Gala Timetable Published

Following on from the disappointing loss of USATC, S160, 6046 from the gala's line up announced yesterday, our timetable wizard has been locked in a darkened room, connected to an intravenous drip of industrial strength coffee and tasked with sorting out the myriad things that will have been affected.  He has at already churned out a revised timetable and is currently hard at work on the crew & signalling diagrams.  For those of you who are lucky enough to have booked places on the footplate rides (now sold out), you will be pleased to know that there will be no changes to the published times for those, please arrive on the time and date specified. An unfortunate consequence of the loss of 6046 is that we will no longer be able to offer a "driver for a tenner" at Cheltenham race Course Station.  Our apologies for the late withdrawal of this feature.

The process of getting the timetable published on the main GWSR website is surprisingly arcane, requiring skills more associated with the dark arts than information technology (though some might say that they are one and the same). I have nevertheless managed to do it, more by luck than judgement, and with no small amount of assistance from Maxine in the GWSR's admin office.

You'll be able to find it for yourself by following this link.

Having spent the last two days flying a laptop rather than doing the fun things that gala prep should entail, I wrenched myself out of the admin office, put on my overalls (not exactly the weather for that today) and put a fire in 76017 for its steam test (not the weather for that either).

35006 at the new northern end of the line yesterday (photo courtesy of Dan Wigg)

The trade stands marquee going up in the car park at Toddington

 The steam loco dept's main focus is on the gala at the moment, but it is still business as usual for the railway, Dinmore Manor running on the blue timetable.

35006 on the ash pit, Dinmore Manor sets off with the first train of the day

Visiting loco 76017 (from the Mid Hants Railway) during her steam test