Lineside fires lead to return of diesel services at Severn Valley Railway
A large lineside fire on land adjoining the Severn Valley Railway at Eardington has prompted the heritage railway to return to diesel-hauled services for the third time this season.
The fire was started by sparks or cinders from one of the SVR’s steam locomotives at around noon yesterday.
Six fire appliances from Shropshire Fire Service attended and successfully extinguished the blaze which involved several seats of fire on the railway embankment and 5 Acres of field and undergrowth.
A number of other lineside fires along the railway have also taken place in recent days.
“During hot, dry weather, we have to be constantly alert to the risks of lineside fires,” said Steve Wainwright, the SVR’s head of operations. “We have already switched to heritage diesel-only services twice this season; first in July and then earlier this month. Now we’re repeating the measure for third time, in order to avoid further fires.
“It is very frustrating for us, but this is the right thing to do. Once again, we hope that our visitors will understand the difficulty of the situation we’re in. In fact, we’re extremely lucky that we have a superb fleet of heritage diesel locomotives that we can turn to at times like this, otherwise we’d be faced with having to suspend all passenger services.
“The heritage diesel services will run until at least Friday this week, when we’ll review the situation.”
