Chocolate lure for Easter visitors to the Severn Valley Railway
THE SEVERN VALLEY Railway is putting an ingredient into the mix for Easter which could just prove irresistible to family visitors. Chocolate!
The Kidderminster-to-Bridgnorth steam ‘heritage’ line is offering giant bars of chocolate – and giving away Sunday lunches on its ‘Severn Valley Limited’ dining train – as prizes in its ’Great Easter Egg Hunt’ competition, which begins on Good Friday (April 10th ) and runs through to Easter Monday (April 13th ).
Visitors who ride the 16-mile Severn Valley line during the bank holiday weekend will be challenged to spot twelve Easter eggs – actually coloured posters of eggs each bearing a different number – ‘hidden’ at, or in the immediate area of the six main stations on the line.
Winners of the ‘Sunday Lunch for four’ vouchers, SVR travel tickets - and giant chocolate bars - will be decided by a tie-deciding slogan entered by those who successfully manage to find all 12 eggs.
Explained SVR Marketing Manager John Leach: “There’s a national affection for steam locomotives, but we’re also a nation of chocolate lovers, so we’re really appealing to the senses of sight, sound, smell and taste. It seems the perfect combination. Everyone loves the challenge of a hunt, and at Easter, what better incentive could there be for anyone to take part than the thought of winning a giant bar of chocolate? “
The egg posters will be visible from platforms or on public walking routes in station areas, the SVR stresses, and there will be no need for passengers to wander off the beaten track to spot them.
Sixteen consecutive days of steam operations on the SVR began last Saturday, and trains continue to run right through the Easter Bank Holiday and all of next week, up to and including Sunday April 19th. Trains will run approximately every 75 minutes, increasing to one every 45 minutes on Easter Sunday and Bank Holiday Monday, when five different steam locomotives will be in steam simultaneously.
A star attraction throughout the Easter Weekend, and also the following Friday, Saturday and Sunday, will be former British Railways ‘Pacific’ No.71000 Duke of Gloucester - a crack express design that was intended as the forerunner of a new generation of steam locomotives - until BR elected to pursue a policy of mass dieselisation in the 1960s.
Normally based at the East Lancs Railway at Bury, Duke of Gloucester is on a short-term visit to the SVR, and scheduled to work the first train from Bridgnorth each day (10.55 on Good Friday, 11.00 on Easter Saturday, and 11.10 on both easter Sunday and Monday). From the Kidderminster end of the railway, first trains get under way at 10.25 on Good Friday, 9.50 on Easter Saturday, and 9.55 on Easter Sunday and Monday.
For visitors to the Railway’s impressive new £5 million Engine House Visitor Centre at Highley on Easter Saturday, there will a special line-up of MG Magnette cars, as members of the MG Magnette Car Club stage their Easter rally.
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