The Severn Valley Railway has confirmed the third visitors to its 2025 Spring Diesel Festival.

A pair of Rail Adventure HST power cars, 43480 and 43468, will be attending the festival along with previously announced class 66 and class 70 diesel locomotives from Freightliner.

The four-day event is to take place between 15 and 18 May.

It will play host to a wide range of Diesel Motive power which will be in operation, including a showcase of variety and designs across numerous classes of motive power from past to present.

Members from the home fleet will also be in service, consisting of classes 17, 20, 33, 37, 40, 42, 50 and 52.

Over the course of the festival, tours will be available to the public to give them a behind-the-scenes look at the Traction Maintenance Department and the Carriage Shed at Kidderminster, which will need to be booked in advance on the Fifty Fund stand situated on the station concourse.

With a major landslip on the line between Hampton Loade and Bridgnorth earlier this year, trains will not be able to run the whole length of the line as work to repair the landslip carries on.

‘Our spring diesel event will once again showcase the best of both worlds. We’re fortunate to enjoy superb support from our main line friends who so generously allow us to host their locomotives. Alongside the SVR’s comprehensive home fleet of diesels, this will be an opportunity to see a wide range of diesel traction, not to mention clocking up some miles too.

And, we have more up our sleeves, with further heritage and main line visitors to announce once everything’s agreed. Of course, the usual caveats apply to all locomotives, which will attend subject to availability.

All in all, it’s shaping up to be another headline event. We’ve worked very hard to ensure an exciting and intensive timetable along the 12 miles of our line that we’re currently able to operate on, and this includes evening services on the Friday and Saturday nights.

We may still be dealing with a significant landslip between Hampton Loade and Bridgnorth, but it’s not dampened our determination to go all out for this event.’

SVR’s Managing Director, Jonathan ‘Gus’ Dunster.