Well Chuffed

GLORIOUS spring sunshine, blossom in the hedgerows, new lambs in the fields and a gleaming green Great Western Railway tank locomotive steaming by, with a chocolate and cream coach in tow, leaving a trail of steam in its wake… A vision of a bygone age, but one that can still be enjoyed today in the Cotswolds thanks to the dedicated band of volunteers behind another GWR – the Gloucestershire Warwickshire Railway.

Over the coming week, they are joining in the celebrations of the 175th anniversary of the founding of the original GWR, which have already seen the first non-stop steam trains since the 1960s between London and Bristol, via Didcot, and an event at the Didcot Railway Centre.

The highlight of the nine-day Cotswold Festival of Steam will be the first chance since the 1970s to ride on a train across the Gloucestershire Warwickshire Railway’s Stanway viaduct, the first stage of the railway’s drive to extend north from its headquarters at Toddington station.

The initial aim is to reach the picture-postcard village of Broadway, long a favourite with visitors to the Cotswolds, which is expected to take another three years. The long-term goal is to reach Honeybourne station, on the Cotswold Line between Oxford and Worcester, to make a connection with the national Rail network.

Locomotives with Oxfordshire links will be playing a part in the festival.

GWR 14XX Class locomotive No.1450, which spent most of its working life from the 1930s to 1960s based at Oxford depot, operating on the branch lines to Abingdon and Blenheim & Woodstock, will be in steam to work many of the push-pull auto-trains running across the viaduct.

Among the people who will be at the controls of the locomotive and the auto-coach which will make up its train is Tony Stockwell, from Redditch, in Worcestershire, who was a passenger countless times on trains powered by No.1450 during journeys between Didcot and Abingdon when he was at school in the 1950s.

After driving a special preview train over the viaduct on Monday, he said: “It feels a little strange to be the one driving the train now. But I suppose I have achieved every schoolboy’s dream.”

And Didcot Railway Centre is sending two of its locomotives to the event.

Visitors will be able to get a close-up look at Castle Class 4-6-0 No.5051 Earl Bathurst, which will be on static display at Toddington, along with other engines and railway-related attractions, while Class 43XX 2-6-0 No.5322 will be in steam, taking trains along the line south to Winchcombe and Gotherington painted in the Railway Operating Department livery it wore during the First World War, when it was sent to France to work British Army supply trains from Channel ports to the front line.

The Gloucestershire Warwickshire Railway runs along part of the former main line between Stratford-upon-Avon and Cheltenham.

A preservation society was formed after British Rail closed the line in 1976. Since taking over Toddington station in 1981, the GWR has rebuilt nine miles of the route south to Cheltenham Race Course station and is working on a five-mile extension north to Broadway.

Unfortunately, due to a landslip, trains cannot reach Cheltenham at present and will operate between Toddington, Winchcombe and Gotherington, along with the shuttle service over Stanway viaduct, during the festival, which runs from Saturday until Sunday, June 6.

Tickets for the event, including unlimited travel on trains and attractions at stations, cost £20 for adults, £18 for OAPs and £16 for children aged five to 15. Family tickets (up to two adults and three children) cost £46. Car parking is free.

For full details of the Cotswold Festival of Steam see the GWR website or call 01242 621405.

• To get to Toddington station from Oxford, take the A44 through Chipping Norton and Moreton-in-Marsh to Broadway, in Worcestershire, then join the B4632 towards Winchcombe. After five miles, turn left at the Toddington roundabout on to the B4077 and look for the station entrance on the right past a garden centre