Visitors return to Worth Valley galas

Taking full advantage of its new-found freedom to bring in guest locomotives by road, the keighley & Worth Valley Railway hosted a gWR ‘Manor’ and rebuilt Bulleid ‘Pacific’ for its ‘autumn Steam Spectacular’ on October 7-9 - and was rewarded with an increased number of visitors through the gate. With the lifting of the ban on low-loader movements at Ingrow, imposed following an incident with ‘West Country’ No. 34092 City of Wells, one of the first engines to arrive was another Bulleid ‘Battle of Britain’ No. 34053 Sir Keith Park. It was joined by ‘Manor’ No. 7822 Foxcote Manor, following its appearance at the North Yorkshire Moors Railway the previous weekend. But this Bulleid caused different problems when it was discovered that its sanders were not working, the light-footed ‘Pacific’ taking one hour and seven minutes to ascend the steeply graded branch from Keighley to Oxenhope on the first train of the event - a journey normally timetabled to take 25-30 minutes. On the plus side, a ‘Pines Express’ re-creation ensued when ‘4F’ No. 43924 gave assistance as pilot engine. Detailing other difficulties that caused timekeeping to slip, organiser Kieran Pilsworth said: “We also had a failure of the water tower The two guest engines for the KWVR gala, ‘Manor’ No. 7822 Foxcote Manor and ‘Battle of Britain’ No. 34053 Sir Keith Park, storm out of Damems loop on October 9. BRIAN DOBBS at Keighley, and on Sunday a key member of staff fell ill - and you can’t write a timetable for things like that.” But he declared himself very satisfied at an event which had hosted a total of ten locomotives, and the LNER crane, in steam: “The passenger figures were nearly 30% up on any of the previous four galas, and we think it was one of the most successful we’ve had with visiting locomotives.” Another two guests are being explored for the next gala on March 3-5 2017. “Contrary to what’s been posted on one internet forum, we don’t have any more road transport issues,” said Kieran, “and now that we can get engines in, we’re going to keep doing it.”