The day the rains came
posted 23rd July

Following the torrential rain on Friday 20th July services were suspended on Saturday 21st and the David Shepherd Wildlife & Steam event that weekend was canceled. It also led to cancellation of a Silver Wedding Anniversary special dining train for Gil Bird and his wife Anne on Saturday. The flooding at Winchcombe was discovered on Friday during a Footplate Experience course with 7903 Foremarke Hall. The train was approaching Winchcombe and the crew found the rails disappearing under water ahead of them.  There was no option but to abandon the day and reverse the train back to Toddington.

The rains brought a small landslip in Dixton cutting which blocked the running line while there was minor damage to the formation through Woodmancote. Both were attended to during Saturday, allowing services to resume on Sunday. However since then the lack of water in a lot of Gloucestershire has meant the railway has stopped operations for the time being.

Toddington and Winchcombe stations became inaccessible during Friday and getting to them on Saturday was hazardous.  Says commercial director Ian Crowder: “The GWR seems to have got away relatively lightly. The torrential rain spelt disaster for thousands of families and businesses in the area and our hearts go out to those now faces with a massive clean-up.

“This also brings home what staff at the Severn Valley must be going through.  We’re back up and running after just 36 hours – it will be months for them before they are running normally again and the latest rainstorms can’t have helped.”

As can be seen in the following pictures, Winchcombe station looked more like a wharf than a railway and these pictures tell their own tale.  We hope to re-run David Shepherd Wildlife & Steam On Tour later in the year, provisionally 6th and 7th October have been pencilled in.

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1 - Flood at Woodmancote 1 - Once a main line, now a fast-flowing river heading towards Cheltenham: the view from Two Hedges Road bridge that links Bishops Cleeve with Woodmancote (Colin Martin)
2 - Flood at Woodmancote 2 - Down by the riverside: a fast-flowing Cotswold river - which only a short time before had seen a train pass by on what is now a riverbed (Colin Martin)
3 - Debris cleared to one side after a small landslip in Dixton cutting (Ian Crowder)
4 - Winchcombe station looks more like a wharf than a platform as water pours down the cutting from Greet Tunnel and over the platform from the overflowing car park (Neil Carr)
5 - The road passing under the bridge at Chicken Curve (Neil Carr)
6 - The car park at Winchcombe Station - water ended up about three feet deep (Neil Carr)
7 - The view north at Toddington on the afternoon of 21st (George Forrest)
8 - Looking south the view is just as grim (George Forrest)

More pictures to follow.