34046 – 'Braunton' at Bowbridge Halt crossing

During a lull at the indoor market this morning I checked my computer’s calendar and noticed I’d entered an event for today. It was a Steam Dreams engine tour from London to Cardiff, and back. The good news for me was that it was a circular route with the return following some of the River Severn Estuary from Chepstow to Gloucester. There the train’s route swings back to head east and soon joins the famed Golden Valley route through Stroud towards Swindon and London Paddington.

This meant that I would have time to go home, unpack, have a cup of tea and still be able to see the engine passing. I was in several minds about where would be a good location to get a different photo to my common vantage points. But when it started to rain  as I drank my tea sense prevailed and I decided to just go a few hundred yards down to the bottom of the valley where I could stand by the gate where a footpath crosses the railway track. I had used that spot about ten years ago so I knew a reasonable view was possible.

As the inclement weather meant light was limited with dusk also approaching, I decided to just get what I could using my old Tamron 24-70 mm lens. It does perform better in lower light conditions, although I usually prefer using my ‘L’ series Canon lenses for their better optics.

I checked the online Realtime train reports and saw it was now running nearly on time, having made up time after various earlier delays. I drove quickly to the bottom of Butterow hill where the steep uphill footpath begins by crossing the railway tracks at the site of what was Bowbridge Halt. In the ‘olden days’ there were many small stations or halts for people to hop on the local trains to get to work and school. The ‘Beeching Cuts’ in the 1960s lead to the removal of these very regular local trains, and now there is no visible evidence of them at all, although these footpath crossing mark where they were.  Traditionally they have always lead across the steep valley hillsides, with small bridges over the river and the canal which with the railway track are all within fifty yards of each other., and would have been routes for donkeys to climb up the hillsides to deliver wool and cloth to weavers’ cottages. Regular visitors to this journal will know I often blip views of our Golden Valley from my study window, and trains running along it. Bowbridge Halt would have been just visible to the right of those views in the valley bottom.

I heard the whistle of the steam engine indicating it was passing through Stroud Station. A few seconds later it appeared under a cloud of smoke on the curved banked track, passing beneath the road bridge about seventy yards away. A couple of seconds later it stormed past me travelling fast, working hard to build up the necessary speed to navigate the very steep incline of the railway tracks as it climbed up towards Sapperton Tunnel about four miles ofay at the head up the valley. 

I shot this short video on tape in 2009 showing the wonderful newly built steam engine named ’Tornado’, following the same route out of Stroud. When you first see smoke over the treetops is roughly where I was standing today. But the video gives a good sense of the meandering railway line as it climbs up the first part of the valley, which is the least steep section.