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16th April 2019
Categories: Visitor News
Over the whole nine days of the Gala, we carried some 4,500 passengers and total revenue from all sources topped the £100,000 mark, all of which are very creditable results and extremely pleasing for everyone involved in putting the show together. The feedback from visitors has been excellent.
The monies raised will go towards offsetting the considerable costs of putting the event on, such as hire engine charges and their haulage, plus other special elements of the gala, and the monies left will be reinvested back into the fabric of the railway.
We also got our new Charitable Community Benefit Society status off to a good start with a lot of expressions of interest from people wishing to buy shares in the new business, and people flocked to enjoy the show.
The re-enactment of the Official Opening train performed 50 years ago in May 1969 by Lord Beeching was kindly carried out this time by BBC radio and TV personality David Fitzgerald who entertained the various civic and VIP guests with great humour, and he was assisted on the day too by veteran Falklands War hero and disability campaigner Simon Weston CBE as a surprise guest.
The official opening re-enactment was a great ending to the event, and even the final train run on Sunday evening @19.15 still had some 30 people on board who wanted to see the end of the nine-day show!
To sum up briefly, it was one of the SDR's most successful and popular events ever in the line's history!
© Visit Devon Community Interest Company