'Very frustrating!' Further lineside fires mean another return to diesel services at Severn Valley Railway
A spate of lineside fires on land adjoining the Severn Valley Railway on Tuesday has prompted the decision to return to heritage diesel-hauled services for the third time this season, with effect from today.
While the situation has been described as "very frustrating" by the railway, they said it was "the right thing to do".
The fires were started by sparks or cinders from one of Severn Valley Railway's steam locomotives, and Shropshire Fire Service attended and successfully extinguished them.
Members of the railway's permanent way team gave assistance. Most of the fires took place in the Eardington Bank area, between Bridgnorth and Hampton Loade in Shropshire.
“During hot, dry weather, we have to be constantly alert to the risks of lineside fires,” said Steve Wainwright, Severn Valley Railway'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.”
This isn't the first time Severn Valley Railway has been plagued by lineside fires, with two blazing in one afternoon just last week.
The first blaze involved grass and undergrowth at side of the railway at Severn Side, Highley, at 2.13pm on Wednesday, August 24.
The second blaze overlapped the first incident with reports of a fire at Hampton Loade reaching Shropshire Fire & Rescue control at 2.29pm.
Steam services had resumed on the line two weeks ago, after switching to running heritage diesel services only during the heatwave.
This was due to the risk of lineside fires starting from ashes or cinders emitted by steam locomotives.
Severn Valley has also temporarily halted overnight services after the Russian invasion of Ukraine caused coal prices to soar.
The decision was made in early August to preserve coal reserves for the rest of the year, after exponential surge in coal prices of 148 per cent.
