By Graham K. Rogers

One of my sisters likes photography as much as me and so we took a day out to take pictures and invited her children along. With the two girls, the day had to be angled towards youngsters and me. We made a list of possible places to visit, deciding finally on a steam railway line: the Gloucestershire Warwickshire Railway, running from Toddington to Cheltenham Race Course.

The journey across was interesting as the navigation system I was using sent us on a cross-country route and there were one or two moments when I thought we were lost, but in the end, we arrived in good time for a trip using one of the steam trains. Unfortunately it was raining quite heavily.

Gloucestershire Warwickshire Railway - Steam

The track which was in use up to the early 1970s, is fairly short, running from Toddington to Cheltenham Racecourse. There are 2 stations, southwards and one to the North. That additional part of the line is soon to be extended adding another station. We headed south with the carriages pulled by the steam engine, passing other carriages and engines, mainly waiting for refurbishment along the line.

Gloucestershire Warwickshire Railway

Gloucestershire Warwickshire Railway

Part of any railway includes the buildings that are essential for its operations, and these include stations as well as other constructions, like signal boxes.

Gloucestershire Warwickshire Railway

At Cheltenham Racecourse - the end of the line - the engine has to reverse and join the front of the train. As there is no turntable, it runs backwards for the northbound trip.

Gloucestershire Warwickshire Railway

Gloucestershire Warwickshire Railway

Leaving Cheltenham I took a picture of the busy racecourse as we headed north, passing through the two stations as we headed back to Toddington. . .

Gloucestershire Warwickshire Railway - Cheltenhame Racecourse

Gloucestershire Warwickshire Railway

I also took some photographs of the countryside and the train during the journey.

Gloucestershire Warwickshire Railway - Winchcombe

At Winchcombe, we stopped for a while waiting for a train headed south: the line uses stations as passing points.

Gloucestershire Warwickshire Railway

Gloucestershire Warwickshire Railway

As well as the diesel locomotive we saw at Winchcombe, a diesel multiple unit was working the line and that left Toddington shortly after we arrived back.

Gloucestershire Warwickshire Railway

At Toddington, we had a look at the engines under repair, passing an old Scammel 3-wheeled delivery vehicle. These were common in the late 1950s and 60s and I had not seen one since then.

Gloucestershire Warwickshire Railway

One of the staff invited us to go into the main shed, where we saw another (single carriage) multiple unit being refurbished and a few metres away a Bulleid-designed locomotive that had run on the Southern Region. Its rebuilding had taken some 30 years and, like many of the old steam trains here, had come from the famous Barry (Wales) scrapyards. This was of particular interest as the train had been named "Peninsular and Oriental".

Gloucestershire Warwickshire Railway

We were invited to go up onto the footplate, which delighted my sister and my niece. I was pretty pleased too: I can remember when these were in service.

Alongside was an old Great Western Region (GWR) pannier tank engine.

Gloucestershire Warwickshire Railway

Outside, however, were several diesel locomotives, some of which were in service not so long ago.

Gloucestershire Warwickshire Railway

Gloucestershire Warwickshire Railway

Gloucestershire Warwickshire Railway

a few metres away on another track was a former Peak Class diesel locomotive of the type that used to run on the line out of St Pancras to Leicester and the North: the same trains I would see on the line that I used to see daily when I was a teenager.

Gloucestershire Warwickshire Railway

Inside the shed next to the steam locomotive repair shop was an equivalent shed for the diesels being repaired and readied for service.

Gloucestershire Warwickshire Railway

My niece and my sister enjoyed the brief tour inside the sheds, especially being ale to stand on the footplate of one of the engines.

See also:

UK Vacation Images (4) - Rural London, Landscape Views and Old Technology

UK Vacation Images (3) - Beds/Bucks Countryside and Country People, Plus Electric Charging

UK Vacation Images (2) - House Beautiful and The Flying Pig

UK Vacation Images (1) - A Walk in the Woods

Graham K. Rogers teaches at the Faculty of Engineering, Mahidol University in Thailand. He wrote in the Bangkok Post, Database supplement on IT subjects. For the last seven years of Database he wrote a column on Apple and Macs. He is now continuing that in the Bangkok Post supplement, Life. He can be followed on Twitter (@extensions_th)