Welcome to the Rudloe and environs website.
Here you will find news, articles and photos of an area that straddles the Cotswold Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty in north-west Wiltshire.
Contributions in the form of articles or photos are welcome. Even those with completely contrary views to mine!
Thanks to the website builder 1&1 and Rob Brown for the original idea.
Rudloescene now, in January 2014, has a sister, academic rather than anarchic, website about Box history here: http://www.boxpeopleandplaces.co.uk/
It contains thoroughly professional, well-researched articles about Box and its people.
Contact rudloescene through the 'Contact' page.
This page recounts a trip to the Gloucester & Warwickshire Railway on 18th July 2023. This fine heritage railway has a workforce of 900 volunteers and a handful of full-time staff; it runs from Cheltenham (racecourse) to Broadway, a distance of fourteen miles. Depending on the day (of the week) chosen, your experience may include two steam-powered trains running between the termini and a tour of the steam/diesel workshops at Toddington. The title pictures show lovers at Toddington and the guard on our Toddington-Cheltenham train. The compass of life along this line is far removed from the warped, distorted, discriminatory views (of society) pushed down our throats by the media.
Foremark Hall awaits the 'right away' from Cheltenham with a train for Broadway. Note the Scots pines which were planted at country stations on many (GWR) routes to help travellers locate the station (from the surrounding countryside).
GWR paraphernalia at Gotherington Station includes carts and sack trucks. Note the old notices and (enamel) signs including that for Mazawattee Tea, a 19th-century company which expired in the 1950s.
June, one of the volunteers, does Tuesdays in one of the train buffets. Here she demonstrates the gadget used to fix the plastic caps to coffee cups.
Another volunteer at the buffet on our return train
The track is doubled at Winchcombe. Here, passengers await a southbound train while our train waits for the 'token' on the other line.
Waiting at Winchcombe. The southbound train pulled by Standard Class 2 2-6-0 no. 78019 pulls into the station and the 'token' is passed for single line running
Foremarke Hall crosses the bridge over the B4632 at Broadway (Broadway Station is to the right, in front of the engine)
Heading into Broadway for a spot of lunch
The Broadway Deli
Seems to be a vehicular theme at the Broadway Deli
A busy(ish) scene at Toddington
The quiet late-afternoon scene at the station cafe at Toddington
The signal is 'off' for Standard Class 2 no. 78019 at Toddington
The workshop yard at Toddington
With the pretence of fulfilling our 'net zero' obligations, almost all our coal mines have been closed so coal has to be imported. This pile is from Poland but it can come from as far afield as Colombia.
Replica train headboards in the steam workshop at Toddington. Note the (hidden) Pines Express which used to run between Bradford and Bournemouth via the Somerset & Dorset (and Bath Green Park)
Winchcombe Signal Box from our return train to Cheltenham
Our train engine for the return journey was this class 46 (Peak) - as far as I recall, these were the second most-powerful engines (after the Deltics) employed by British Railways. This snap taken at Cheltenham.
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