The best Cotswolds Christmas present of all!

THESE beautiful pictures recall the first Christmas that would-be revivalists had access to the by-then largelylifted GWR Stratford-upon-Avon to Cheltenham main line.

I recall the closure of the route by BR in 1976, and subsequent reports which raised hopes that it could be saved. Rumours abounded that it could be reopened to passengers or even be rebuilt as a route for High Speed Trains.

However, my hopes on this front were dashed one day in the summer of 1979, when I drove over the bridge to the immediate west of Cheltenham Racecourse station and saw track components and sleepers piled high with a crane standing sentinel over them. We’ve not learned anything from our mistakes during the Beeching era, I reflected sadly.

Part of the line – that from Honeybourne to the Ministry of Defence depot at Long Marston – was saved and is still in place today, but the rest went to the scrapman, leaving the surviving buildings to the ravages of Mother Nature and local vandals.

I did not realise it at the time, but all was far from lost, despite the glaring evidence to the contrary on the ground. The following year, BR entered into talks with the newly-formed Gloucestershire Warwickshire Railway Society – so named because of its aspiration to restore the entire route linking the two counties – about selling the trackbed to it.

The spring of 1981 brought reports that BR had agreed terms of purchase for the sale.

Season

I well recall the winter of 1981-82. A friend and I had been out for an evening to Warwick in December, and as we were driving back to our homes in Shirley, Solihull, snow began to fall and settle on the roads. Dawn the next day revealed a covering several inches deep, and road traffic grinding to a near halt.

The snow persisted for three months, inviting regular comparisons with the extreme winter of 1962-63 as temperatures remained low. I well recall the day when the thaw finally and visibly set in – March 21, the first day of spring.

However, for the heritage sector, that winter marked a new birth – that of the Gloucestershire Warwickshire Railway (G/WR), which, from very humble beginnings with only derelict buildings and no track, set out on the road to become one of the finest heritage lines in Europe, and a significant addition to the Cotswolds tourist economy, now running 14 miles from Broadway to the racecourse station – with the desire to expand further.

December 1981 saw the first trains run at Toddington, although not on standard gauge. The 2ft gauge Cotswold Narrow Gauge Railway was constructed by a small group of G/ WR members keen to see something running ahead of the main project, and had moved from the Dowty Railway Preservation Society base at nearby Ashchurch.

It was equipped with locomotives and stock by Bob Washington from Cheltenham. Although not officially inspected and passed for passenger carrying until May 1982, it was proposed that the narrow gauge railway would be launched on December 12-13, with no less than Father Christmas as the star passenger, meeting volunteers, families and friends.

However, the aforementioned snowfall brought an overnight end to the plans, as even Santa and his reindeers and sleigh could not penetrate the Arctic waste which hemmed in the village of Toddington.

Mince pies

The event was cancelled, but volunteers had already baked a large number of mince pies for the occasion. However, these did not go to waste as Toddington’s pioneer volunteers were well fed at lunch times well into 1982.

The episode mirrored what happened at the East Lancashire Railway’s (ELR) festive season just gone, cancelling Santa services because of pandemic restrictions.

The railway hosted Elfmas: Letters To Santa, an alternative stationbased event, but with reduced capacity due to social distancing. They ensured that the surplus mince pies did not go to waste by donating them to local hospitals, community centres and food banks.

Donation

ELR chairman Mike Kelly said: “Despite our disappointment, we were determined to spread Christmas cheer and inject a little more joy into the lives of people hit hardest by the pandemic.”

Heywood, Oldham, Middleton, Rochdale, and the Stockport-based Wellspring food banks, Fairfield Hospital, Rochdale Soup Kitchen, the Booth Centre in Manchester, Nazareth House in Prestwich and Blackley Fire and Rescue all received ELR mince pies.

The first G/WR – standard gauge – train ran on April 22, 1984, carrying a ‘22nd Year of Dowty Railway Society’ headboard. The rest is not only history, but the line continues to make it.

GWR 4-6-0 No. 5952 Cogan Hall at Toddington on December 11, 1981, having arrived from Barry scrapyard in September. It later moved to the Llangollen Railway (twice – 1989 and 2010) and is now owned by the 6880 Betton Grange Society Ltd. Forty years later, it is still ‘out in the cold’ awaiting restoration.

Left: Toddington station on December 11, 1981, under a blanket of snow and awaiting to be woken from its slumbers. The photographer attempts a trial run through the snow on December 11, 1981, to check if Santa would be able to get through on the 2ft gauge Cotswold Narrow Gauge Railway at Toddington. The answer was no, and the weekend’s event was cancelled, leaving a large number of uneaten mince pies, to be consumed by volunteers over the weekends to come. Pulling the carriage was Bob Washington’s Hunslet ‘Tiny Tim’-type 0-4-0 mines locomotive No. 5222 of 1958. The narrow gauge line was taken over by the Dowty Railway Preservation Society in 1983 when it moved from Ashchurch to Toddington. The Hunslet subsequently returned to industry and is now with the Ayle Colliery Company in Northumberland.