Every Cloud Has a Silver Lining

The last week has seen the Cheltenham Gold Cup take place at Cheltenham Race Course (CRC) and once again the GWSR was hard at work ferrying race goers from what was effectively a "Park & Ride" at Toddington to the race course itself.  I'm sure that we have one or two horse boxes scattered around the railway, but nobody approached us to ferry their horses to the races, perhaps next year. 

For the races, all three of our currently serviceable and on-site locos were rostered on different days. I was unable to be present myself to report on the proceedings however I have borrowed with the owner's permission the following photos that made their way onto a well known social media site.  

For reasons as yet unknown to me, 5542 set off one day with her headcode chalked onto her smokebox door, 5Z10 being the 15:45 ECS move from Toddington to CRC

5Z10, photo courtesy of Phil Grange

Ben had a busy week, being rostered as driver, fireman and guard on different days. 

Phil takes a rest while Ben tries to work out which hat he is supposed to be wearing today, photo courtesy of Neil Carr

The timetable has two trains to CRC and back in the morning, then two trains there and back again in the evening with a long break in the middle.  The long break was ideal for cooking cremating lunch on the shovel.

Phil burns the bacon, photo courtesy of Aaron Smith

A happy crew, Jonathan (l) & Phil, photo courtesy of Aaron Smith.

Also appearing on social media was this photo of the signals south of Cheltenham Race Course station.  Eagle-eyed Steve spotted that it has sprouted a ground signal over the winter break.  It is to call on locos into the nearly finished platform 2 if occupied by stock.

New ground signal. Photo courtesy of Neil Carr

I would normally have been present on Saturday to catch up with what ever was going on around the steam loco dept however on this occasion, one of my nieces had rather inconsiderately decided to get married and worse still, I was expected to attend.  The nearest that the whole affair got to being even remotely railway related was that the groom had worn a hi-viz orange tie. I'm not a fan of ties at the best of times, but a hi-viz tie is the last word in fashion faux pas. Come back flared jeans, all is forgiven!

I'll spare you the wedding photos and skip ahead to Monday, when we had another photo charter running, this time with 2807 on the freight train organised by 30742 Charters.  Once again we had everything in place for a perfect day apart from the sunshine. 

2807 on shed and ready to go

 The weather started off as a light drizzle and was forecast to get worse as the day went on, not exactly what I had been hopping for. Given that the light was going to be poor where ever we went, we just started off by heading up to Laverton and working our way south from there.  The loop at Laverton can pass for a section of double track if you shoot it right, and by dropping the Queen Mary brake van off the back of the train up against the permanent way wagons parked just north of the loop, it formed a pretty convincing recreation of two freight trains having just passed each other. 

Passing freight trains.

 The loop at Laverton is expected to be lifted after this season to move the points to Broadway station and who knows how long the permanent way train will remain there anyway, so this scene may turn out to be a one off.

The next stop was by the aqueduct for a few photos.

2807 from the aqueduct

 When I set up for the shot above, the sky was a flat grey all around, so it didn't matter which side of the line you went as there was no shaded side of the train.  You'll note in the photo above that there are visible shadows, the sun in defiance of the grey skies had managed to illuminate the shot a little, before disappearing again.

From the other side of the aqueduct

We tried a few shots including the aqueduct in the scene

And even at the next bridge south

 After that, conscious that time was moving on, we headed for Didbrook

Still no sunshine, but this angle offers a better view of the freight train

Yet another pan shot

 It was raining pretty steadily by this point, we even took shelter under the Didbrook 2 bridge for a while to let the worst of it blow over.

Again at Didbrook, passing a home signal

 Like an army, a photo charter marches on its stomach, so we headed back to Winchcombe for lunch.  The crew had forsaken the more usual cooked lunch for some toasted pain aux chocolat!

Looks tasty!

 For the afternoon session, in deteriorating weather, we did a few runs past in the station.

2807 passing through Winchcombe station.

 On the radio in the morning as I was driving to the railway, I heard tell of a survey that ranked the red phone box as "The Most Iconic British Design".  Ranked ahead of such things as the Spitfire even. Well I wouldn't go quite so far as to say that, but I was nonetheless pleased under the circumstances to be able to include the red phone box on platform one at Winchcombe in the above composition.  For my money, the 28XX steam locos are more iconic again, but nobody from the survey asked me for my opinion.  Something else that I heard on the radio was that the hobby/pastime that women find most attractive in men is photography.  This amused the other people that I mentioned it to who decided that photographing steam locos probably negated the effect.

Exiting Greet tunnel

Through the square window at Gotherington

Passing through Gotherington.

 By this time, the rain and wind were getting to be unpleasant, and time had marched on, we called it a day and headed on down to CRC to run around and return to our starting point at Winchcombe. In spite of the weather, everybody seemed to have had a good time and hopefully they all managed to get some reasonable photos too.

Thanks to all those involved in making this happen, Jonathan (driver), Clive (fireman) and Ian (cleaner), Bob the guard along with Peter and Dave who split the signalling turn between them.  Many thanks indeed to the team from Carriage and Wagon who checked over the freight train ensuring that it was fit to run and shunting it into order again (I believe that Neil did the shunting, so thanks to him too).  Last but not least, thank you to Martin Creese of 30742 charters and of course all the people that turned up to support the event.

The crew, (l-r), Jonathan, Ian & Clive.

 Once all the other photographers had disappeared at the end of the day, I joined Dave in Winchcombe signal box for a few extra curricular photos of the freight train being returned to its siding.

Dave watches as 2807 pushes the freight train back into its siding.

Waiting light engine in platform 1 before returning to Toddington.

 Ian sent me a few photos taken from the footplate during the course of the day, the next four photos all courtesy of Ian Chilton.

Ready to set off in the morning

Having just passed the gallery of photographers at Greet tunnel

Jonathan at the regulator

Clive taking a break from shoveling

And finally, this coming weekend marks the GWSR's first ever recruitment fair.  If you have the slightest desire to find out more about the GWSR and how you could fit in as a volunteer on the railway, then this is for you.  As part of the recruitment fair, I'll be loitering in the David Page shed on Sunday the 22nd along with a number of other members from the steam loco dept to answer any questions that you may have. Obviously if you want to get an accurate description of how the steam loco dept works, you'd be best advised to come along on the Saturday.