Cotswold Festival of Steam | 45110 returns, BBMF Dakota flypast amid delays but the show must go on!

An interesting day at the Gloucestershire & Warwickshire railway today for the 2026 Cotswold Festival of Steam, on what was billed to be one of the hottest days of the year!

There was a great selection of locomotives in action headlined by Black 5 45110 in steam again thanks to West Coast Railways, under her first steamings since 2008, and a surprise late guest added to the line up, supported by other guest locomotives Bulleid 34070 'Manston', the Caley Tank 15189 in her LMS Maroon livery, BR Standard Class 2MT 78022 from the Keighley & Worth Valley, GER Coffee Pot 229 and Didcot based GWR Railcar W22, with home fleet GWR 2807, 3850 and 6880 ‘Betton Grange’.

Things started well, as the sun shone as booked, and we departed Cheltenham behind visiting Bulleid 34070 ‘Manston’, but upon approaching Gotherington, all was not well as the token allowing us to proceed had apparently got stuck on the token machine, thus a significant delay ensued as the visiting Didcot railcar No. 22 and up service with 2807 passed us before we were cleared to proceed under the agreement with the signaller, that we were to run with a human pilot to SPAD our way onwards to Winchcombe, definitely a rare move!

Unfortunately by this time the working timetable had started to run significantly late, but we ploughed ahead, hoping to catch the demonstration freights with BR Standard Mogul 78022 visiting from the Keighley & Worth Valley Railway, and visiting GER Coffee Pot 229.

Sadly, owing to the late running, they were both held in the yard as the temperatures continued to rise and further changes came when we realised Caledonian Tank 15189 had been declared a failure owing to air pump and braking issues, all leading to significant late running of the original WTT.

Alas, the Crews and Volunteers ploughed on aiming to redeem the deficit, as lineside fires from the extreme temperatures also saw further delays to operations, but credit to them they still did their best to keep things running, and it was a testament to them to see the Caledonian Tank return to traffic following repairs at Toddington later in the afternoon, as well as the fantastic sight and sound of the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight Dakota ZA947 flying over the gala several times arriving bang on its booked time of 13.48 wearing her RAF South East Asia Command (SEAC) scheme.

We carried on through the afternoon, riding up to Broadway, but the late running continued to significantly impact the timetable and locomotives started running hot in the extreme temperatures. There were reports of people being taken ill in the heat, and given the way things were unfolding all over the line with fires, heat related problems and continued late running, communication was not particularly forthcoming regarding movements and after some confusion, the tannoy on the train we were on announced that the timetable was shredded and it would be wise to take the train we were on back up to Cheltenham as there was no guarantee there would be anything after it from Winchcombe returning to Cheltenham, given just how late things had ended up running!

This resulted in us concluding the event much later than planned time wise, but earlier than planned in terms of shots I’d hoped to get and movements which were caped early from the original timetable so a bit of a frustrating and chaotic way to end on what was a sweltering day but still an enjoyable one and the team worked hard to try and claw back time, all in all a great event despite the frustrations. | 24.05.2026

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