GWSR Cotswold Festival of Steam 'Cheltenham & Gloucester Steam Days' 12-14 May

Is there anything on the website or available thats telling us what's going on / food available at each station?
It's all listed on the website here: https://www.gwsr.com/galas/steam-gala (scroll to the bottom of the page)

The only other thing is Gotherington, the private station/grounds here usually has curries, cakes and drinks.

 

Here's my footage of 4079 Pendennis Castle and 7903 Foremarke Hall being renamed to 6999 Capel Dewi Hall celebrating 59 years of the famous Z48 tour, with Pendennis Castle hauling the maroon stock and the Hall hauling the chocolate and cream stock in readiness for the upcoming gala. I hope you enjoy it.

 

Great stuff, thanks for sharing, 4079 away Gotherington, stuck drain cocks or gland/seal?

 

From the media I've seen since 4079's return to service, she just seems leaky. From the Mid-Hants youtube channel there's a close-up clip of 4079 passing where steam just seems to be leaking from more than just the drain cocks (timestamped to clip) -

 

Does anyone know when 31806 is arriving?
It is one more day until the event begins.

 

I think you'll find that "Castles" run at 225psi.

 

A few from yesterday of 4079 & 6999 (7903) in action plus a shot from March of 75014.

 

Loco went out from Norden earlier today - still warm after it's use in service yesterday!
The tender was loaded ready on another trailer this evening. Do not know if it was travelling overnight or waiting until daylight tomorrow [Thursday 11th].

 

Well this was waiting for us this morning, everything is coming together!

 

This is already bringing waves of nostalgia from holidays as a teenager in the South and West, the wallowing starts this afternoon as we head south, roll on three days of ferro-equinology as its best!

 

These valves should be set to blow at 240 psi for a 225 psi boiler pressure loco. BR/GWR stamped to valve with the pressure it was set to in the works.

 

Presumably then, if the pressure release valves are set lower, the loco isn’t performing as well as it should?

 

Took a quick visit after work for some of the last runs of the first day:

 

I can’t help thinking that’s a bit of a red herring. It’s rare - certainly on a heritage line - that a loco has anything like the boiler pressure in the cylinders. That becomes obvious on locos with a cylinder chest pressure gauge. As an example, last week I was on our class 4 and with 225psi boiler pressure, it was rare that the cylinder chest pressure went above about 140 psi, even on our gradients of up to 1 in 55. Short of maybe the NYMR, you simply can’t work a loco as big as a Castle on normal length trains at anything close to its limit without very rapidly exceeding the 25mph and needing to back off.

Tom

 

Yes, now I’m thinking about it, it doesn’t really make sense unless the pressure release valves are set very low as like you say, the pressure in the cylinders is very rarely if ever going to match the boiler pressure.

 

Splendid photos on here of what looks to be a very good event. The very well maintained "permanent way", including the lineside vegetation, deserves a mention. A credit to all concerned.

 

Would cylinder pressure relief valves be set at a significantly higher pressure than boiler safety valves? If boiler pressure is 225 psi, can you get higher than that in the steam chest and cylinders? From various videos the safety valves aren't even feathering and there's steam pouring out of the front end, so nowhere near 225 psi. Looks more like glands, packing and drain cocks.

From looking at various videos, 2999 and 6023 when it was running suffered exactly the same problem, so it seems to be a Didcot problem. Yet 4144 seems completely steam tight.

Sent from my XQ-BT52 using Tapatalk

 

Not too many reports from this event so far so let me add my piece. A lovely day in the Cotswolds - the sun even graced us with its presence this afternoon. The gala was good too - an interesting lineup of locomotives to fit the Cheltenham & Gloucester theme. Managed to grab a ride behind 75014, 7820, 4079 and 31806. All good noisy engines! Gala was well attended and everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves. Good to have a look at the Broadway signalbox - looking forward to that being in action next time!

The only problem was the timetable. It was difficult to follow and whatever reason it didn't seem to work. Things started on the wrong foot with 4079's Winchcombe to Broadway train running about 20 minutes late, and then it just got worse from there so that by the time I left at 6pm everything was 45 minutes late. I'm sure someone tried very hard to produce a varied and interesting timetable but to be honest I'd rather have something simple that works. There didn't seem to be any particular incident that caused the delays but some parts of the railway seemed to get very congested at times.

All in all a good day though so a big thankyou to everyone at the GWSR for making it happen!