Introduction Running through the picturesque North Cotswolds The Cotswold Line is a 86.3 mile long double track mainline between Oxford and Hereford. It is formed of Two railways, The Oxford Worcester and Wolverhampton railway and the Worcester and Hereford railway. Both of which merged with Newport, Abergavenny and Hereford Railway to create the west midland railway in 1860. This was then taken over by the Great western railway in 1863. The Oxford Worcester and Wolverhampton railway featured/features lots of examples of Brunel designed architecture as he was chief engineer until a dispute between The great western and Oxford Worcester and Wolverhampton railways led to him having to resign. Stations Oxford Yarnton Juction Handborough Combe Halt Finstock Chalbury Ascot-Under-Wychwood Shipton(For Burford) Kingham Adlestrop (Made famous by a poem by Edward Thomas) Morton-in-Marsh Blockly Chipping Campden Mickleton halt Honeybourne Littleton and badsey Evesham Fladbury Wyre Halt Pershore Stoulton Norton Junction Worcester Shrub Hill Worcester forgate street Broughton Halt Rushwick Halt Brandsford road Newland Halt Malvern Link Great Malvern Malvern Wells Colwall Ledbury Ashperton Stoke Edith Withington Hereford (Barrs Court) Possible Services Express/Semi fast from London to Hereford or Wolverhampton (From oxford) including the cathedrals Express. Local services along the route Freight along the whole route or from the various different rail lines and freight yards along the route Diverted expresses to and from Birmingham (Via Stratford) and various other services Possible Locos Almost all Types of GWR locos will have worked on this line at some point especially: Castle and Hall class on expresses 28xx and 2884 clases on freights Hall,grange or various tank engines on local trains and in BR days various LMS or Standard locos on freights Era/s I think the best era to set the route in is either the 1930s for Gwr steam or 1950s for BR Steam and early diesel any earlier than these and there is not a lot of data and any later a lot of the line and architecture are no longer there. Therefore I think that if it should be made into a route it should be set somewhere in between these times to enable the most amount of flexibility.
