Broadway, Here We Come

Gerald Heys takes a trip on the Gloucestershire Warwickshire Steam Railway as they prepare to expand operations into Worcestershire

 

 Just before 10.00am and the engine, chuffing expectantly, waiting to depart. It’s close to impossible not to be smitten by the sights, sounds and smells of these beautiful machines. A blisteringly hot day, the hottest of the year so far, but cool under the canopy of Toddington station as we climb aboard. Settling down in the meticulously restored 1950’s buffet car over a cuppa, Colin Fewell, commercial director of GWSR and involved with the railway for some 20 years, chats about its history and its future.

A slurp of tea, a toot of the whistle, and we’re off to Cheltenham Racecourse via Hayles Abbey Halt, Winchcombe and Gotherington, names redolent of the Flanders and Swann song ‘The Slow Train’ that lists those stations (Kirby Muxloe . . . Blandford Forum . . . Trouble House Halt) axed in the 60s. But the original closure of this stretch of line, Colin explains, cannot be blamed on Beeching’s cuts. The Honeybourne to Cheltenham route survived until 1976, when a big landslip near Winchcombe persuaded British Rail to close it down. The track was taken up, the buildings demolished, and BR walked away. But the enthusiasts got together, as enthusiast do, and bought the track bed that goes from just south of Cheltenham Racecourse to just north of Broadway. . . .

Winchcombe is coming up now, with its handsome brick signal box and the carriage and wagon workshop where many of the GWSR’s army of over 900 volunteers work: the carpenters; plumbers; upholsterers. Colin points out the station building, saying this was originally the GWR station of Monmouth Troy in Wales. On this spot in 1984, there was, he says, ‘nothing, absolutely nothing. A desolate wasteland.’ But they numbered each and every Monmouth Troy brick and transported them here to reassemble the entire station and, in the process, save it from demolition.