Tickets are still available for the CLPG’s 2019 charter train from the Cotswolds to the famous Settle & Carlisle Line through the Yorkshire Dales and Cumbria.
The Cotswold-Eden Express, being operated in conjunction with Pathfinder Railtours, is on the Bank Holiday Monday next week, August 26.
It will start from Didcot Parkway station at 05.15, then call to pick up passengers at Oxford at 05.55, Hanborough at 06.05, Charlbury at 06.15, Kingham at 06.55, Moreton-in-Marsh at 06.40, Honeybourne at 06.55, Evesham at 07.05, Pershore at 07.15, Worcester Shrub Hill at 07.30 and Droitwich Spa at 07.40.
It will then run direct to the Settle & Carlisle Line via Leeds.
The first stop will be at Settle station, where a memorial plaque for the late Oliver Lovell, the founding chairman of the CLPG, will be unveiled. Oliver helped the Friends of the Settle-Carlisle Line to fight British Rail’s proposal to close the route in the 1980s.
The train will then continue north to Appleby, arriving at 13.35, where there will be a break for passengers to explore the historic Westmorland market town before the return train departs at 15.50.
It will head north to Carlisle, then turn south to run along the West Coast Main Line via Preston, Crewe and Stafford to Birmingham.
Arrival times at stations on the retun journey are as follows: Droitwich Spa 21.25, Worcester Shrub Hill 21.35, Pershore 22.00, Evesham 22.10, Honeybourne 22.20, Moreton-in-Marsh 22.45, Kingham 22.55, Charlbury 23.05, Hanborough 23.20, Oxford 23.45 and Didcot Parkway 00.10.
Two Class 50 diesel locomotives, which used to work on the West Coast Main Line and Settle & Carlisle Line in the late 1960s and 1970s, will haul the train from Didcot to Appleby and then back to Birmingham, where a GB Railfreight Class 66 locomotive will take over for the rest of the journey back to Didcot.
CLPG members are entitled to claim a 10 per cent discount on the prices advertised on Pathfinder’s website, where tickets can be booked online. There are discounts for groups of four passengers. Please have you CLPG membership number available to secure the discount.
For full details of the train, ticket prices and to book, click here to go to the Pathfinder Railtours website or call their telephone booking line on 01453 834477.
- The photograph at the top of the page shows 50007 and 50049 at Arten Gill viaduct on the Settle & Carlisle Line with Pathfinder Railtours’ Cumbrian Hoovers excursion on April 14 last year. Picture courtesy of Martin Loader. Click here for more of Martin’s railway photographs over the past 40 years, including many pictures taken along the Cotswold Line