S&D-themed Cotswold Festival of Steam a success
THE GLOUCESTERSHIRE Warwickshire Steam Railway’s Somerset & Dorset railwaythemed Cotswold Festival of Steam was a success, despite lower than usual passenger numbers.
Nine locomotives were in action across the June 3-5 event, which attracted over 3,000 passengers – almost half the record high of nearly 6,000 visitors to the GWSR’s 2018 Cotswold Festival of Steam. “With it being the Platinum Jubilee weekend and the Wychwood Festival at Cheltenham Racecourse, it was always going to be a struggle, and it wasn’t helped by the poor forecast on the Saturday and Sunday,” said GWSR press officer Ian Crowder. However, he added: “Despite passenger numbers being lower than usual, the gala was still a tremendous success and contributed to the railway’s bottom line. The volunteers all really enjoyed it and the feedback we had from the visiting locomotive owners was really positive.”
Five visiting locomotives appeared at the event: Swanage Railway-based ‘West Country’ No. 34028 Eddystone,
‘9F’ No. 92203 ‘Black Prince’ from the North Norfolk Railway, Ivatt Class 2 2-6-0 No. 46521 and 2-6-2T No. 41312 from the Great Central and Mid-Hants railways respectively, and Midsomer Norton-based Sentinel 4wVBT No. 7109 Joyce. The latter was decked out in faux BR guise as
No. 47109 for the event, during which it acted as station pilot at Winchcombe.
“One of the highlights of the gala had to be the Sentinel’s 8.45am departure from Toddington with a three-coach train to Winchcombe, which is the longest journey it’s ever made,” said Mr Crowder. “Another was the local trains hauled by No. 41312, which all seemed to be packed.”
A faulty contact on the token release system at Gotherington caused some delays on the Saturday, while a leaking brake pipe in one of the carriages, preventing Eddystone from keeping the train’s brakes off, delayed services by around 30 minutes on the Friday. “You expect these sorts of minor things to happen during events like this, but they certainly didn’t spoil everybody’s enjoyment,” said Mr Crowder.
In action from the resident fleet were ‘Merchant Navy’ No. 35006
Peninsular & Oriental S. N. Co., GWR ‘42XX’ No. 4270, ‘Manor’
No. 7820 Dinmore Manor and ‘Modified Hall’ No. 7903 Foremarke Hall, while the 2ft gauge North Gloucestershire railway at Toddington was also in operation. Eddystone remained at the GWSR for a further week hauling regular service trains, while No. 46521 is on hire for the rest of the summer.