Almost £36,000 has been raised for a heritage railway after a landslip caused substantial damage to its tracks.

About 30m (32yds) of the Severn Valley Railway (SVR) track and track bed was damaged in the slip on 30 January.

The heritage railway runs for 16 miles (28km) from Kidderminster, Worcestershire, to Bridgnorth, Shropshire.

“I think this has really hit home with people just how bad a situation this is and how much we do need support…but it’s fantastic that we’ve had this response,” said Lesley Carr, the railway’s head of communications.

A section of the track is impassable after the embankment collapsed about 300m (328yds) north of Sterns on the Shropshire section of the line.

The affected area lies between SVR’s northern terminus station at Bridgnorth and the smaller Hampton Loade station.

“Quite honestly the landslip has hit us really, really hard – it just was the worst news ever to get, just as you’re poised to reopen for a new season,” said Ms Carr.

“We’re opening on the 15th of February for the half term and the top half of our line is cut off, we can’t use it.

“That’s pretty serious stuff not to mention how much money it’s going to cost to get it put right.”

Despite four miles (6.4km) of the northern track being unusable the rest of the line – about 12 miles (19.3km) – will be open for use.

“We are open for half term, everybody’s visits can still go ahead,” added Ms Carr.

She said investigations into the landslip were still underway.

“We’re going to have a specialist team from Network Rail coming down this week; we also need to drill some boreholes and they’ll help us be able to get geotechnical data of what’s going on underneath the ground,” she said.

“This is really important so that we can understand exactly what’s happened and exactly what we need to do to make sure we can put into place a proper repair that is really going to last for the long term.”

Chloe Hughes
BBC News, West Midlands

BBC Shropshire