6 posts tagged “gala”

The Gloucestershire and Warwickshire Railway held their Autumn Diesel Gala on November 3rd this year.  Unfortunately I was not rostered on the trains so I was able to take some photos and video.  In fact I spent most of the time taking video with a Canon HV20 high definition video camera.  I have just finished editing the video in iMovie on my MacPro and have produced two sequences, one based at Toddington and the other at Winchcombe.  The Toddington video shows 47105, 37215, 24081, and D8137 in action.  The Winchcombe sequence shows 37324, D8137, 24081 and 47105.

I shot four short videos using my still cameras yesterday at the Gloucestershire and Warwickshire Railway which was holding a Diesel Gala.  No visiting engines because of date conflicts with other railways, but we did have all our diesel engines running (except 24081 which is in for repairs).  I took lots of photos with my Sony H9 in continuous shoot mode which means I've got to spend ages selecting the best shots - so they'll be uploaded later.  Here are the videos from my YouTube and embedded for those that don't yet appear in the YouTube search box:

Here's some video I took at the recent Cotswold Festival of Steam at the GWR (see below).  I took more but haven't been able to edit or convert it so that it's less than 100Mb for YouTube.  If you search on YouTube for GWR or for steam, you'll find lots more video - or do a search for the engines I named in my post about the festival, eg Green Arrow and Wadebridge and Black Prince.

Last weekend was the Gloucestershire and Warwickshire Railway's Gala weekend called the Cotswold Festival of Steam - rather grandiose title since their were not the traction engines or other steam driven machines that sometimes can be seen at these gala events.  But there were plenty of engines, and unusual ones for the GWR.  I started taking photos at the Cheltenham Racecourse station where I saw the Green Arrow, a 2-6-2 tender engine from the LNER, which never travelled on these rails before - a smaller version of the big Gresley pacifics, but with the same look and in the same apple green.  Waiting in platform 2 was a Southern Railway loco, Wadebridge which took the train back to Toddington while Green Arrow watered at the temporary watering point.  There was also a Great Western saddle tank  giving brake van rides up and down the platform.

I then went to Toddington, the base for the GWR, where there was the huge P & O in the car park along with a pannier  tank.  In steam and waiting for action was a lovely old engine from the Somerset and Dorset Joint Railway.  I also saw Wadebridge pulling a goods train and Green Arrow watering, with a prairie tank pulling the GWR autocoach to Toddington and back.

This last weekend was Diesel Gala on the Gloucestershire Warwickshire Railway and I was rostered on the class 20 diesel as second man (driver's assistant).  That's my engine above. My first job was to set the points out of the loco yard and then open up the south ground frame with permission from the signal box.  This is a crossing onto the main line so needs some care. We then took the 20 out of the yard over the south ground frame (because the yard is being relaid so the number 1 siding was filled with engines and stock) and then went light engine to Winchcombe to collect the first rake of coaches.  They should have been in the platform but were in the yard instead so it took us longer to fetch them than expected - we have to go from the platform into the yard, couple up, drag the coaches into the platform, uncouple, run round and couple up again.  Of course every time we uncouple, we have to make sure the handbrake is screwed down so the coaches don't run away - Winchcombe station is on a 1:200 grade. Then we hauled them back to Toddington platform 1 to form the first departure of the day.  We then drew the second set of coaching stock into platform 2 from the north head shunt for the local train to Winchcombe.

The day carried on with trips to Winchcombe with the local passenger train and also with a goods train, and the long run to Cheltenham Racecourse and back.  We had a couple of showers and a hailstorm but mostly it was a good sunny day with photographers out in force and al the trains packed with people.  A successful day.

It was particularly good for me because often when I'm on duty, I just assist,doing all the second-man stuff, but this time I was allowed to drive  - I drove the engine light, and in the yard,  and I even drove a goods train.  Great fun.

I just found these videos on YouTube from the Gloucestershire and Warwickshire Diesel Gala held last December 27th.  I couldn't be involved because of family committments so it's nice to see some video - if I had been involved I might have been driving one of those locos!  Oh well, there's another diesel gala coming up in March which I 've got my name down for.