70013 'Oliver Cromwell' at Hayles Abbey Halt, GWSR

Today was the last day of the ‘Give my Regards to Broadway’ steam festival on the Gloucestershire Warwickshire Steam Railway (GWSR). We wanted to visit this heritage line anyway to see the new three mile extension and their newly rebuilt station at Broadway, the end of the line. But most of all I wanted to see three visiting famous steam engines performing on the line.

The weather was poor with thick mists this morning which only cleared slightly by the time we arrived at 11am after a thirty mile journey from home. We dashed down to a bridge over the railway beside the recently built Hayles Abbey Halt, quite close to the famous and venerable abbey ruins. There was already a small crowd of sightseers on the bridge, who like us wanted to see the  trains but didn't want to pay the quite expensive 'Day Rate' for the festival.

The first engine we saw arrive from the cheltenham direction was a classic Western Region King Class no. 6023 – 'King Edward 11'. I remember watching such locomotives haul the most illustrious express trains on the main line when I was a child, so it was interesting to see it again on this railway line which formerly ran from Cheltenham to Stratford-on-Avon  and was called the Honeybourne Line.

Once it passed we had about twenty minutes before the next train came in the opposite direction, so we quickly drove to Hayles Abbey Fruit Farm to use their toilets and to buy some of their wonderful apple juice fro which they are famous.

We got bak with a minute to spare and then this very famous engine passed under the same bridge in the opposite direction. 70013 'Oliver Cromwell'  only recently came through Stroud station when hauling an excursion on the main railway line. It has been withdrawn from service after its operating licence ended, prior to having a major rebuild and service of its firebox. It is famous as it was one of the four steam locomotives which worked the last steam railtour on British Railways (BR) in 1968. Prior to that it mainly hauled express trains from London to Norwich on the east coast route, and again i saw it at Liverpool Street Station in London in the 1950s.

We then drove on to the small hamlet of Stanway and parked beside the extensive grounds of the great house which have huge oak trees set in open grassland where horse, sheep and Highland cattle were grazing. I wanted top return to a spot I had found a couple of years ago where we could watch good views of the trains crossing a big brick viaduct on the new extension to the line north of Toddington. We saw three trains passing and one featured  the main express engine 35006 'Peninsular and Oriental Shipping Company', which is actually based at this railway. 

I would have blipped the scene at the viaduct but because the light was so poor I thought that I would prefer to blip one of the visiting engines which are unlikely to return here again. They have to be put on huge road trailers and get towed along the main roads of the country to reach this line. So my blip is 'Oliver Cromwell' which once again looked and sounded magnificent, with its horn being blasted as it approached us, as well as producing great smoke and steam and the quintessential smell of the steam train era.