Gloucester Warwickshire Railway extension

Does anybody know where the extension from Toddington - Broadway is at the present time?
Also since Honeybourne station has been upgraded to a second platform what is the likely hood of the line connecting here?

 

http://www.gwsr.com/news/2009/july/cotswold-line-improvement-opens-way-for-gwr.aspx should give a few pointers, eg.

 

If they do eventually get there it will be a terrific line. If you follow the route via a satellite photo though, you will see that there is a long, long way to go first.

 

It certainly will be I just looked on Google earth & although it maybe a few years old (you can see the extension past Stanway viaduct). I wonder where they have got to now..... my guess is half way between Toddington & Broadway. The only impediment is the need to build a bridge somewhere along here.

But your right it would be a fantastic line indeed!

 

Also see http://www.gwsr.com/enthusiasts/departments/broadway-station/july-2009.aspx

 

thanks for that!

 

Perm.way dept. weekly update photo site, good it is for keeping up with progress

http://nigel-black.fotopic.net/

 

Wow looks like they are up to a bridge around Laverton. It needs to be 'bridged' though..

 

"Wow looks like they are up to a bridge around Laverton. It needs to be 'bridged' though"

The original bridge was "temporarily" removed several years ago to allow heavy equipment through to construct a gas pumping station (I think) at nearby Wormington. However, the bridge structure was not in very good condition and will not be reinstated (it was cut up fairly recently I believe) and will be replaced very soon indeed by a new structure which will also be slightly higher (hence the need for a ballast "ramp" either side of the bridge. A run around loop will be put in at Laverton as this will be the temporary limit of the line before Broadway is reached. The GWR owns the line north of Broadway to the first overbridge (not the more modern bypass overbridge) and thereafter I believe the local authority owns it to Honeybourne. There is serious thought being given to connecting back to Honeybourne and a platform (the old island platform) still survives but has not yet been rebuilt and will not be reinstated until the Network Rail line has been doubled (unless someone knows different - which they could!). The Worcester Line is also being doubled next year in various locations including Honeybourne. It is, in my opinion, vital for the survival of the GWR that it reaches Honeybourne and connects with the National Network. Yes, you read me correctly, it is vital for the survival of the GWR. Heritage Railways, in my opinion, will need in the future to provide a service from A to B, not just a nostalgic train ride, however good it may be (and the GWR experience from Cheltenham to Broadway will be very good indeed). I hope that this is a pessimistic view which won't come to pass but the GWR would be in a very good situation anyway regardless of future economic pressures (and we are always a little jumpy about them!) if it was connected to the Network at Honeybourne. Of course, if it was connected to the network at the southern end near Cheltenham Lansdown station then it would be brilliant but, as soon as it closed in 1976, the line started to be nibbled away and it was thanks only to the far-sightedness of people who dug deep to save the line from just south of Hunting Butts Tunnel near Cheltenham Race Course to just north of Broadway that we can experience what we do today. It gets more and more difficult to reinstate lines such as this but there is a good reason to do it and, as far as I am aware, the GWR Board are keen to get to Broadway as soon as possible, where the station site is already being excavated and the platforms are being rebuilt.

 

Presumably they are going to 4.5 metre headroom under the new bridge ? Looking at the photo it would suggest that a significant amount of building up with ballast will be needed.

 

well I couldn't agree more what an excellent prospect GWR has in the long term! Honeybourne would be much easier for me to get to in terms of visiting GWR!
Bring it on! :smt045

 

Will be rather good wont it when it gets to Broadway, then eventually Honeybourne. Both help me as it cuts my journey from Coventry!

The line will be up there with the best at line length when we get to broadway (15 mile I think) this will be a important station on the tourist side, as Broadway is a little tourist hotspot, very nice place too (and I'm a city type diesel fan! haha)

Then Honeybourne will take it to about 19-20 mile I believe, which I think is the nearing the max length a line needs to be. This station as said is also a important station to reach, being the all important mainline connection, this open ups access for non motoring people (or people who fancy a beer on the trains) Also it opens up railtours, charters for raceday specials, visiting loco convoys etc

And more importantly - we can finally get a Western visiting!!!!!
(with warship & hymek in tow!)

Will be a site at Honeybourne, 4 lines in use, with gwr running on one of the inside lines, back to the good old days!

 

ME LORDZ!!

A Western on the Honeybourne line!!

 

I am pleased to say that I remember very well seeing "Westerns" on the Worcester to Oxford line at Honeybourne and Kingham. At the time I didn't bother with taking notes or photos but that was my fault and I regret it! Anyway I would really like to see a "Western" on the Honeybourne to Cheltenham run again. The Glos Warks Railway has a great selection of diesels (sadly not a Warship or a Western yet!) and I'm looking forward to seeing the class 45 (45149) entering service in the fairly near future as well. I remember seeing these passing through Toddington when diverted from the Cheltenham Birmingham (Midland) line and so it will be a bit like old times! There remains the age old question as to why the line closed in the first place but we won't concern ourselves with folly here - in any case we are putting it back now!

 

It was already in decline as freight was being transproted by road more often.
Wasn't there a major accident (freight train) on the line in the 1970's around Winchcombe? It was so bad that the line was not worth repairing so it was shut down completely?
Have yet to see details on the accident itself.

 

if you look on Google Earth some right plonker has put a small industrial estate right on the line just to the North West of Long Marston!
Any thoughts of how you'd get round that?
Also this would not be in the hands of Gloucestershire Warwickshire railway but it would be in these guys hands http://www.stratfordbroadwayrailway.co.uk/

goodluck!

 

Re - Stratford.

The trackbed is intact all the way to Stratford Racecourse, only problem being Sustrans are all over it! which at least protects it from being built on.... but the chances of them letting the railway go down it maybe a different matter.....

The only blot is the industrial unit on the former Long Marston station site, but there is land beside it I believe that could possibily be used as a bypass


The length would be quite some line if it ever did get to Stratford, maybe to long if running at 25mph!

20 miles Cheltenham - Honeybourne will be spot on I think.

 

I'm old enough to remember seeing 7005 "Sir Edward Elgar" and 7007 "Great Western" on the "Cathedrals Express" - those are better memories than Hymeks and Westerns!

 

Most of the intermediate stations closed to passengers in March 1960 but the line was kept open for cross country passenger services and then later for diverted goods trains and it was one of these (on its way to Severn Tunnel Junction) that derailed some of its wagons just near what is now the GWR carriage and wagon works at Winchcombe on 25 Aug 1976. The line, which was then still double tracked, was closed later in 1976 and retained albeit in non-maintained condition. However, the derailment gave BR the excuse it needed to close the line. The role of the Gloucestershire Warwickshire Railway (Society) as it then was called, was firstly to try and keep the route open but when this failed the Society then tried, and eventually succeeded, to rebuild as much of the line as possible as a heritage railway. This was helped, albeit probably not intentionally, by the ex-Head Girl of my daughter's school who, when she assumed power in 1979, decided to sell off the line (Mrs T wasn't a railway fan which is strange considering how important the railway is in her home town where I now live!) and so the GWR was able to buy some of it. In hindsight, of course, the Society should have bought the whole lot from Lansdown Jct at Cheltenham to Honeybourne (the Long Marston section didn't close and is in regular use for the ex Army storage depot there) but it was thought that this was a barking idea at the time. After all, the Severn Valley Railway was not far away and the new GWR had no track (it was all lifted in 1979-80) very little infrastructure and the local authorities were at best bemused. All that changed by about 1990 I would say when, at a steam gala at Toddington, we had "Defiant", 6106, a Pannier and something else but I can't remember! Until then we had used some useful little industrial tank locos but the sight of a "Castle" on the route of the "Cornishman" again seemed to change things for ever (it certainly did it for me!). The rest they say.....