Severn Valley Railway autumn steam gala -- overnight running

[181]

Does anyone have any experience of the overnight services at this gala? The maybe idealised image that I have in my mind is being able to replicate long-distance journeys of decades gone by by finding an empty compartment in which to lie down undisturbed while being trundled up and down the line all night; on the other hand perhaps it might involve being wedged into a crowded train for an hour's journey and then evicted onto the platform to compete for a space on the next departure (I see that in the timetable these trains are shown as 'local train (limited accommodation)'. If spending the night on these trains, I'd expect not to get a great deal of sleep -- thinking of another current thread, it would be a pity to waste the experience by spending too much of the time unconscious -- but I'd prefer not to be too uncomfortable, or at least to know what I was letting myself in for.

 

[4141]

Certainly when we've done it - albeit a few years ago - we had a compartment, stretched out, and used it for the whole night with no problem. Worth it for Eardington Bank at 3.30am with an enthusiastic footplate crew, believe me!

 

[satisnek]

Compartments will need to be bagged early, in what's still drinking time for some of us Having said that, I'm not sure if there were any compartments in the overnights last time (which will be 2 years ago now).

Two short formations ply the line through the night, so it's possible to stay on one train all night and they're not particularly crowded (but be warned of alcohol fuelled muppets who can't comprehend that some people just want to have a kip at three o'clock in the morning!). However, I think that all the TSOs (open coaches) are now fitted with high colour temperature LED lighting, so it will be a bit grim. To be honest, I think the glory days are now over.

 

[LowLevel]

They aren't that keen on people camping out in the overnights (if you smell the coaches in the morning you'll understand part of the reason why) so they often swap rakes during the night or try and run open coaches.

Otherwise you end up with 2 people dossed out in each compartment and those who want to stay up have little or no seating available without getting into an argument. The SVR make it pretty clear the overnights aren't designed to be in lieu of a hotel room.

 

[181]

In case anyone's interested, I spent 24 hours on the SVR at the weekend. I boarded one of the overnight sets comparatively early in the evening; of the four carriages, one complete one (partly first class, but I think they may have been in effect declassified for the duration of the gala) and one half brake had compartments. When I boarded, the compartments in the half brake appeared to be already occupied by people who had settled in for the night (some appeared to have brought sleeping bags), but those in the other still had daytime travellers in them; I found a (3rd class) seat, and had the compartment to myself by about midnight, so although two people later occupied the other seat I was able to get enough sleep to be reasonably functional on Sunday, while being awake for enough of the night not to miss the experience.

I avoided the other overnight set because it didn't come into service until around midnight, and had quite a long layover at Kidderminster which might have been unpleasant if I'd had to leave the train; from what I heard, an unscheduled set swap meant that people did indeed have to hang around on the platform for an hour.

 

[satisnek]

Glad you enjoyed it!

I didn't stay on the trains all through the night but caught the 0030 back from Bridgnorth on both nights, so I got a flavour of it. The one on Saturday morning was the Muppet Special - many of them swigging from bottles and of course they couldn't confine themselves to their seating bay/compartment! At least two of the coaches were infected so you wouldn't have got much sleep in those. However, I subsequently heard that they alighted at Kidderminster and the train was OK after that. The Sunday morning working (which was the one you were on?) was much, much quieter.

Have to say, though, that the whole gala weekend was rather less busy than I expected.

 

[RichmondCommu]

Have to say, though, that the whole gala weekend was rather less busy than I expected.

We attended on the Friday and all the through trains were busy.

 

[181]

Glad you enjoyed it!

I didn't stay on the trains all through the night but caught the 0030 back from Bridgnorth on both nights, so I got a flavour of it. The one on Saturday morning was the Muppet Special - many of them swigging from bottles and of course they couldn't confine themselves to their seating bay/compartment! At least two of the coaches were infected so you wouldn't have got much sleep in those. However, I subsequently heard that they alighted at Kidderminster and the train was OK after that. The Sunday morning working (which was the one you were on?) was much, much quieter.

Have to say, though, that the whole gala weekend was rather less busy than I expected.

Thankyou; I was there from Saturday into Sunday -- just as well I wasn't 24 hours earlier, it seems.

I hadn't been to an SVR gala before, but it seemed quite busy to me during the day, with at least one 8-coach train full and standing.

 

[E759]

Weighing up the Pros and Cons of doing Saturday night through to Sunday morning this year (2018) as I see that is again possible. I've attended the Summer Solstice at a well known location a fair few times so am familiar with all-nighters in the company of people that like that sort of thing.

I've only visited the SVR once before, this year, and the visit was constrained by the faff of getting there and getting back on Advances having to leave home early and arrive back late. So a definite Pro for me is a more leisurely trip Down to the SVR and back with less pressure on connections.

I would have thought in the H&S enlightened age we now live that Total Muppets would be ejected from the train? I assume there is a Guard on board not OBS or DOO I've not seen a Policy from the SVR yet, again I'd be surprised if there wasn't one. Unless I'm misconstruing the behaviour from these very limited postings on the subject.

So I am interested in further stories from 2017 and others that are contemplating overnighting. Many thanks.

 

[satisnek]

Weighing up the Pros and Cons of doing Saturday night through to Sunday morning this year (2018) as I see that is again possible. I've attended the Summer Solstice at a well known location a fair few times so am familiar with all-nighters in the company of people that like that sort of thing.

I've only visited the SVR once before, this year, and the visit was constrained by the faff of getting there and getting back on Advances having to leave home early and arrive back late. So a definite Pro for me is a more leisurely trip Down to the SVR and back with less pressure on connections.

I would have thought in the H&S enlightened age we now live that Total Muppets would be ejected from the train? I assume there is a Guard on board not OBS or DOO I've not seen a Policy from the SVR yet, again I'd be surprised if there wasn't one. Unless I'm misconstruing the behaviour from these very limited postings on the subject.

So I am interested in further stories from 2017 and others that are contemplating overnighting. Many thanks.

Please don't be put off by muppet activity - it's the exception rather than the rule these days. Regarding those I mentioned upthread, I was told the following day that they were from another heritage railway, which shall remain nameless. But indeed in the past I have witnessed this behaviour, albeit milder, from the SVR's own young volunteers on a daytime train. While I can certainly see the need to encourage 'new blood' into the volunteer workforce, I can't help feeling that perhaps management should lay down the law about travelling in groups, getting drunk and making lots of noise, whether on their railway or someone else's.

 

[E759]

Please don't be put off by muppet activity - it's the exception rather than the rule these days. Regarding those I mentioned upthread, I was told the following day that they were from another heritage railway, which shall remain nameless. But indeed in the past I have witnessed this behaviour, albeit milder, from the SVR's own young volunteers on a daytime train. While I can certainly see the need to encourage 'new blood' into the volunteer workforce, I can't help feeling that perhaps management should lay down the law about travelling in groups, getting drunk and making lots of noise, whether on their railway or someone else's.

Thanks very much satisnek for your very quick response! That's given me a further boost to give it a go

 

[kje7812]

I would have thought in the H&S enlightened age we now live that Total Muppets would be ejected from the train? I assume there is a Guard on board not OBS or DOO I've not seen a Policy from the SVR yet, again I'd be surprised if there wasn't one. Unless I'm misconstruing the behaviour from these very limited postings on the subject.

Past couple of galas, there have been some hired security on the trains as a just in case. Overall though, it's very much a minority that cause any real issue.
Friday/Saturday is usually a bit quieter and less prone to issues.
There will be compartments as it's an eight coach set split into 2 for the overnights, and there's no set which is purely opens.
7802 and 43106 are the booked locos this year for the overnights.

 

[E759]

Past couple of galas, there have been some hired security on the trains as a just in case. Overall though, it's very much a minority that cause any real issue.
Friday/Saturday is usually a bit quieter and less prone to issues.
There will be compartments as it's an eight coach set split into 2 for the overnights, and there's no set which is purely opens.
7802 and 43106 are the booked locos this year for the overnights.

Thank you very much for the info which is very reassuring. I think I'll switch to Fri/Sat.

PS: Just 10 digits short of being your Manor; roll on 2020!

 

[kje7812]

Outline timetable for those who want to browse:
http://www.svr.co.uk/pdf/Special Events/SVR Autumn Steam Gala 2018 - Public Timetables.pdf

 

[kje7812]

Having seen this year's WTT, there's a couple of changes from the previous pattern.
Rather than one set split in two, 2 sets will be shortened giving a 5 and a 6 coach trains.
The teak set is running as 5 with 2701 and two opens removed, and set M is running as 6 with a SK and TSO removed.
Thus compartment-wise M will have a BCK, BSK and SK (17 compartments in total), while set N should have a BCK and BSK (10 compartments in total)