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Gloucester and Warwickshire Railway
Club Outing: 1st September 2002
Jim, Julien, Ray and I arrived at johns on Sunday 1st
September at around 9am. We/John decided, as there were
only five of us that we should go in his car.
I volunteed to sit in the middle and as Ray sat in the
front he was automatically volunteered to map read. We arrived at the Gloucester and Warwickshire Railway
with 15 minutes to spare before the 1st train left. We watched a hall back out of the loco yard and onto
our train, so went to buy our tickets.
Ray decided we should travel in 1st class and we all
agreed! With our 1st class ticket we boarded the train,
it wasn't long until the train left and was passing
through some beautiful countryside. The coach lighting
came on and from a whistle from loco we entered a tunnel.
It wasn't long after the tunnel that we came to the
end of the line - still have not got to Cheltemham racecourse!
- The loco, ran round and headed back to Toddington.
At the passing point we stopped to let another train
pass. I got up and headed for the first empty door window
to photograph the train. With a distant rumble of a
diesel loco and then defendant horn of a diesel, a nose
of a 'tractor' (class 37) appeared around the corner.
I took a picture of the rail blue 'tractor' and as it
passed noticed it had a nameplate and depot logo. So
I rushed off to a window next to the nameplate and logo.
On return to the compartment Ray said ' we caught the
wrong train - Rob' I agreed!
At Toddington we got back off the train. John headed
for the secondhand books in the shop and we had a quick
look around and then went and watched/photographed the
hall run round and on to the train once again. It was
going to be about an hour before the 37 came back and
Ray and I wanted to see it again. The others decide
it was a good time to eat. Ray’s lunch attracted
some yellow and black, little friends, which John whacked
into oblivion with has newly acquired books. The 37
came and I went off to photograph it some more as it
ran round its train.
We then set off for Pendon, getting lost in Oxford and
coming across a toll bridge, which John had to pay 5p – outrageous! At Pendon we saw some excellent
layouts. I knew my layout was crap compared to our circle’s
layout, but their layouts put ours to shame. The time
and lengths they go to is amazing, but I and most of
our club members would get bored with the pace that
things move at. Whilst looking at the Dartmoor layout
we spotted Rob and his sons, whom we meet up with in
the café at the end. After a chat and cup of
tea, Rob and his sons headed back to Solihull and we
went back to look at the Dartmoor layout. After the
other visitors had left, John asked if we could look
around the back of the layout. The fiddle yards have
canopies over them to keep the dust off the trains.
The wires underneath make our spaghetti look simple!
We then headed back to Johns. I would like to thank
Ray for organizing the trip and for map reading – even thou we missed the turning to avoid Oford and John,
for driving and putting up with us in his car. To those
who did not come you missed a really good day out.
http://www.gwsr.com
RAR. |
