Broadway festival sponsored by Heritage Railway!

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HERITAGE Railway and its sister title The Railway Magazine are to sponsor the Gloucestershire Warwickshire Railway’s May 26-28 spring bank holiday Cotswold Festival of Steam – which this year has the theme Give my regards to Broadway.

Construction work on the original Broadway station nearly complete in 1904, just after it opened. Its platforms could accommodate a six-coach train at best. G/WR

The high-profile event will celebrate the railway’s extension into its new Broadway station – and topping the bill will be GWR ‘blue King’ 4-6-0 No. 6023 King Edward II – which afterwards has been booked to spend the summer on the Dartmouth Steam Railway.

It is believed to be the first time a King has worked over the line, although there is a rumour that No. 6000 King George V made a positioning move in the 1970s before the line was closed by BR.

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Broadway station as pictured in February. The new building and platforms are longer than the originals and will accommodate a 10-coach train, The footbridge came from Henley-in-Arden and the signalbox on Platform 2 is a new replica of the one that once stood at Shirley before it was controversially demolished by Network Rail in 2011. IAN CROWDER

Two further guests were being negotiated as we close for press. For the first time, the G/WR will be operating five train sets using eight locomotives. One will be the line’s DMU which will have its drives disconnected so it can be loco-hauled and one will be a freight.

Footplate rides on home fleet locomotives will be £99 each, while brakevan rides will be offered for £10 for a round trip between Toddington and Cheltenham. A classic bus service will between Toddington and Broadway stations and via Broadway village itself.

Read more News and Features in Issue 239 of HR – on sale now!

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