GWSR Cotswold festival of steam 26-28 May 2018

Great choice. One of my favourites and actually the loco I have had the most mainline trips behind (7 in total). With 70013 and 6023 on the menu plus the GWSR's impressive home fleet it's shaping up well. I may even forgive you for the S160 eventually

 

Just a quick update on the forthcoming Cotswold festival of steam, to say that our traditional 14 coach Saturday evening train will now unfortunately only run as a std 8 coach rake. with an engine on the back it’s still 420 tons or 12 coach equivalent.
This is because the new 8 coach formations would make 16 plus dead weight loco and it’s been decided this is too much without in depth inspections of drawbars, couplings and the like, above and beyond the maintenance and inspections currently carried out. Secondly, we could run it as 14 but would need to start splitting sets, but they would then need reassembling for the Sunday, we simply can’t spend time doing this with the manpower available.
We will still use 6023 with the other loco to be advised. Time tables and loco allocations will be released in the week leading upto the event.

 

Ah that's a shame, was looking forward to the king on 16. Is this something that could be resolved with a greater lead time or is that it now in terms of the Saturday evening mega train?

Just a thought, is using the shorter third rake as one half possible, maybe with the slightly lighter maroon rake might make the difference?

 

Of the two 8 coach sets, the maroon set is 4 tons heavier at 289.. we looked at lots of option alex, but decided to stick with 8 plus loco each end

 

Oops! Ah well fair enough, sure it'll still be great.

 

Excellent choice!! We don't get a 'Britannia' in this area very often, but it will be the 4th time I've seen it, and the 2nd time I record it for YouTube. Here is the video I recorded when 70013 came through Evesham in February:

Kind regards, Adam

 

Tickets arrived, hotel booked, offerings and incantations made to the rain gods for the area, roll on the event!

 

Ok people, 4th and final guest is pannier tank 6430 courtesy of high Shipton and the Llangollen railway. Original plans were for 4 sets of stock plus the freight, as with a 15 mile run you really don’t want long gaps between trains. A lack of a suitable brake coach has scuppered this idea so we’ve had to settle for a dmu drag. It’s not perfect and it’s certainly not pretty but it’ll still move people around and hopefully help any overcrowding. So the idea of a tank engine is filled perfectly by 6430. The three main sets will be two 8’s and one 7. Now we have a preliminary loco allocation we’re working on the footplate rides that can be purchased and these will be released hopefully this week.

 

Hurrah! Far too long since we've had a pannier on the line, so I'm sure it'll be popular despite the coaching stock.

 

Without being controversial in any way, 6430 with a DMU drag was quite prototypical in the 1960's. DMU's can be quite annoying good to travel in for the view when compared to side corridor stock. Some extra variety me thinks.

 

I know with 5 rakes out it could be hard to manage, but any plans for a non-stopper during the day?

 

Is it not also breaking the rule book ie train weight, I would have thought that the civil engineer and P way would be kicking up a fuss given the fragile nature of the railway!

Nigel

 

Oh dear was looking forward to this Gala S160 and now this, I assume there are not any auto coaches are available?
Could you not have reduced the train lengths as most other railways are forced to do, to provide shorter but more sets?

Nigel

 

The latter was the plan until we found a hole in the floor of what was going to be the fourth brake coach...

 

The latter was the plan until we found a hole in the floor of what was going to be the fourth brake coach...

 

If the idea of DMUs being used as passenger stock on a steam service is unappealing, just think of it as steam rescuing a failed problematic diesel.
And give the S160 a break. Yeah, it's not the prettiest engine ever made, but if that's your issue, try closing your eyes and listening to the music it makes!

 

Noise = S160 at Water Arc North York Moors a couple of years back, wonderful in the confines of the cut.

 

I'm as GWR as the next man, but the WSR had an S160 at their spring gala and they're impressive locos, not pretty, but impressive. They make unusual noises but have nice chime whistles. Having something not-British in the line up makes a nice bit of variety.



6046 departing from Crowcombe Heathfield with the military train.

 

Some people seem to forget that they used to work in this country and helped us to win the war so they are a very appropriate class of loco for the UK!

 

And a large number of them worked on the GWR, so they're not out of place on a GWR line.