Thousands of people descended on Bridgnorth’s Severn Valley Railway for it’s Festival of Steam – and more are expected this weekend.

Bosses at the Severn Valley Railway said it could potentially be one of the best spring galas they have had.

The festival is the SVR’s first major gala event of the 2009 season, which includes four visiting locomotives, all of them heavyweight express engines.

More than 900 people were on the first three trains alone yesterday and even more people were expected today. Dewi Jones, SVR traffic manager, said: “We are certainly into four figures on the number of passengers we’ve had, and a lot of them have been going to the engine house at Highley.

“We are expecting even more people today. It’s busier than we expected, I think the weather might have helped a bit. More people are here than normal for the spring gala, it could be one of the best if yesterday was anything to go by. We were hoping to have about 5,000 people for the weekend, but we’re expecting more than that now.”

The visiting engines, which are from Lancashire, Yorkshire, London and Birmingham, worked some of the fastest and most prestigious trains on British railway lines 50 years ago.

One of the last ever main line steam trains – the BR Class 7 Pacific No.70013 Oliver Cromwell, made its first ever appearance on the SVR, along with BR Class 8 No.71000 Duke of Gloucester, the powerful three-cylinder one-off design built as “the brave new future of steam” in 1954.