Woke up feeling very snotty but we had arranged to go play trains today on our forty first wedding anniversary.
We got up, fed the dogs and ourselves and managed to do all the jobs that needed doing around the house before closing the front door behind us at nine fifteen.
M42, A435, arriving at Toddington station around half ten. On the way, we passed Broadway station but decided to carry on to here for a couple of reasons…
1) The last train of the day terminates here and
2) The car park is free
We had booked online expecting to have to exchange our virtual tickets for real ones but were informed by the ticket office to just show the online versions to the guard on the train.
Our first train, hauled by 3850 arrived, on time, and we managed to get a seat in th first coach after the loco.
We chugged down the line (or technically it was probably UP the line as we were heading towards London) arriving at Cheltenham Racecourse station an hour or so after departure.
We were quite surprised by the number of railway workers (as well as the usual photographers) snapping the loco as were made our way along, surely they’re seen this engine loads of times ? But as we approached the terminus, the guard explained that today was the first time 3850 had been out since its ten year refurb.
We left the train at the racecourse to grab a convieniently positioned AdLab at the station entrance before reboarding to return to Toddington and lunch.
Straight off the train, we made a bee-line for the cafe for a sandwich/pasty.
Once fed, we switched platforms for another trip down to Cheltenham, this time behind 2807, a sister of our earlier engine but this time in green as opposed to the wartime black.
From Cheltenham we rode all the way back to the other end at Broadway from where a class 47 diesel dragged us back to Toddington and the end of our playing trains.
From Toddington we drove, passing Broadway station, to nearby Evesham to grab a few Adventure Labs and geocaches.
To finish of our anniversary, we stopped of at Tesco for Prosecco and ice cream to be devoured once back home.