Kidderminster
Tornado strikes the Severn Valley
Yesterday we drove to Kidderminster to visit the Severn Valley Railway, specifically to see the A1 class “Tornado“. The first train of the day was hauled by “Royal Scot” which left Kidderminster at 10.30, arriving at Bridgnorth just over an hour later.
Royal Scot
We caught our first glimpse of Tornado as we passed through Hampton Loade, the penultimate station on the journey.
Alighting at Bridgnorth, the northerly terminus of the SVR, we walked into town and had some lunch at “Bamboo” which sits next to the bridge over the river. We both had pie & mash and then we went to explore the town, first Lowtown and then Hightown which we reached by means of the funicular railway.
Funicular Railway
After walking around in the late October sunshine, we made our way back to the station and waited for Tornado to arrive. Authenticity is important on this heritage railway and sure enough, they even had the trains running late! Eventually Tornado steamed into the station, ran around the train of coaches and prepared for the trip back to Kidderminster.
The light was starting to fade when we arrived at Kidderminster but there was still a lot of interest as once again the engine was uncoupled and moved to the other end of the train.
Sue steaming with excitement!
So that was it, we had finally caught up with Tornado with the bonus of seeing Royal Scot into the bargain.
Birmingham-on-Sea
Well, we made it to Stourport on Severn, also known as Birmingham on Sea. After a week afloat, mostly through they county of Staffordshire, we crossed into Worcestershire and tied up near the Black Star pub.
Our day began with us setting off just before seven o’clock and It was another hour before we encountered another boat on the move, at a bridge of course. We carried on and eventually reached Cookley tunnel where the canal passes under a row of houses. Next up was Debdale lock which has a sort of cave cut Into the rock next to it, an old stable apparently. There’s something wrong with the levels here and one of the ground paddles is jammed open. With the lock still draining, Sue alerted me to the fact that Caxton was stuck on the bottom. My initial reaction was to run a bit of water in but obviously that just made it impossible to open the bottom gates. In the end we muddled through and escaped the clutches of Debdale lock.
We later bumped into Graham Booth, a regular contributor to Waterways World magazine and whose boat we had passed a little while earlier. Graham recognised the boat and is a friend of Joe & Lesley, we had a brief chat about boats and blogs before Graham carried on walking his dogs along the towpath.
We continued our descent through Kidderminster and saw a black steam engine in LMS livery running light (engine only) across the viaduct over the canal. At Falling Sands lock, Sue was talking to three ladies who were out on a canalside walk. They mentioned that they had noticed that it always seemed to be men driving the boats while the women worked the locks. As Sue explained that very often this was because the women didn’t want to drive, a man cycled along the towpath between them. As he passed me he said, with a cheeky grin, “L Plates, that’s what they need!”. It made me laugh but I’m not sure what would have happened had the group of four females heard him and then got hold of him!
We reached Stourport by half past twelve and secured a good mooring above the lock which leads into the basins. After showering, we took the short walk to the river where we had lunch in the Angel. It is a year and two weeks since we “discovered” the town by car and whilst having lunch at the same location, vowed to return by boat and here we are. Click Here
After lunch, we wandered through the town and did some shopping before returning to Caxton where we had home made Chicken curry for dinner. Tonight, a visit to the funfair, tomorrow all the fun of the river.