The DMU Group was formed 35 years ago and originally owned just a 2-car DMU set which ran on the Severn Valley Railway. Now the Group is the proud owner of 8 units: 5 ‘Class 108’ units and 3 ‘Class 101’ units. The latter were purchased as recently as 2024. Currently, six of the units are in regular service on the SVR, with the remaining two undergoing repairs.

Just keeping the units in running order is a constant task carried out by a relatively small team of volunteers, and bringing the recently acquired Class 101 units into running order has been a major task for our volunteers. New volunteers are always most welcome!

At all times our volunteers strive to carry out much of the necessary maintenance work ourselves but this is not always achievable and outside contractors need to be brought in incurring such costs as external repainting at up to £10,000 per unit, bogie reconditioning at up to £25,000 per unit as well as engine rebuilding needed from time to time for the 10 engines under our five power cars.

We have two main regular income streams – income from the SVR when our units run on the railway and income from donations generously given by members of the public. We currently have two costly main projects to fund – repainting of units and reconditioning of bogies, with the ultimate aim of bringing all 8 of our units up to good running order.

We are grateful to the SVR for financing much of our regular costs, but we hope that donations to our registered charity will enable us to fund the costly and much-needed projects. In particular we are grateful to those individuals who have arranged to give regularly each month. Even a regular donation of £5 per month will make a significant difference to the progress of our current projects, especially when Gift Aid is added.

Please take a look at our main website or our Facebook account to find out more about our Group’s activities.

https://www.svr-dmu.org.uk/

https://www.facebook.com/DMUWM