Railways Around Cheltenham and Gloucester

Mike Dodd from the Restoration and Archiving Trust, based at GWSR, Toddington, brought The Railway Scene Around Cheltenham and Gloucester on 19^th March, the images all drawn from collections of negatives, photo prints and slides received by the RAT, which Mike has expertly transferred to digital images for everyone to enjoy. Starting at Ashchurch we saw trains on the main (Midland) line, including a railtour hauled by Collett 0-4-2T No.1420 and Pannier tank No. 6435, and rare images from the Evesham line and the flat crossing which allowed trains to get from Tewkesbury to Evesham. Moving down towards Cheltenham Lansdown, images of the area around Lansdown Junction where locomotives from all four of the grouping companies could be regularly seen, as well as BR Standards in later years. We popped up to Malvern Road station, and St James, and across to Andoversford on the MSWJ route. Visiting bridges at Hatherley, Badgeworth, Churchdown en route to Gloucester, we visited Churchdown station before making our way to Gloucester Central, and Eastgate with a look at Tuffley Junction, into Gloucester Docks, and then making our way to Bowbridge, via Stonehouse and Stroud (the Chalford Auto featured!). A huge variety of Great Western and Midland locomotives were seen (not sure there was a class from either company which wasn’t represented!), Southern S15s and Thompson B1s, Riddles Standard classes 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 9, WDs, along with Hymeks, Westerns, Peaks and Brush Type 4s, and a very rare Great Western twinset DMU, also appearing on the screen. This was a show thoroughly enjoyed by our largest audience this season.