City News

A Classic Transport Day 2010

A Severn Valley Railway ‘special event’ devised nine years ago to create some impetus for visitors on a winter Saturday , has blossomed to become one of the biggest  and most spectacular transport gatherings in the West Midlands catchment.

Classic Transport Day which is being rolled out on no fewer than seven different sites on the line between Kidderminster and Highley next Saturday, February 20th , will bring together almost 170 classic cars, vans and motorcycles – the pride and joy of vehicle owners from across the West Midlands, Worcestershire, Herefordshire, Shropshire and Warwickshire.

Until now the event has been known as 1960s Transport Day, with its main focus on vehicles which would have been in regular daily use on local roads during the ‘swinging 60s’.

Now the title has been changed to Classic Transport Day to reflect the fact that ‘classic’ cars built over seven decades, from the 1920s right through to the 1980s, will be on show

They’ll range from an elegant 1924 Rolls Royce – the pride and joy of Halesowen enthusiast David Tranter  (to be found under the glass canopy of Kidderminster station concourse), to a luxurious 1988 Bentley Turbo (on display in Kidderminster station car park).

Display sites for this glittering array of some of the British motoring industry’s best – and some of the worst – machines to run on wheels, will be at Kidderminster, (station forecourt, concourse and car park), Bewdley, Arley and Highley stations, and at The Engine House Visitor Centre at Highley.

Cars that were once household names and icons of British prestige in the 20th century will come to the fore again, in glorious polished black and chrome, and a multitude of other shades.

The Sunbeam Rapier and the Hillman Minx, the Morris Minor 1000 and the Mini Clubman,  the Ford Prefect and the Vauxhall Victor, the Triumph Herald and the Singer Chamois – marques and models now sadly confined to history, will all be there.

The line-up of some 50 cars, vans and motorcycles at Bewdley station includes some of the most distinctive names ever carried on bonnets and radiator caps – names such as Alvis, Daimler, Rolls Royce and Jensen.

There will be vehicles you’ve perhaps never even heard of before – like the Willys Overland - and vehicles like the Messerschmitt KR200, the roadholding of which many motorists of the day regarded as being decidedly dubious!

Says SVR Marketing Manager John Leach: “We’ve been saying since we started running this event in 2001, that if you come along, we’ll show you your old car – or at least one just like it. Since then, the diversity of entries has only increased, it really does feel as if we’ve got ‘one of everything’”.

“Best of all, we make no charge for admission to the seven display sites – visitors need only buy a train ticket to see them.”

Classic Transport Day is on the last weekend of a nine-day programme of daily steam operation on the SVR, coinciding with the schools’ half-term holidays. Seven trains will operate in each direction between Kidderminster and Highley during Classic Vehicle Day, the first from Kidderminster at 10.25am, and the first from Highley at 11.27am.
     
Early risers will get the bonus opportunity to see a special main line steam excursion run through Kidderminster on Classic Transport Day, en route from Birmingham to Swindon and Didcot.
The train - ‘double-headed’ by GWR ‘Hall’ class engine No.4965 Rood Ashton Hall and GWR ‘Castle’ class locomotive No. 5043 Earl of Mount Edgcumbe, is booked to pass through Kidderminster at 08.55am.