The Gloucestershire Warwickshire Steam Railway (GWR, GWSR or Gloucs-Warks Steam Railway) is a volunteer-run
heritage railway
A heritage railway or heritage railroad (US usage) is a railway operated as living history to re-create or preserve railway scenes of the past. Heritage railways are often old railway lines preserved in a state depicting a period (or periods) i ...
which runs along the
Gloucestershire
Gloucestershire ( abbreviated Glos) is a county in South West England. The county comprises part of the Cotswold Hills, part of the flat fertile valley of the River Severn and the entire Forest of Dean.
The county town is the city of Gl ...
/
Worcestershire
Worcestershire ( , ; written abbreviation: Worcs) is a county in the West Midlands of England. The area that is now Worcestershire was absorbed into the unified Kingdom of England in 927, at which time it was constituted as a county (see His ...
border of the
Cotswolds
The Cotswolds (, ) is a region in central-southwest England, along a range of rolling hills that rise from the meadows of the upper Thames to an escarpment above the Severn Valley and Evesham Vale.
The area is defined by the bedrock of Jur ...
,
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...
.
The GWSR has restored and reopened around of track, operating between and . The most recent extension to Broadway (completed in 2018) involved the company raising £1.38 million. The 28 mile round trip on steam and heritage diesel trains follows part of the route of the former Great Western main line from Birmingham to Cheltenham.
The GWSR has a long-term aim of extending a further from Broadway to the national rail network at (where one half of an island platform has since been partly rebuilt for future use).
Overview
The line was originally part of the
Great Western Railway
The Great Western Railway (GWR) was a British railway company that linked London with the southwest, west and West Midlands of England and most of Wales. It was founded in 1833, received its enabling Act of Parliament on 31 August 1835 and ran ...
's
Cheltenham
Cheltenham (), also known as Cheltenham Spa, is a spa town and borough on the edge of the Cotswolds in the county of Gloucestershire, England. Cheltenham became known as a health and holiday spa town resort, following the discovery of mineral s ...
–
Stratford-upon-Avon
Stratford-upon-Avon (), commonly known as just Stratford, is a market town and civil parish in the Stratford-on-Avon district, in the county of Warwickshire, in the West Midlands region of England. It is situated on the River Avon, north-we ...
–
Birmingham
Birmingham ( ) is a city and metropolitan borough in the metropolitan county of West Midlands in England. It is the second-largest city in the United Kingdom with a population of 1.145 million in the city proper, 2.92 million in the West ...
line, known as the
Honeybourne Line
The Gloucestershire Warwickshire Steam Railway (GWR, GWSR or Gloucs-Warks Steam Railway) is a volunteer-run heritage railway which runs along the Gloucestershire/Worcestershire border of the Cotswolds, England.
The GWSR has restored and reope ...
, built in 1900–1906, and runs through the
Cotswold
The Cotswolds (, ) is a region in central-southwest England, along a range of rolling hills that rise from the meadows of the upper Thames to an escarpment above the Severn Valley and Evesham Vale.
The area is defined by the bedrock of Juras ...
towns of
Winchcombe
Winchcombe () is a market town and civil parish in the Borough of Tewkesbury in the county of Gloucestershire, England, it is 6 miles north-east of Cheltenham. The population was recorded as 4,538 in the 2011 census and estimated at 5,347 in ...
and
Bishop's Cleeve
Bishop's Cleeve is a large village and civil parish in the Borough of Tewkesbury in the ceremonial county of Gloucestershire, England. Cheltenham. The village lies at the foot of Cleeve Hill, the highest point in the Cotswolds. Bishop's Cleev ...
. The line was run down over the years and finally closed after a derailment damaged a stretch of track in 1976, with the double track being lifted from 1979.
The preservation group rehabilitated the line, starting steam train operations at Toddington in 1984 over of re-laid track. In 1987 the line was restored as far as
Winchcombe
Winchcombe () is a market town and civil parish in the Borough of Tewkesbury in the county of Gloucestershire, England, it is 6 miles north-east of Cheltenham. The population was recorded as 4,538 in the 2011 census and estimated at 5,347 in ...
where the station was reconstructed using the former Monmouth Troy station building. The railway continued to re-lay track west of
Winchcombe
Winchcombe () is a market town and civil parish in the Borough of Tewkesbury in the county of Gloucestershire, England, it is 6 miles north-east of Cheltenham. The population was recorded as 4,538 in the 2011 census and estimated at 5,347 in ...
, through the long Greet Tunnel, and past the villages of
Gretton,
Gotherington
Gotherington is a small village north of Bishops Cleeve in Gloucestershire, England. It is surrounded on the north by the villages of Woolstone and Oxenton, and to the south by Woodmancote and Bishop's Cleeve, a very large urban village. Got ...
and
Bishops Cleeve
Bishop's Cleeve is a large village and civil parish in the Borough of Tewkesbury in the ceremonial county of Gloucestershire, England. Cheltenham. The village lies at the foot of Cleeve Hill, the highest point in the Cotswolds. Bishop's Cle ...
. The line to was re-opened by
Princess Anne
Anne, Princess Royal (Anne Elizabeth Alice Louise; born 15 August 1950), is a member of the British royal family. She is the second child and only daughter of Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, and the only sister of K ...
in 2003. The latest extension of the line, to Broadway, opened in March 2018.
The GWSR runs trains from March to the end of December, with the line closing during January and February as well as November for line and locomotive maintenance. The GWSR runs regular train services every weekend plus most weekdays from Easter to the end of October, and some weekends are used to host special events including steam and diesel galas, Wartime in the Cotswolds, Real Ale Weekends and Santa Specials.
The railway operates a wide variety of both steam and heritage diesel locomotives, as well as heritage
DMUs
A diesel multiple unit or DMU is a multiple-unit train powered by on-board diesel engines. A DMU requires no separate locomotive, as the engines are incorporated into one or more of the carriages. Diesel-powered single-unit railcars are also ...
. These have included the world-famous locomotive
4472 "Flying Scotsman" and equally famous
3440 "City of Truro", which in 1904 was the first engine to reach 100 mph. In 2021 the resident steam locomotives on the line were 7820 "Dinmore Manor", 28xx class 2807 (undergoinmg 10-year overhaul), 42xx class 4270, 7903 "Foremarke Hall" and 35006 "Peninsular & Oriental SN Co". To complement the running stock a collection of over 210 carriages and wagons of various origins has been compiled, many of which are still being restored.
The GWSR opened its extension to
Broadway, Worcestershire
Broadway is a large village and civil parish in the Cotswolds, England, with a population of 2,540 at the 2011 census. It is in the far southeast of Worcestershire, close to the Gloucestershire border, midway between Evesham and Moreton-in-Marsh ...
to the public on 30 March 2018.
Currently (December 2021) the railway has returned to running a standard timetable in accordance with current Coronavirus restrictions.
Signalling of the Heritage GWSR
The route consists of single line sections with passing places at the major stations. All stations and loops are signalled using GWR Lower Quadrant Semaphore Signals.
The signalling on the line is a mixture of Electric Key
Token
Token may refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media
* Token, a game piece or counter, used in some games
* The Tokens, a vocal music group
* Tolkien Black, a recurring character on the animated television series ''South Park,'' formerly known as ...
and One Train Staff working, depending on operational requirements. Current sections are:
* Broadway–Toddington (One Train Staff) - will be Track-circuit block (TCB) when Broadway box opens
* Toddington–Winchcombe (EKT)
* Winchcombe-Gotherington (EKT)
* Gotherington-Cheltenham Race Course (EKT)
* Winchcombe–Cheltenham Race Course (EKT) (With Gotherington switched out)
* Toddington–Cheltenham Race Course (One Train Staff - with Winchcombe and Gotherington switched out and Cheltenham Race Course behaving as a
ground frame
Mechanical railway signalling installations rely on lever frames for their operation to interlock the signals, track locks and points to allow the safe operation of trains in the area the signals control. Usually located in the signal box, the ...
)
There are four
signal box
In signal processing, a signal is a function that conveys information about a phenomenon. Any quantity that can vary over space or time can be used as a signal to share messages between observers. The ''IEEE Transactions on Signal Processing'' ...
es along the line, and a new-built platform mounted one at Broadway, with the frame parts all acquired and assembled:
* Broadway – currently non-operational
* Toddington – operational
* Winchcombe – operational
* Gotherington – operational
* Cheltenham Race Course – operational
Stations
Future development plans
South to Cheltenham
![Honeybourne Line Cycle Path bridge - geograph](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/99/Honeybourne_Line_Cycle_Path_bridge_-_geograph.org.uk_-_1122889.jpg)
Encouraged by support from Cheltenham Borough Council, which has both given the railway direct funds and placed protected status on the former line's trackbed south from Cheltenham Race Course to Cheltenham Spa, the railway could at some point connect to Network Rail in the south.
The Council has backed the long term scheme, as this would allow the railway to:
* be reinstated as an access point for race-goers from all across the UK to easily access meetings at Cheltenham Racecourse, and reduce resultant current traffic congestion
* build a new halt in the Wyman's Brook area of Cheltenham itself, to serve an adjacent Prince of Wales sports stadium
* run tourist and excursion trains to access the railway and the town
Although the GWSR has extended track to (and through) Hunting Butts tunnel, a few hundred yards beyond Cheltenham Race Course station, it owns the trackbed as far as the Prince of Wales stadium at Wyman's Brook. It is likely that after completion of its extension to Broadway, laying track further into Cheltenham will happen to this point; a distance of about 1 mile. However, beyond here major and costly engineering works would be required to extend the trackbed further south.
The primary impediments are a) a bowstring bridge over Honeybourne Way (located at ), built in 2002 to allow continued access by bicycle along the old trackbed alignment to
Cheltenham Leisure Centre
Cheltenham (), also known as Cheltenham Spa, is a spa town and borough on the edge of the Cotswolds in the county of Gloucestershire, England. Cheltenham became known as a health and holiday spa town resort, following the discovery of mineral s ...
when
planning permission
Planning permission or developmental approval refers to the approval needed for construction or expansion (including significant renovation), and sometimes for demolition, in some jurisdictions. It is usually given in the form of a building perm ...
was given for the redevelopment of the former station site as a
Waitrose
Waitrose & Partners (formally Waitrose Limited) is a brand of British supermarkets, founded in 1904 as Waite, Rose & Taylor, later shortened to Waitrose. It was acquired in 1937 by employee-owned retailer John Lewis Partnership, which still se ...
supermarket
A supermarket is a self-service Retail#Types of outlets, shop offering a wide variety of food, Drink, beverages and Household goods, household products, organized into sections. This kind of store is larger and has a wider selection than earli ...
; the resulting bowstring bridge follows a section of former
railway embankment, which was removed to provide road access to the new store; and b) the reduced-height pedestrian specification bridge carrying the footpath/railbed beneath the very busy St Georges Road, which would have to be replaced to allow trains to pass beneath the road. There is land space beside the bowstring bridge to allow a railway to be built beside it, but there is no way of avoiding the work necessary to get rail vehicles beneath St Georges Road.
Between Broadway and Honeybourne
GWSR (Gloucestershire Warwickshire Railway) could buy the trackbed between Broadway and Honeybourne to protect it from future non-GWSR developments. The trackbed is 4.5 miles long and the bridges have not been removed or filled and there are no plans to fill or remove them. However, they are in a very poor state and would cost a significant amount to restore; additionally, the DfT has indicated that it would not grant permission for the GWSR to purchase the trackbed and to take on liability for the bridges.
North from Honeybourne
When the GWSR was first formed, it intended to purchase the entire line from Cheltenham Racecourse to Stratford Racecourse. However, when applying for the required Light Railway Order, the group was informed that they were unlikely to be granted the order for 25 miles when they had no experience of running a railway. A reduced application for the 15 miles from Cheltenham Race Course to Broadway was successful and track has since been laid and operations begun. Since this time, the section between Stratford and Stratford Racecourse has been utilised to improve road access around the town, especially the A4390, making reinstatement of rail to the main station at Stratford extremely difficult.
Landslips
In the early 2010s the GWSR was affected by two major landslips in
embankments on the line, which severed the preserved line into separate sections; however, both slips have now been repaired, and the whole line has been fully reopened. A further landslip occurred in November 2019 just south of Gotherington station, but has now been repaired.
2010 (Gotherington)
In April 2010 the GWSR suffered a landslip of an embankment near Gotherington. Train services continued despite the Gotherington landslip, but over a reduced route. The landslip forced the closure of the line south of Gotherington, including Cheltenham Race Course Station, which was effectively cut off. The railway continued to operate services from Toddington to Gotherington, with a locomotive at both ends of the train ("top and tailed"), as it was not possible to run the locomotive around the train at Gotherington at the time (there is now a run round loop just south of Gotherington). The railway launched a £1m appeal, both to fund the rebuilding of the embankment, and also to undertake preventative maintenance to ensure that similar problems do not happen at other points along the line. It was deemed unlikely that the line south of Gotherington would reopen before July 2011, but donations ensured that the work could be carried out promptly, and it was reopened on 22 April 2011.
2011 (Chicken Curve)
In January 2011 the railway was damaged by another landslip just east of Winchcombe station at Chicken Curve. The landslip severed the railway in two; it was very similar to the one at Gotherington, but closer to the middle of the route. It was estimated that the cost of the repair work would be £850,000; funds for the repair were successfully raised. During the repair period a
DMU service was run from Toddington up to the extension at Laverton; since the earlier Gotherington slip had been repaired, steam trains ran from Winchcombe to Cheltenham Race Course, the steam locomotive maintenance facilities temporarily being transferred to Winchcombe. The Chicken Curve landslip was repaired over the summer of 2012, and the GWSR was once again operational as a single unified line from Cheltenham Race Course to the site of Laverton Halt, a total of 12 route miles in length at that time.
2019 (Gotherington)
Following extended heavy rain, one side of the embankment south of Gotherington station slipped. This was first discovered in November 2019, and worsened to the extent that no trains could run in January 2020. Following remedial works, the line reopened on 7 March 2020, in time for the regular Cheltenham race trains to run. Work is still ongoing to finish off the site. The total cost of repairs is expected to be £500,000; an emergency appeal has been issued to raise £250,000 towards this cost due to the closure of the line following the
coronavirus
Coronaviruses are a group of related RNA viruses that cause diseases in mammals and birds. In humans and birds, they cause respiratory tract infections that can range from mild to lethal. Mild illnesses in humans include some cases of the com ...
(COVID-19) outbreak.
Steam locomotives
Operational
Undergoing restoration, repairs, overhaul, or construction
Stored or static
Diesel locomotives and DMUs
Operational
Non operational
Coaching stock
Operational coaches are shown in bold.
See also
*
North Gloucestershire Railway – a narrow gauge railway also at Toddington
*
Stratford on Avon and Broadway Railway
The Stratford on Avon and Broadway Railway project (SBR) was an English railway project whose aim was to re-open the closed railway line from , Warwickshire to Honeybourne railway station, Worcestershire for main-line re-connection.
A later ext ...
– a now defunct group that had initially hoped to restore the railway between Stratford upon Avon and Broadway.
References
Cotswold Line Promotion GroupIncludes proposal to link GWR to main line at Honeybourne
Cheltenham local attractionsNew bridge on the Honeybourne Line
External links
Gloucestershire Warwickshire Steam RailwayNorth Gloucestershire Narrow Gauge RailwayCotswold Steam Preservation Ltd. - Owners of No. 2807Warwickshire Railways
{{Coord, 51.98910, -1.92813, type:landmark_region:GB_source:npemap.org.uk-enwiki, display=title
Heritage railways in Gloucestershire
Transport in Cheltenham