Severn Valley Railway (SVR) would like to work with Kidderminster College Games Department to develop an interactive game which will introduce people to the concept of building a Victorian railway, especially the major engineering challenges of building viaducts, tunnels and cuttings. Much of our rail system was hand built by Victorian navvies using picks and shovels –many were killed or injured doing so.

As part of the major restoration of the Falling Sands Viaduct in Kidderminster, funded by the National Lottery Heritage Fund, SVR is developing two exhibitions to highlight the early years of the railway and the people who built it and originally used it. The exhibitions will highlight the number of accidents and people who died building the line The SVR Reopened in 1862 and was originally much longer than it is today, running from just outside Droitwich, all the way to Shrewsbury. Vast numbers of navvies were used to physically dig out the 40miles of line and construct the necessary tunnels and bridges required to keep the railway line at a gradient of 1 in 100as railways need to run on a flat surface.