British Railways in Colour Vol 6: Cheltenham and the Cotswold Line...

British Railways in Colour Vol 6: Cheltenham and the Cotswold Lines (DUE IN END OF NOVEMBER)

The Honeybourne Line. This mammoth volume takes us on a meandering tour of all of the lines which once served the Cotswolds area of Gloucestershire and neighbouring counties, including the one main line which still remains and which over the last three decades has been slowly regaining its importance – the old Oxford, Worcester & Wolverhampton route, which we travel in stages from Oxford to Evesham. In contrast, however, all of the other routes featured are now long gone, with the exception of the one between Cheltenham and Honeybourne, much of which has been reopened by the Gloucestershire Warwickshire Railway. Starting out from the long lost Cheltenham St. James terminus station, we travel first to Andoversford Junction, where we then take the old Midland & South Western Junction Railway to Swindon Town via Cirencester. Returning to Andoversford, we next head off across the Cotswolds to Kingham, where we then transfer to Oxford for a trip along the Fairford Branch. After this, we go back to Wolvercote Junction to start our journey to Evesham via the old OW&W line but make two diversions en route, first from Kingham to complete our trip to Banbury and then again at Moreton-in-Marsh so we can travel the obscure branch to Shipston-on-Stour. Finally, after reaching Evesham (which connects us with an earlier volume in the series), we turn round and head back to Honeybourne so we can complete our ‘Round Robin’ tour by heading south through Toddington and Winchcombe to Cheltenham Malvern Road. As ever, the range of motive power featured is extensive – pretty little Southern ‘Moguls’ on the MSWJ, ex-GWR ‘Large Prairie’ tanks to Kingham, pannier tanks on the Fairford Branch (with North British diesels to Witney Goods), ‘Castles’ ‘Halls’ and ‘Granges’ plus ‘Westerns’, ‘Hymeks’, ‘Peaks’, ‘Class ‘25s’ and more on the OW&W and Honeybourne lines. With a sprinkling of ‘14XXs’, ‘45XXs’, Swindon Cross-Country DMUs and Gloucester RC&W railcars for good measure, the range of trains and services covered is extensive. In addition, very little of the railway architecture depicted still survives today, so this really is a window into the past, showing a railway that no longer exists. So lose yourself in images of long lost country stations, of the viaducts at Hook Norton, the extensive junctions at Kingham and Honeybourne, and the rural charm of the branch to Shipston, in sharp contrast to the processions of summer Saturday holiday expresses passing Toddington and Bishops Cleeve, plus the rare capture of a DMU on a driver training run on the MSWJ at Withington. These are sights, sounds and smells now lost to history but all brought back to life here in glorious colour!