IMPORTANT anniversaries in train travel both near and far are being celebrated in a unique and special way by rail enthusiasts this September.
Campaigners from the Cotswold Line Promotion Group (CLPG) are holding a music and rail verse presentation at Honeybourne Village Hall on Sunday, September 21 at 2.30pm to mark three key milestones.
Nationally, this year marks the 200th anniversary of the opening of the Stockton and Darlington, world’s first passenger railway and nearer to home.
‘Honeybourne Station Is Back in Business’ proclaims the headboard of the reopening train 47510 Fair Rosamund – restoring the station to the national rail network on May, 25 1981.
Closer to home it’s 44 years since the restoration of Honeybourne Station, once an important rail junction, to the national network in 1981 after it succumbed to the notorious Beeching axe in 1969.
The event will feature Badsey Brass who will play a variety of rail themed music and include readings of local and national rail verse including ‘Adlestrop’ by Edward Thomas and ‘Pershore Station – Or A Liverish Journey First Class’ by former Poet Laureate Sir John Betjeman.
The forthcoming celebrations by the CLPG and Worcester Locomotive Society marking the 175th anniversary of the opening of Worcester’s first Station at Shrub Hill on Sunday, October 5 will also be highlighted.
There will also be an exhibition of historic local rail photographs.
Admission on the door is just £5 with proceeds donated to the Royal British Legion.
CLPG was formed in 1978 to safeguard and promote improvements to rail and bus feeder services along the Oxford to Hereford railway, known as the North Cotswold Line.
Its president is Richard Faulkener, Lord Faulkener of Worcester who is a current member of the House of Lords.
