November 15th 2017 - Huge thanks to Franche Village Social and Sports Club
Huge thanks to Franche Village Social and Sports Club who have raised a whopping £500 for the Railway’s apprentices. The Club have been supporting the SVR Charitable Trust for a number of years, and their members love the idea of supporting young people to learn engineering skills in our Heritage Skills Training Academy. Coralie Hudson picked up a cheque from Brian Salmon at the Club on Saturday. If you’d like to donate to fund apprentice training at the SVR please donate online or download our information leaflet and donation form. 

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August 3rd 2017 - Grant funding boost for apprentice training at the Severn Valley Railway

Severn Valley Railway Charitable Trust has secured new funding towards training an engineering apprentice in the Railway’s Heritage Skills Training Academy. The Hendy and Pendle Charitable Trust has made a generous donation of £9,500 towards the costs of training 19-year- old George Brogan, who is currently in the second year of his apprenticeship.
Sir Peter Hendy CBE, who founded the Hendy and Pendle Charitable Trust, said he and his fellow trustee Sue Pendle are extremely enthusiastic about this opportunity to get involved with the Railway:
“The SVR’s scheme fits very well within our Trust’s remit. As well as regular progress reports from the Academy, we get opportunities to visit the Railway and see for ourselves how the apprentices are getting on.”
Just such an occasion happened recently, when Sir Peter came to Kidderminster as part of a wider visit to the SVR. He spent time chatting to George, who is currently on a placement at the Carriage & Wagon Mechanical Department. As the chairman of Network Rail, Sir Peter took great interest in the detail of the training programme that George and his fellow apprentices are undergoing, as George himself explains:
“Sir Peter had lots of questions about my training, and said it’s important to invest in apprentices, so that heritage rail has a future. It’s good to know that as well as the SVR supporting my training, there’s an extra seal of approval from an outside organisation too.”
The SVR Charitable Trust’s Director of Development, Shelagh Paterson, has welcomed the new funding:
“Training a new generation of heritage engineers is a vital part of making sure the SVR has a sustainable future. Many of our current workforce of volunteers and paid staff have been on the Railway since the early days of preservation in the 1960s, and sadly, they can’t go on for ever.
“We’re looking to George and the other young people currently apprenticed within the Academy, to take forward the highly specialised skills needed to maintain and restore the Railway’s rolling stock and infrastructure. Grants such as this from the Hendy and Pendle Charitable Trust are vital in allowing us to fund this essential project.”
There are currently six apprentices within the SVR’s Heritage Skills Training Academy, working and learning across the different departments of locomotive running, boiler shop, carriage mechanical and carriage bodywork. For their first two years, they rotate around the departments, then specialise in one of the areas. Alongside their on-the- job training, apprentices work towards nationally recognised NVQ 2 and 3 qualifications.

The HSTA was set up as a pioneering venture in 2013 to help address the inevitable decline in heritage engineering skills at the SVR. Since the Academy was established, the SVR Charitable Trust has played a key role in its funding and currently pays the majority of the Academy’s costs.

Shelagh Paterson Severn Valley Railway Charitable Trust