Great Western (SVR) Association

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The Association's locomotive 9303 (7325) at Kidderminster, June 2019
The Great Western (SVRSevern Valley Railway) Association is a registered charity (No 1078718). It exists primarily to preserve and restore items of rolling stock for service on the SVRSevern Valley Railway, in particular GWRGreat Western Railway carriages from the 1920s to 1940s.

History

The Association began in 1968 as the 'Great Western Rolling Stock Fund' (also referred to as the 'GWRGreat Western Railway Coach Fund'), and quickly began to accumulate pre-nationalisation carriages which were being withdrawn from service by BRBritish Rail or British Railways at the time.[1] In 1972 a separate group, the ‘Great Western Locomotive and Carriage Society’, was formed with the intention of saving a locomotive, Collett Mogul 9303/7325, from Barry Scrapyard.[2] The two groups shared common aims and members, and in 1973 merged to form the Great Western (SVRSevern Valley Railway) Association,[3] the somewhat convoluted title being chosen to avoid any confusion with the Didcot-based Great Western Society.[4] The first Annual General Meeting of the new Association was held on 18 May 1974.[5]

The Association’s 25th Anniversary was noted in SVRSevern Valley Railway News in 1998.[3] The Constitution which governs the Association’s status as a registered charity was adopted on 24 October 1998.[6]

It ran a special train on 12 May 2019 to celebrate “the 50th Anniversary of the Association on the Severn Valley Railway”.[7] This anniversary relates to the 1968 origins rather than the Association’s formation in 1973.

Membership and fund raising

The Association is a membership body, by payment of a subscription. An illustrated members' Newsletter is nominally published twice yearly.[8]

The Association operates a shop at Bewdley selling books and other railwayana. This is located in GWR 1145 Toplight 'Snake C' Passenger Brake adjacent to the car park.

In 2019, for the Association’s 50th year, it launched a fund to return Mogul 7325 to the CollettCharles Benjamin Collett, Chief Mechanical Engineer (CME) of the Great Western Railway 1922-1941 GWRGreat Western Railway condition of 9303.

The Association is a minor shareholder of Severn Valley Railway (Holdings) PLC.[9]

Rolling stock

Acquisitions and disposals

The MogulLocomotive with a 2-6-0 wheel configuration was purchased in 1974 and moved to the SVRSevern Valley Railway in 1975; it is still owned by the Association.

Acquisition of further redundant ex DepartmentalRolling stock used for the railway’s own functions (engineering etc.) rather than for general passenger or goods traffic. Stock continued in the 1970s. By mid-1998 the Association owned 14 carriages and ‘brown vehicles’.[10] Since that time:

As of 2020 the Association owns 20 carriages (three of which are owned by Association members), one Siphon G Milk Van, and a Macaw B Bogie Bolster.[11]. A full list of SVRSevern Valley Railway-based rolling stock owned by the Association may be found here.

Restorations

Only 3 of the carriages have not yet been returned to working order.[12] The association’s restoration of GWR 9103 Nondescript Saloon was the overall Winner in the Heritage Railway Association’s Carriage and Wagon Competition for 2015.[13]

The Association’s most recently completed restoration project was Art Deco Brake 3rd 650 which entered service in November 2015. As of 2019 Bow End Composite 6045 is internally complete and awaiting final painting and bogie overhaul, while work on 4786 is now in progress at Bewdley[14].

See also

References

  1. GW(SVR)A website ‘Background’ (retrieved 8 February 2019)
  2. SVRSevern Valley Railway News 25
  3. 3.0 3.1 SVRSevern Valley Railway News 128, “The Great Western (SVRSevern Valley Railway) Association celebrates 25 years”
  4. SVRSevern Valley Railway News 157
  5. SVRSevern Valley Railway News 34
  6. Charities Commission website
  7. Leaflet circulated to members, January 2019
  8. GW(SVR)A website ‘How to help’ (retrieved 8 February 2017)
  9. Full list of shareholders at 24 June 2016
  10. SVRSevern Valley Railway Stock Book Ninth Edition
  11. Stock list on the GW(SVR)A web site (retrieved January 2020)
  12. GW(SVR)AGreat Western (SVR) Association booklet
  13. GW(SVR)A website (retrieved 6 January 2017)
  14. GWRGreat Western Railway(SVRASevern Valley Railway Association) Newsletter published Jan 2019

Links