A great way to get a taste of life on the footplate!

• Courses run on selected Saturdays
• Firing and driving a large, main-line locomotive
• Complimentary tea or coffee and cake provided on arrival
• Visit to signal box and carriage works
• Two for one travel voucher for guests to travel on the Railway

Courses run on selected Saturdays. Participants get the chance to both fire and drive a large main-line locomotive, pulling a typical GWR brake van. There will normally be eight participants on the course. Please remember that this is not an exclusively male pursuit; ladies are also very welcome.

Courses start at 10.00 when you will be met in our coffee room at Winchcombe Station and will sit down for a complementary tea or coffee and piece of cake. Before you join your locomotive, your course supervisors will tell you about the day's activities and then give you a tour of one of our signal boxes and the carriage and wagon works. You will also meet your locomotive crew who will give you a short brief on the workings of a steam engine and your duties on the footplate. 

At 12.15 the first two participants will join the crew on the footplate to undertake the role of driver and fireman respectively under the supervision of their two instructors for the journey from Winchcombe to Cheltenham while the rest of the participants will join the Guard in the brake van.  At Gotherington the train will stop and the two participants will exchange roles.  At Cheltenham the next pair will take over and we will then repeat this for the rest of our participants. In this way each participant will enjoy an extended session on the footplate, acting both as driver and as fireman giving a total distance on the footplate of not less than 7 miles, including a trip through Greet tunnel.

Throughout the day a knowledgeable railway member will accompany you to assist and to answer questions.

The day will normally end around 15.30, back at Winchcombe, when you will be presented with certificates to mark your achievement.

Although family and friends will not be able to travel in the brake van with the participants, they will be welcome to travel on any of our normal service trains running that day at a special '2 for 1' discount, and they will be able to visit our coffee room at Winchcombe and shop at Cheltenham.

Prerequisites

Please note that to take part in these courses participants must be over 18 years of age and be reasonably fit and agile with normal intellectual abilities, with reasonable hearing and sight (glasses and hearing aids are acceptable) and without any memory impairment.  Bear in mind there is physical effort needed, as well as climbing unassisted the 6ft or so on to and off of the footplate: this is a vertical climb using handrails and widely-spaced steps.  Participants must not be under the influence of drugs or alcohol. The footplate can be hot and dirty and time spent there can be arduous.  Appropriate clothing and footwear must be worn; a 'T' shirt, shorts and trainers are definitely not acceptable.  Overalls or boiler suit are preferable but in all cases it is recommended that clothing made from cotton should be worn next to the skin.  Man-made fibres can melt onto the skin if inadvertent contact is made with any of the hot boiler fittings.  Stout shoes and boots are needed with safety boots being preferable.  A pair of gloves (Canadian rigger style) will be needed when firing and handling the controls.

Fees and Booking

The 2012 Silver Firing & Driving courses take place on the following Saturdays:

March 17^th fully booked 
April 21^st fully booked
May 12^th fully booked
June 2^nd one place left
June 16^th fully booked
July 28^th fully booked
August 11^th fully booked
August 18^th fully booked
September 15^th fully booked
October 6^th fully booked
October 27^th only 2 places left

The cost of the course is £195 per participant.

The next step is to complete the booking form and return it to us. You can download the booking form above by clicking on the icon (this is a PDF file). If you are intending to give this as a surprise present, please take a guess as to which dates will be preferred and let us have the completed form with a covering letter.  We will send a confirmation that will allow the recipient to contact us directly after receiving your present to change the date, subject to availability, without incurring an administration charge.

Please note that we cannot accept bookings that specify any particular locomotive. The engine to be used depends on the maintenance needs of our operational locos and this can change at very short notice. Family or friends who wish to take photographs of the train, may do so at any of our Stations but they must keep outside of the boundary fence if they wish to take photographs elsewhere along our line.

For further details please contact the Steam Firing & Driving Course Administrator by post at PO Box 13323, Redditch, B97 9DP, by phone on 01242 621405 between the hours of 10.00 & 2.00pm, or by email to fireanddrive@gwsr.com.