Severn Valley Railway: Switch to diesel services over fire risk

A heritage railway is to switch to diesel-fuelled services after a spate of lineside fires, it said.

Severn Valley Railway said the fires were started by sparks or cinders from one of its steam locomotives.

Most of the fires took place in the Eardington Bank area, it said, between Bridgnorth and Hampton Loade in Shropshire, and were extinguished by firefighters.

The railway said lineside fires are a risk during hot, dry weather.

Diesel services will run on the line between Kidderminster in Worcestershire and Bridgnorth until at least Friday this week, when it will be reviewed, Severn Valley Railway said.

The railway made a similar switch after the Met Office issued a four-day amber warning for extreme heat earlier this month and also in July.

Steve Wainwright, head of operations, said: "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."

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