The Cotswold Festival of Steam took place between May 12th to 14th 2023 on the Gloucestershire & Warwickshire Steam Railway. This runs for 14 miles between Broadway and Cheltenham Racecourse.
The theme for this year was 'Cheltenham & Gloucester Steam Days' and there were eight steam locomotives in action, with five visiting locos and three resident locos.
The visiting locomotives were GWR Castle Class 4-6-0 No 4079 Pendennis Castle (from Didcot Railway Centre, Oxfordshire), BR Standard Class 4 4-6-0 No 750 |4 Braveheart (from Dartmouth Steam Railway and Riverboat company, Devon), Southern Railway 'U' Class 2-6-0 No 31806 (from Swanage Railway, Dorset), BR Standard Class 2 2-6-0 No 78019 (from Great Central Railway, Leicestershire) and a Pub engine a Lancashire & Yorkshire Class 21 0-4-0ST No 19 (LMS No 11243 ( from Lancashire & Yorkshire Railway Trust).
The resident locos were Collett Manor Class 4-6-0 No 7820 Dinmore Manor, Hawksworth Modified Hall Class 4-6-0 No 7903 and Merchant Navy Class 4-6-2 No 35006 Penisular & Oriental SN Co
The timetable was very busy with both passenger trains and goods trains going up and down the railway, with rides in the Goods van available.
There were also extra viewing opportunities of things like the Broadway signal box, The David Page engine shed at Toddington and the Carriage and wagon department's workshops at Winchcome. Also open was gotherington station and grounds, which is privately owned along with its pump trolley.
To run the busy service there were lots of very helpful volunteers maining the stations as well as drivers, firemen and brake van guards in the correct attire.
To see the full set of images view the Photo Gallery
