https://cirencesterhistoryfestival.org/event/the-old-station-experience/


Facebook quoted above says Saturday and Sunday; web site says just Saturday.  Anyone know?   Sadly, the railbus not arriving by rail ... but as a bonus the old station building will be open

 

I wondered if I could get there ... finishing a meet up at Postern Hill, Savernake, at around 12:00.  By car, 35 minutes according to Google.  By public transport, hourly connections ... 12:30 departure from Postern Hill gets me to Cirencester at 14:55 - classic example of public transport not working out.

 

Cirencester local news says:

"A free, drop-in event takes place on Saturday, October 25.

However, in light of the railbus’ return to Cirencester, the Old Station Experience event at Cirencester Town Station in Sheep Street will also now be open for an extra day on Sunday, October 26."

https://www.wiltsglosstandard.co.uk/news/25564641.train-return-old-cirencester-station-60-years/

 

Thank you - I have just negotiated an extra day out (for Sunday) and will see if I can work out Sunday busses.

 
From my feed

 
Visiting this today (full disclosure, in a vehicle, on a day when the M4 was closed between Tormarton and wherever, and took care to travel before things got completely silly).

The Cirencester station exhibition is a solid event with many volunteers on hand, tea, coffee, biscuits, pervasive access to the building site that is the interior of the station (and which housed an exhibition) and access also to the railbus - and at one point the organisers ran its engine, which sat there hunting in a conversational way.

It's certainly positive to finally see the building's interior as a work-in-progress.

By mid-morning Cirencester became impressively clogged with private vehicles: and at mid-day its car parks gridlocked. While the origin point of most of the people in those cars will not have been Kemble, that itself is shaped to some extent by available transport - and Kemble's still the local gateway to the national rail system.

With the cards falling slightly differently, there might now be a block of fast-charging equipment alongside at Kemble, and an appropriately scaled battery vehicle to shuttle back and forth to Cirencester, taking even less time for the trip than the 11 minutes booked to the 1950s railbus.

Not covered by the exhibition, a visit to one of the line's surviving masonry structures is a treat in terms of the quality of the work on display. Visiting the station building was a treat for different reasons - the bare bones of the interior often on display, the structure's brick core has gained various steel beams, and yet a sense in one upstairs room in particular of its significance in the year or so when the terminus at Cirencester was apparently very much a base for the team working on bringing the extension into existence, onward and through the Stroud Valley.

Oh, and thinking again of that railbus & wondering if there's another location that would be very much a fit for exhibiting it... ah... yes, but possibly much goodwill needs to be in place and then of course a bit of paperwork to tackle.

Mark

 

The timetabled Sunday train from Melksham at 08:38 to Swindon gets there at 09:02 ... and the bus from Swindon at 09:15 gets to Cirencester at 10:15.  Looks good

except

The Melksham train is replaced by a bus tomorrow ... which dawdles into Swindon after the 09:15 bus  has left.   Nice one!    Next bus to Cirencester gets there at 12:15.   4 hours, home to Cirencester - yuk.   How about driving for once?


Don't fancy that ... and as far as I can see, they don'e even bother to run a bus to Kemble to / from Cirencester on a Sunday.  And it's a bit far to walk.

Aborting my plans, I think.