Spring Steam Gala
The Spring Gala is the smaller of the two annual enthusiasts' galas with visiting locomotives and a more intensive timetable, but without the all night running of the Autumn Gala
This event is typically in late March and is now billed by the SVR as "opening the season", even though trains commence for the February half-term week. The event incorporates three days of Gala from Friday to Sunday. Other common features include demonstration freight trains and shorter local, part-line services.
Visiting locomotives are also often utilised in the days after the gala for private photographic charters.
Contents
Notable events
- 2004 and 2011 No Galas due to engineering work.
- 2013 The Spring Steam Gala was hit by heavy snow, resulting in attendances being around half of the numbers expected. The Railway still managed to run the services as planned.
Passenger numbers
From time-to-time the SVR publishes the number of Gala passengers, according to the method of counting these which has varied over time (for example, since 2010 documents sent to shareholders became valid as a ticket which did not need to be exchanged for travel.)[1]
The following is an incomplete record.
| Year | Number of passengers | Reference | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2008 | |||
| 2009 | |||
| 2010 | |||
| 2011 | No Gala due to engineering work. | ||
| 2012 | 4,209 | [2] | |
| 2013 | The Gala was hit by heavy snow, resulting in reduced attendance | ||
| 2014 | 3,900 | ||
| 2015 | 4,313 | ||
| 2016 | 3,537 | Depressed number because of the non-appearance at the gala of announced visitor 6990 Witherslack Hall | |
| 2017 | 4,537 |