As always, the Gloucestershire Warwickshire Steam Railway (GWRS) held its annual Festival of Steam over the Spring Bank Holiday, and 2026 was no exception, writes Ian Thomas.
In most other years, the weather has been typical of late May, with either a warm sunny spell or rain and showers. However, no one could have foreseen the heatwave that set in on Thursday, 23 May and, as I type, is slowly easing away as cooler Atlantic air arrives from the west.
It was a gala like no other I have experienced. As temperatures began to nudge 30°C by Saturday, it made operations all round very uncomfortable indeed. There were health issues among the public, and even footplate staff, as the heat took its toll. The South West Ambulance Service was in attendance, and the timetable just fell apart. It did not help matters that two points failures happened early in the day on Saturday, but the GWRS staff did their level best to keep going.
Sunday proved yet another trying day as the mercury pushed to around 32°C by early afternoon, although we were not there that day. The Caledonian tank suffered a mechanical fault, but this was put right by engineers from the Bo’ness and Kinneil Railway, travelling all that way to sort it out.
The GWRS staff worked overnight into Monday and issued a revised timetable for Monday, on a simpler basis than the previous two days. The Monday timetable offered a service between Cheltenham and Toddington, and a shuttle service from there to Broadway and back with 15189, plus the goods trains.
Our thanks go to the GWRS staff and the guys from Scotland for what they did, and a further vote of thanks to the footplate staff for operating in the highest May temperatures ever recorded. Absolutely brilliant.
Pictures by Ian Thomas and Rich Kelsey
