The Summer diesel gala brought enormous variety in terms of power on both road and rail.  The first-ever Shunterfest, involved class 02, 03, 04 and 08 shunters sharing the limelight with trains Toddington and Winchcombe on Friday 10^th July.  This meant changing trains to travel on to Cheltenham.  This was a popular feature, as Paul Fuller, head of the GWR's diesel department, explains.  "Three miles is as much as you can expect with diesel shunters so we operated a 'main line' shuttle between Winchcombe and Cheltenham - so you could savour both.  Judging by our mail bag, people thoroughly enjoyed the concept of changing trains, quite apart from the rare novelty of travelling behind an 08."

Saturday and Sunday saw both the GWR's main line fleet out in force, including Railfreight triple-grey liveried no. 47376  fresh out of overhaul, as well as visiting class 20 no. 20154, class 31 no. 5580 and class 33 no. 33109 Captain Bill Smith RNR.  This produced an impressively noisy and colourful spectacle that drew record crowds.

Sunday saw Toddington car park crammed with a startling variety of buses for the GWR's 2^nd Bus Rally.

Jim Clarke, the organiser, says: "We've had so many emails from visitors and participants saying that this was the best bus rally they've ever been to.  Just under 40 buses turned out, and the trips around the local countryside to Broadway were packed every time - especially the Stagecoach Lodekka open-top double-decker.  It was a great age range too - the earliest being Tim Riley's lovely 1939 Bristol LG5.

"Mixing diesel trains and buses is clearly a winning formula!"

Enjoy this mini-gallery of the event - when you open the pictures, you can see the whole sequence by simply clicking 'next' or 'previous' which appears if you hover your mouse near the top right or left of each picture. 

You can see more pictures in our galleries - we also welcome submissions, especially if you took pictures at the recent steam and diesel galas.