GWSR Cotswold Festival of Steam - 25 - 27 May 2019.

The Gloucestershire & Warwickshire Railway's annual Cotswold Festival of Steam will take place from Saturday 25th - Monday 27th May 2019, with locomotives of all shapes and sizes, once again running from Broadway to Cheltenham Race Course. Should be another great gala.

I am aware that three visiting locomotives are expected, with two already confirmed and waiting for contracts to be signed while another is in the advanced stages of negotiation. Announcements on these visitors are hopefully not too far away.

I thought I would start a thread just to get it up nice and early for people to speculate and hopefully more information will be available soon.

 

As you've started a thread for speculation, I'm hoping for a S160 on a goods train. Are the goods trains happening this year?

 

I certainly hope the freights are happening this year, last year they withdrew the goods train and replaced it with a pannier hauling the DMU set. As for visiting locos, there should hopefully be news early next week.

 

Last I heard there will not be a freight train this year - I personally hope that when the Broadway signalling is commissioned next year and we in effect gain another passing loop we will be able to run freight trains, I and many others in C+W who have worked on the wagons would be a bit disappointed otherwise.

@Andy B if what I've heard is correct and there won't be a freight train this year, and I can understand the reasons why, I wonder if it would be possible to organise some shunting of freight vehicles maybe at Winchcombe to provide some extra interest? This was suggested last year when the freight train was initially axed from the timetable but it was a bit late by then so it didn't really get off the ground. (I remember a lot of contradictory phone calls the week before!) If it was put in the mix a bit earlier on it might be easier to organise into the timetable, loco diagrams, and for C+W.

On the plus side, we won't be dragging a DMU around this year as we now have enough coaches (and crucially enough brake coaches) to form 4 sets of Mk1s. I understand the third rake will be split in two and strengthened so we'll have two rakes of 8; 1 chocolate and cream and 1 maroon, and two smaller rakes of 4/5 in chocolate and cream with a couple in carmine and cream in the mix somewhere. This should broaden the range of locos available to us significantly as previously we were restricted to locos that could haul 7 or 8 coaches.

 

Alex, as you say, we will unfortunately not be running the freight at this years gala. Again as you point out this is due to broadway and only after the signalling is done will we consider the freight.
We do though intend to station an engine at winchcombe and it is invisaged some form of shunting will take place. We did this in a limited capacity in 2018 but due to late changes it was only a last minute thing.

 

As any of you who will have seen today’s steam railway, it has been confirmed that 6023 king Edward II will be making a very welcome return visit to the Gwsr in 2019. Arriving from didcot in time for the May gala (25-27th) it is due to stay until September. With big thanks to our friends at the great western society.

 

Excellent news.

 

The steam department blog say this has yet to be confirmed

 

Indeed, Steam Railway's story precipitated the slightly premature announcement.

 

It would be nice to see that again. Any chance of bringing the double-length finale back this year. I was a little disappointed that 70013 pushed 6023 quite hard on the Saturday evening train last year but it was still an excellent event.

 

Hotel booked, awaiting announcement for ticket sales, looking forward to another great weekend (pulled pork muffins at Toddington)!

 

The page for this event on the GWSR website has revealed some more details. In addition to frequent locomotive changes between four passenger sets, a freight train is planned once again and the popular brake van rides will be up for grabs. Online tickets will be on sale soon and the theme for the event is also expected to be announced shortly; the event page states that it can't be revealed at present because it might give a clue to one of the planned visitors.

 

At the moment it's only planned to be a short freight train, half dozen or so vehicles I think. The days of just dragging everything that we've recently put a coat of paint on out of the sidings are long gone unfortunately.

Being stuck out in Sheffield disconnected to the grapevine someone very mischievously sent me an email entitled "gala news" with only a cryptic clue as to what the next guests might be - I have my suspicions though! I've also discovered that my exams begin the day after the gala, so it'll be another weekend of bringing my books to the railway; takes the edge off the fun for me. So if you see someone with his head in a book looking a bit glum despite watching the trains, it'll be me.

 

It's called priorities my boy. Study hard for your education and then the fun begins …..marriage, children, mortgage. <BJ>

 

Then Divorce, Child support, Bedsitland............

 

When you have young kids jumping on you when they wake you up at 5:30am (even on a Sunday !) and you think, I miss those student days when I could just drink beer and have a nice lie in the next day, no hassle You need to go some kids birthday party, no going to the railway this weekend !

 

Happy Sunday everyone...

 

Quite! Back to guessing steam engines - what theme could encompass 6023 (assuming it does) and be specific enough to make it obvious what another guest loco could be...

 

Firstly, as stated in an earlier post, unfortunately the freight will not be running trips, it looks like being confined to shunting round winchcombe, this is due to the nature of the train paths available and until broadway is signalled this upsets the gaps between departures. The webmaster unfortunately didn’t get the memo that said no freight !(it was being seriously considered).
Finally? I’ve a signed contract on a second guest and hope that with agreement we can go live early this week. Thanks for all the interest so far!