Broadway bound - but not yet
posted 31st January 2005

A common question: "When are you starting towards Broadway?" shows just how keen both visitors and members are to see the GWR get cracking with its northward extension. Explains engineering director Ivor Dixon: "Subject to approval from Her Majesty's Railways Inspectorate (HMRI) we should have laid track over the Stanway viaduct around the middle of the year. "Although a lot of preparation has been going on over the trackbed, including some bridgeworks and maintenance of viaduct, progressing further north depends on locating a power screen at the right price. We can't lay track until the existing ballast has been screened to extract the good material which will then be relaid to form a base on which to put the track.

"But there's plenty of work for us to be getting on with, meanwhile," says Ivor. "We are likely to be undertaking a lot of maintenance work on the running line, as well as in Toddington yard. There are plans for some changes to the track layout here."

The permanent way department is acquiring a stoneblower to help with track maintenance. This, as its name suggests, is a piece of portable machinery that blasts fine ballast underneath the sleepers where the ballast might be settling or being displaced by passing trains. "This particularly happens at rail joints and repacking the ballast the old-fashioned way with forks and shovels is very labour intensive and time consuming," Ivor says. "This new equipment will help us to undertake repacking quickly and very effectively."

Boxing in the booking office
posted 31st January 2005

Anyone visiting Toddington Station might wonder at the sound of sawing and hammering coming from the booking office. Peer inside and through the haze of sawdust you'll see Bruce Ward and Pat Green (pictured) of the GWR's buildings department demonstrating that they can turn their skills to any project, large or small. What they are doing is to dividing the booking office area between the ticket office and general office. "This will provide better security within the booking office area," says Bruce, the GWR's buildings director. "Lots of people visit the general office - so separating the two areas will make life easier for volunteers and visitors."

Lately they have been working on much more visible projects with the rest of the buildings team. "When the new season starts travellers will see that Gotherington signal box is now just about complete," says Bruce "Also during 2004 we completed the facilities at Cheltenham Race Course station building; finished the signal box there and - vital for just about all of our visitors - we finished the new toilet facilities at Toddington."

Got a question and don't know where to shunt it?
posted 22nd January 2005

Then the Marshalling Yard is the perfect place. This brand new forum for questions and answers has just gone 'live'. At present, you will see that most of the 'sidings' are empty. Hopefully, they will soon be filled with questions you can't find an answer to elsewhere on the site and which other visitors will find interesting, useful or even amusing!

So how does it work? Well, first it would be worth going to our search engine which will find whether your question has already been answered somewhere else. If not, to the marshalling yard, pick the topic you are interested in and ask away.

There won't be an instant answer, but we promise that the question will be asked of the person best qualified to answer it. The response will be e-mailed to you and will normally* be put up on the site for future visitors to see (unless you prefer it not to be published, in which case please clearly say so).

What are you waiting for? Give it a try now!

Here's an answer just in case you are wondering: A marshalling yard is a set of several sidings where wagons are sorted and assembled into trains for different destinations. Some were 'hump' yards where wagons were pushed up a 'hump' and released the other side, once the points were set, gravity taking them to the appropriate siding. Marshalling yards are now, unfortunately, a rare sight in the UK.

*The Webmaster and Editor reserve the right to edit both questions and answers and not publish them if they contain material that could be damaging to the reputation of the railway or its volunteer staff.

Another record year for GWR!
posted 13th January 2005

On the 3rd of January, 7903 Foremarke Hall eased into Toddington station, illuminated by the gentle light of the platform lamps with the last train from Cheltenham, concluding our most successful year ever.

During the season, the GWR issued 66,411 tickets - a 3.8 per cent rise over the previous year. Of those, nearly 20 per cent were bought at Cheltenham Race Course station.

Passenger growth over the past four years has been little short of phenomenal - in 2001 we carried 48,531 passengers: last year, we carried half as many again! The biggest rise was during the year we opened the line to Cheltenham Race Course, 2003 when we saw an increase of 25 per cent in passenger numbers compared with 2002.

For those with an analytical mind, click here to see charts of our progress over the past four years.

No trains, but no standing still!
posted 13th January 2005

The railway will not be running public trains now until the start of our new timetable in March.

But the line will be far from quiet. Toddington station shop will be open at weekends and there may be movements going on from time to time on various parts of the line. But the main activity will be behind the scenes: locomotive and rolling stock maintenance, track work, completing the new signalling scheme at Cheltenham Race Course, planning marketing activity, further work to improve the car park at Toddington … you name it, there will be people hard at work. Why don’t you join us? Click here to find out how you can!

Keep your eye on the website to stay up-to-date with the latest news.

Carriage & Wagon Report
posted 7th January 2005

The latest report from Carriage & Wagon is now available. Click here to read Richard Johnson’s report.

If there are any other budding journalists among the volunteers, who feel that they’d like to publish a regular report on their department’s progress (subject to approval by the head of department of course), please contact the webmaster.

Caption Competition Results (finally!)
posted 7th January 2005

The results of November’s Caption Competition (which unfortunately ended up being December’s competition too) have now been posted. You can view them here. Congratulations to Darin (aka. Zol) for the winning entry - living proof that praising the GWR is a sure-fire winner!

There is now a new competition, which you can enter by clicking here.

Click here to return to the News Archive.