PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE
Today, first-time visitors to the Severn Valley Railway’s southern terminus of Kidderminster Town automatically assume that it has ‘always been there’. Indeed, there are instances of travellers on the adjacent Network Rail main line walking into Kidderminster Town booking office by mistake to buy tickets.
However, go back in time 40 years or more, and here was an empty wasteland, all but devoid of buildings - the vacant site of the main line station’s goods yard which had been lifted.
The intervening years have seen the completion of one of the most impressive infrastructure projects on any heritage line - the completion of a major starting point which dovetails perfectly with the essential historic character of the remainder of the revived 16-mile section of the GWR.
It was in September 1963 that the Severn Valley line from Bewdley to Shrewsbury closed to passengers during the Beeching era, although BR carried on running a branch service from Kidderminster to Bewdley until January 1970, and the section north to Alveley Colliery remained open lor coal traffic until March 1969.
Would-be revivalist Keith Beddoes thought about turning the Bridgnorth to Hampton Loade section into a heritage line, and at a meeting in the Cooper’s Arms in Kidderminster on July 6,1965, attended by about 50 people, the SVR Society was formed. The stretch from Bridgnorth to Hampton Loade was subsequently bought for £25,000, and
