Schools Class visits the Severn Valley Railway Autumn Gala

Beautiful Cheltenham

Anyone who knows me knows of my passion for all things railway. I always loved the LMS as a child because I had the 'City of London' as my centrepiece on my Hornby Railway from the age of 9 or 10. But living in Staffordshire and holidaying in mid Wales I became enamoured with the GWR with its halls, castles, prairies and wonderful panniers. The highlight of my youth was a visit to Wolverhampton Low Level in its last days and there sitting snorting on the middle line was the 'County of Berkshire'. As most will know the counties did not survive into preservation and I am following the 'County of Glamorgan' new build with interest. That's how things stood for many years, 30 at least, until a new type of engine came into my sphere. These were Bullieds spam cans and there rebuilds into the beautiful Bulleid Pacifics that  have survived in such numbers as to be quite common on most preserved lines. These are wonderful machines that so evoke the landscape on which they worked. The south of England.

Cheltenham

Of all the places in England the home counties are the counties I know the least. My eastward travels came to a halt at Southampton and my southern travels at London. This is not to say that I and never been to Kent, Sussex or Surrey. Dover for the ferry, Gatwick for the airport were familiar place names but Ashford, Tunbridge Wells, East Grinstead, I knew little. Until I started to see pictures of engines that came before the Bullied's pacifics, the engines that ran these places before the second world war. The contemporaries of Royal Scots, B1's and castles. Names like King Arthur, Lord Nelson, M7, D1, Terrier, Maunsell, Urie and Stroudley. But above it was the praise heaped on the almost magical 'Schools Class'. They even had an exciting classification letter, V.

Cheltenham

Anyone unfamiliar with the Schools class, all they really need to know is that Maunsell's 4-6-0 King Arthurs and Lord Nelsons were too heavy and too big for certain routes so a lighter engine was commissioned. The schools were the result but while they were lighter and only a 4-4-0 they ended up being almost as powerful as the engines they replaced. This was unprecedented and they have earned the title of the most powerful 4-4-0's ever built. So they have become a bit of a holy grail for me. I had gone to the Watercress line last year and saw many southern region locos but sadly no schools. I have made plans to go to the Bluebell Line this year but it costs a lot of money so far from my home in mid Wales. So I nearly fell off my chair when I read the rosta for the SVR autumn gala. A schools was coming to the gala. For those who again don't know, 3 schools survived, Repton on the North Yorkshire, Stowe on the Bluebell and Cheltenham on the Watercress lines. Cheltenham is the promised jewel. Let me tell you people I will be glued. N.B. Originally I was going to supplement this article but I felt it stood well on it's own. The next one describes the day.