A link to the photo gallery from this trip is at the bottom of this article
The sunniest day of 2017 thus far gave me the perfect opportunity for a full day at the stunning Severn Valley Railway.
The fun started before I arrived, though, with a short ride between Birmingham’s New Street and Snow Hill stations on the newly opened Midland Metro link across the city. The system offers a £1 “short hop” fare for passengers travelling within the city centre zone, although with no ticket machines at the stops and no conductors it’s often impossible to pay the fare!
Stopping at Stourbridge Junction on the way to Kidderminster allowed for some photos of the unique Class 139 “Parry People Mover” units on the Stourbridge Town line. On arrival at Kidderminster, there was also time to video one of Chiltern Railways’ Class 68-hauled expresses leaving for London Marylebone:
After a brief walk into town for some bus photos I arrived at the SVR station at Kidderminster Town to find a DRS Class 57 unexpectedly sitting in the platform with a rake of Northern Belle stock. This slightly delayed the departure of my DMU to Arley, but once it was out of the way I had the opportunity to sample the Class 108 set accelerating rapidly to make up the lost time.
A stop at Arley allowed for a visit to the beautiful riverside village there, before a ride on to Bridgnorth behind a Southern Railway West Country Class. Bridgnorth itself is home to a cliff railway, so after a trip into town to sample that and see the sights, I headed back down to Kidderminster behind an LMS Ivatt Class 2.
All in all this was a fantastic day, with perfect weather and a great range of heritage traction on offer, not to mention the two heritage buses in Kidderminster Town car park!
The full photo gallery from the trip is here.
Enjoy!