runs with set B being cancelled. 73140 attached to some trains for reasons that were not explained. Buffet car on set A closed after first train and remained closed for the rest of the day.

 

Sorry it didn't go quite to plan. The 73 was added as 813 is limited to 4x MK1 and the Queen Mary BV exceeded this. It was then used during the day as we were experiencing issues with some engines. Resolved by Sunday.

The bar car was closed as we had pre-booked catering options and I had to temporarily leave the bar to visit a fellow Director who was taken into hospital yesterday. The ultimate answer is we need more volunteers to come and join us, especially in catering.

We run these catering services to bring in a source of income. This was done because for the same period last year we had around 100 passengers over the 4 days and it generated significant losses. To be honest it was hardly worth opening for us financially to between Xmas and New Year in 2017/18.

So this year I was not anticipating the 565 people that did visit us on the Saturday alone! I've not checked Sundays figures yet it from the footplate of 813 it looked very busy!

I hope this is useful in explaining the situation. Why not join us? We desperately need volunteers!

 

Would love to join you, yet you are 300+ miles away

 

I attended yesterday and had a thoroughly enjoyable time, thanks to all involved and I'm glad it seems to have been a success. Trains ran without significant delays and a problem with watering 813 at Eridge in the late afternoon seemed to be quickly resolved. I attach below my video from the day.

 

Thank you for sharing that video - the night-time stuff especially was wonderful

For all the supposed glamour of the 'big engines', you can't beat the small workaday stuff. Class 31s were a soundtrack to my youth, whether flying up the ECML on a bullion train or rumbling along with an unfitted goods, via the short 5-coach Norwich-Birmingham services.

The small tanks with just a few coaches really do remind us what branch lines were like.

 

Its nice to know i t bringz memorys back 4 people like yerself if u lived by the emcl in the blue era i was at the yorkshire dales railway another industrial preservation group in skipton north yorks and they were running a hunslet 0.6.0. Austerity tank and it makes me feel proud somwhere like leeds hunslet built thease mighty tank loco,s as like the hudswell clarke on yer video were built

 

Im from near leeds and some o my ancestors helped build thease locos at thease works

 

I did, BR Blue is what I remember (with the odd escapee still in green even in the mid-70s) so well.