Last Days of Steam around Gloucester

We were delighted to see so many folks braving the Cheltenham Races traffic to come and be heartily entertained by Branch member Chris Baldwin on The Last Days of Steam in Gloucester on 16^th March. Chris grew up in the city and his railway education took place mostly at Tuffley Junction just to the south where the Great Western lines running round from Central and the Midland lines taking the more direct route from Eastgate, merged to run south towards Bristol. With images of Western locomotives on the Midland side and vice versa we saw Castles, Halls, Moguls, Prairies, Fowler 4s, Stanier 5s, Jubilees, and later Riddles cl.4s and cl.9s. - you name it, if it was in steam it went past Chris’ camera. Chris ventured across the city to the western side to view traffic on the South Wales line. Back then, as now, there is no one place in Gloucester to see every train movement. Barnwood Shed was highlighted as was Horton Road (on the opposite side of the road). Tuffley Jct. signalbox (or Toffley Jct. as the Midland mis-spelled it – the signalbox nameplate, which was amended to show the correct spelling, still exists!) controlled a goods loop and access to one of the branches to the docks. Massive gratitude to Chris for recording this period of local railway history.