Gold Cup Special at Shrub Hill 13 March 2020.

[TimBrown]

West Coast Railway Company ran their Northern Belle train as 'The Gold Cup Special' from Paddington to Evesham this morning with 57601 and 57316 'top and tail'. The train of 11 coaches is seen running empty stock through Worcester Shrub Hill for stabling on the depot.

First GWR ran extra trains from Worcester to Cheltenham for the Gold Cup punters using 10 coach trains comprising two 5 car Hitachi 800 Intercity Express units. This is unusual in Worcester as we normally only see single 5 car or 9 car sets working between Hereford, Malvern, Worcester and Paddington.

[chason]

I believe the passengers are conveyed by coach from Evesham to Broadway or Toddington and complete their journey to Cheltenham Racecourse on the Gloucestershire and Warwickshire Steam Railway. I was old that two trains from Toddington ran each day with a third today running from Broadway, being Gold Cup day. A friend of mine was due to do some on board stewarding on a couple of the days and it sounds as though mindboggling amounts of alcohol are consumed on these trains. Good business for the railway and local coach operators.

[TimBrown]

I believe the passengers are conveyed by coach from Evesham to Broadway or Toddington and complete their journey to Cheltenham Racecourse on the Gloucestershire and Warwickshire Steam Railway. I was old that two trains from Toddington ran each day with a third today running from Broadway, being Gold Cup day. A friend of mine was due to do some on board stewarding on a couple of the days and it sounds as though mindboggling amounts of alcohol are consumed on these trains. Good business for the railway and local coach operators.

That makes sense. I hadn't realised the vast crowds who attend the Cheltenham Festival until an announcement was made that the attendance was down by 12,000 on Tuesday with just 62,000 or so racegoers - no wonder Stagecoach bring in all those extra deckers for the week as mentioned by AdamH on this forum!

This 'Gold Cup Special' may be the last charter train into the area for some time, subject to the increasingly stringent measures being introduced every day (and hour) by HM Government with the Coronavirus pandemic.