Fun time

None of us are working, and the railway is in a deep sleep. There is no news - how could there be? One hopes that local teenagers will be kept at home, and not be allowed to prowl along the railway line, or visit our coaches and vandalise them. We've seen children by the stop blocks at Broadway, but plugged the hole through which they crept in (it was via a crest drain) and there have been several visits to Winchcombe yard in previous years, usually entering via the B4632 road bridge. You know someone has been there when you find a bag of empty lager cans attached to the top of a signal finial. Fortunately there has been no significant damage so far.

There's no news about the appeal as yet, and it's still early days. Almost every railway has now launched an appeal, so we may well find it hard to reach our target.

Emergency Appeal

If you haven't done so yet, do please support us, as we've not only been hit by Covid19 but also by the Gotherington landslip. Heavy, unexpected expense, but then no income at all. Above is the link to the GWSR appeal page. We've added a donate by PayPal button now too. This makes it easier, especially if, like some blog readers, you are supporting the railway from abroad.

It looks like we're going to be in this situation for several weeks, so we've scratched our heads about the blog and come up with the idea of some old photographs, and a quiz to keep you busy while we're in isolation.

The isolation worked all too well for yours truly, who went up to his local medical centre to get some pills, and was handed the box on a litter picker's stick out of a window! It was the first human (not counting the wife, also human) he'd seen in a week.

Today's old photograph is by Brian Parsons, a former BR fireman and resident of Broadway who used to come down to the station in the early 1960s to photograph the passing trains with his very basic Kodak camera. It's all we had in those days!

This picture is of 2836 in 1960. The headlamp code is for an express freight, and the loco is passing the 1 in 200 to LEVEL post as it approaches the crest at Broadway station, heading south. You can just make out the arms of the post in the bottom LH corner, as Brian was panning the camera to try and keep the loco sharp. Brian would have been standing on the end of the horse dock at the north end of the station.

GWR 2836 was built in 1912 and here shows us the outside steam pipes of the rebuilt form. Our loco 2874 at Toddington will be rebuilt with inside steampipes, to give its older shape, so that should be interesting to see. 2836 was withdrawn in 1964 from Severn Tunnel Junction shed, and managed a respectable 52 years in normal service life, which is pretty good by today's standards. It was cut up by Birds in Risca in 1965.

And now a quiz for you. Insiders know that the GWSR PWay gang had a quiz during the last several Christmas dinners, so we thought we'd share one with you, to give you something to puzzle over. We think the answers are right, so furious debaters and pedants - hold your horses! (if you can). It's only for fun. Note that we are a jolly gang, and some questions were too outrageous for publication, so what is below is the (mostly) sanitised version of the:

GWSR PWAY 2015 CHRISTMAS QUIZ

1.      Which GWR location shares it name with 30925?

(a)    Cheltenham  (b) Gotherington    (c) Toddington (d)  Winchcombe

2.      Which of the following is the most important instruction every week?

(a)    meet at Winchcombe at 9.00  (b) sign on  (c) lunch at 12.30 (d)  chairs under tables

 (insider joke)

 

3.      What is the correct name of P&O?

(a)    P&O Steamship Navigation Company

(b)    Peninsular & Oriental S.N. Co

(c)    Peninsular & Oriental Steamship Navigation Company

(d)    Peninsular & Oriental Steamship Navigation Co Ltd

4.      What joker’s numbered 71000?

(a)    Clive of India     (b) Black Watch     (c) Duke of Gloucester     (d) King John

(we have a volunteer with that nickname) 

5.      Which of the following was NOT a GWR locomotive?

(a)    4971  Stanway Hall

(b)    6848 Toddington Grange

(c)    6967  Willersey Hall

(d)    7025  Winchcombe Castle

6.      Trackside safety – when is a blue and white chequered flag displayed?

(a)    to signal to the approaching train that it’s approaching a 5 mph speed limit

(b)    for the lookout to alert the working group of an approaching train

(c)    when the Landie goes trackside from Winchcombe to Toddington in under 8 minutes

(d)    to celebrate replacing 8 wooden sleepers before lunch

7.      Who bent the telehandler forks?

(a)    Uri Geller     (b) A GWSR director     (c) A contractor     (d) Anonymous

8.   Which of the following locomotives has the greatest tractive effort?

(a)    2807        (b) 4270       (c) 7820 Dinmore Manor       (d)  7903 Foremarke Hall

9.   Another P&O question for the Southern Railway afficionados – it was the only Merchant Navy to spend its whole working life at one shed.  Which one?

(a)    70A Nine Elms     (b) 71B Bournemouth     (c) 72B Salisbury     (d) 73A Stewarts Lane

10.   Reluctantly an LNER question, what’s the wheel arrangement of the N15 class?

(a)    0-6-2 (b)  0-8-0  (c)  0-8-2  (d) 4-6-4

11.   How many chains are there in a mile?

(a)     8                     (b)   16                  (c)   22                    (d)   80

12.   What Permanent Way feature is named after Jubilee Class 45651?

(a)    Sir Felix Pole          (b) Brown Jack          (c) E.C. Trench            (d) Shovell

13.   When was Broadway Station closed?

(a)    1960               (b)  1968               (c)  1971               (d)  1976

14.   What colour is TSO 5023?

(a)    Blood and custard    (b) chocolate and cream     (c)  green     (d)  maroon

15.   Which of the following has NOT been attributed to PWay this year?

(a)    bursting a water pipe in Winchcombe Yard

(b)    Getting the blue Transit stuck in the ballast

(c)    a SPAD

(d)    putting a hole in the steam shed

16.   In the 2016 timetable brochure, what loco “returns to service”?

(a)    P&O       (b) D6948   (c) Foremarke Hall        (d) Wells 

17. Who originally built the replacement station at Winchcombe? (name of railway company)

18. How many halts were there along the line Honeybourne line to Cheltenham?

19. When was 2807 built? 

20. How many sisters did Foremarke Hall have?


Write your answers on a piece of paper, and we will post the correct ones in the next blog.

Who will get them all right?